“Who Will Roll Away the Stone For Us?”
By Metropolitan Chrysostomos III of Mani
By Metropolitan Chrysostomos III of Mani
The Myrrhbearing women were saying among themselves: “Who will roll away the stone for us?” (Mark 16:3). And they were going forward with this thought, that morning, “very early on the first day of the week” (Mark 16:2). Who will roll away for us the great stone that lies at the entrance of the tomb, there where Christ had been buried through the care of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemos? This particular Gospel passage informs us that the stone “was very great” (Mark 16:4). Who will lift it so that the door may be opened, so that this obstacle may be removed for the entrance into the tomb, into the All-Holy Sepulchre?
However, this question, “Who will roll away the stone for us?” is also the question of each one of us. It is a concern. Who, and in what way, will we move the “stone” of our inner world, the great mass of our heart?
The issue today is precisely this stone-like way of life, this stone-like civilization, this stone-like ethos, this inhuman characteristic of our society. The tear of the eyes has dried up. Modesty has been extinguished. Shame and the blush of the cheeks have been lost. Feelings have disappeared. The heart has hardened. It has become a “heart of stone.” We have allowed the machine, artificial intelligence, the buttons, to rule our life. The balance between spiritual and technical civilization has been overturned. One person looks at another in a strange way — materialistically, opportunistically, competitively, contemptuously. How shall we accuse and file even an unfounded charge, how shall we express our malice and inhumanity? Thus the modern human being of the stone-like civilization has come to be unjust, passionate, vain, unfree, and ultimately impious. In this existential condition, a person becomes either inhuman or superhuman. In any case, he ceases to be human - “how gracious a human being is, whenever he is human” (Menander), with all that this implies.
Yet there is also a continuation in the Gospel narrative. To the question of the Myrrhbearers, “Who will roll away the stone for us?” the real heavenly spiritual world answers: “An angel of the Lord, having come down from heaven, rolled away the stone from the door” (Matthew 28:2). The problem and the difficulty that appeared to them, in order that they might express their devotion to the Lord, was met by the ever-present presence of God, by the immediate divine intervention.
The icy stone was melted by their fervent heart that loved Christ. And the prophecy read at the Matins of Great Saturday says it in another way: “Thus says the Lord God… I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will give within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and will give you a heart of flesh… and I will put My Spirit within you, so that you may walk in My ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:26–27).
Has the time perhaps come for us also to remove the stone from our heart? The Risen Christ is waiting.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
