Fear Not Them That Kill the Body

Homily on Holy and Great Friday
at the completion of Great Vespers
April 17/30, 2021

by His Grace Luke,
Bishop of Syracuse

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

Dear Broth­ers and Sis­ters in Christ!

The Holy Church brings to our atten­tion today in the most solemn and poignant way, the cor­ner­stone of our faith, the death and res­ur­rec­tion of our Lord and Sav­ior Jesus Christ. This is a great mys­tery, for He Who holds the life of all things in His hands now lays in the tomb. We cel­e­brate His death for three days, but His res­ur­rec­tion for forty. Thus, the accent is on the joy and hope of the Res­ur­rec­tion. Nonethe­less, dear broth­ers and sis­ters, many of us fear death. St. Peter feared death and there­fore denied Christ three times. We observe that in the gar­den of Geth­se­mane our Sav­ior seems to expe­ri­ence fear and trem­bling in the face of death. The holy fathers write that not death was the cause of the agony, since many mar­tyrs joy­ful­ly went to death, but the sins of the whole world, which Christ took upon His sin­less soul. This was the cup He asked be tak­en away; that cup was to be filled through His suf­fer­ing for our sins with His Body and Blood, which are the source of our sal­va­tion. So why do we fear death, when we will soon sing that Christ has tram­pled down death by His death? St. Paul asks, O Death, where is thy sting? (I Cor 15:55)

Dai­ly, through the action of the dev­il and our pas­sions, we become more attached to the things of this life, and there­fore, the idea of leav­ing it behind is ter­ri­ble; or else we sim­ply do not believe in eter­nal life, we have no hope, and our faith is in vain. But this can­not be for us Ortho­dox Chris­tians, who ful­fill the com­mands in the Bible to be not of this world. And, we tru­ly believe in eter­nal life. Where does our fear orig­i­nate? St. Paul writes that it is appoint­ed unto men once to die, but after this the judg­ment (Heb. 9:27), and he warns, The Lord shall judge his peo­ple. It is a fear­ful thing to fall into the hands of the liv­ing God (Heb. 10:30–31). The Lord teach­es us, fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. (Mt. 10:28) And who among us can say that he no longer fears God but loves Him? So great is the feel­ing of fear that it can shut us out of Heav­en: But the fear­ful, and unbe­liev­ing, and the abom­inable, and mur­der­ers, and whore­mon­gers, and sor­cer­ers, and idol­aters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which bur­neth with fire and brim­stone: which is the sec­ond death (Rev. 21:8). Ancient Greek philoso­phers com­ment­ed that, “Fear is of all the emo­tions the most brutalizing”. 

Dear right-believ­ing Ortho­dox Chris­tians, it is not actu­al­ly death we fear, but judg­ment. The Lord tells us that all …shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the res­ur­rec­tion of life; and they that have done evil, unto the res­ur­rec­tion of damna­tion (Jn 5:29). Our con­science accus­es us and there­fore we fear the right­eous judge­ment of God. As a result, we have no courage, we con­form to the image of this world, we are faint­heart­ed, of lit­tle faith, seek the easy way out, are not inter­est­ed in truth, do not con­fess the truth in our actions but only with our lips.

Dur­ing these holy days, the Grace of the Holy Spir­it is giv­en to us to help us loosen our attach­ment to sin, pas­sion, addic­tions, tech­nol­o­gy, dis­trac­tions. Let us pray today for for­give­ness of our sins, for blessed free­dom in Christ, a clear con­science, for less fear of death and more courage, so as to meet the res­ur­rec­tion of Christ with hope in sal­va­tion and eter­nal life, “For Thou are indeed the true joy and glad­ness of them that love Thee, o Christ our God and unto Thee we send up glo­ry, with Thine uno­rig­i­nate Father, and Thy most Holy and good and life-cre­at­ing Spir­it, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.”