By Protopresbyter Fr. Antonios Christou
My beloved readers, with the help and grace of God, we have reached the end of Holy and Great Lent. As is well known, Great Lent is essentially completed on the Saturday of the Resurrection of Lazarus; on Palm Sunday we are permitted to eat fish, and from the evening, with the Service of the Bridegroom, the strict fast of Holy Week begins.
As for what we celebrate each day and experience during Holy and Great Week, we have dealt with this in other articles in the past. In the present article, we will concern ourselves with the content and perspective of the phrase of our Lord found in our title: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem…”. It is a phrase from the Gospel according to Mark, read on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, but it is also an opportunity, more broadly, to recall the entire relevant Gospel passage:
"Now they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed. And as they followed they were afraid. Then He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them the things that would happen to Him: 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again'” (Mark 10:32–34).
That is, the Lord, addressing and preparing His disciples for His Passion and Resurrection, tells them plainly: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem...."
Of course, this is not the first time that Christ emphasizes and underlines such things to His disciples. Certainly He had warned them and spoken of these matters on other occasions as well, but this is perhaps one of the few times He is so specific about these events, and that they are about to take place now, as they are going up to Jerusalem, and not at some indefinite future time in general.
We, the faithful, approximately 2,000 years after the events that we study and read about in the Holy Gospels, understand and realize that the Lord is speaking to His disciples about a specific place (Jerusalem) and a specific manner (His Holy Passion and Resurrection) by which He will fulfill His voluntary Passion, in obedience to the will of God the Father. Yet beyond what was accomplished by the God-man once and uniquely, we understand that all this also concerns us, the members of the Church, who are called in a specific way to experience personally the saving Passion and Resurrection of the Lord.
This, after all, is the deeper and most essential purpose of Holy and Great Lent. What is it? It is none other than to prepare us and to introduce us, as spiritually ready as possible, not merely to observe the services of Holy Week — as some mistakenly say (this is not theater or a film) — but above all to participate in them, and essentially to suffer-with, be crucified-with, and be raised-with Christ. What the Lord accomplished once is continually made present liturgically, in every sacred service, in every mystery, and in every spiritual opportunity. As the Apostle Paul confirms in the apostolic reading of the Mystery of Baptism:
“…as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death. Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection…” (Rom. 6:3–5).
This means imitation of Christ-like ethos — a journey of the Cross, of Golgotha, but also of Resurrection.
In order for all this to take place, however, it requires faith, trust, love for God and for one’s neighbor; it requires the cultivation of virtues and the struggle against passions and sin. It requires alignment with “Jerusalem” and departure from “Sodom and Gomorrah,” both literally and metaphorically. None of this is easy; we cannot accomplish it on our own, but always with the help and grace of God, and through the intercessions of the Theotokos and all the Saints. Since they succeeded, we too can succeed — provided that we repent, provided that we desire to imitate them. They too had many difficulties, yet they possessed spiritual courage, determination, perseverance, and patience amid the trials and snares of the devil.
In closing our article, dear readers, we do not know how many of you have been deemed worthy to visit and venerate the Holy Places in Jerusalem. Truly, it is worthwhile for a believer to undertake this sacred pilgrimage at least once in his life. We ourselves have been granted this blessing twice so far, and, God willing, this coming May it will be the third time.
Yet beyond the geographical Jerusalem, every Holy Temple, wherever it may be, is Jerusalem, the All-Holy Sepulchre, Golgotha, the Jordan River, and so forth. For the Holy Spirit blows where He wills, but above all our faith requires the proper manner before the place. Therefore, let us leave the sofas of our homes, and during this Holy Week let us hasten to the Holy Temple of our parish, so that we may experience all the saving events of Holy Week — and above all, that we may sit at His Paschal table on the night of the Resurrection, partaking of the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord in the most radiant and festal Divine Liturgy of the year. Amen!
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
