Give me that
stranger
When Joseph saw the sun hiding its own rays and the veil of the Temple being rented in two at Savior’s death, he presented himself to Pilate and implored him saying·
give me that
stranger , who from childhood as a stranger, became strange to this world·
give me that
stranger , whom people of his race filled with hate, kill as a stranger·
give me that
stranger , whose strange death, looks strange to my eyes·
give me that
stranger , whom Hebrews because of envy , estranged Him from the world·
give me that
stranger , to hide Him in the tomb, for as a stranger has nowhere to lay
His head·
give me that
stranger , who knows how to take in the poor and the strangers ·
give me that
stranger , whom His Mother saw dead and cried out ·
O!!! My Son and
my God !!! , though my heart is broken, and pain pierces my soul seeing
you dead , yet I take courage hoping in your resurrection, and I magnify You·
So, with these
words the prominent beseeching Pilate, he was granted the Savior’s
Body, and he wrapped it in the linen with spices and laid in the tomb with fear
and due respect Him who grants to all , life eternal and the great mercy .
We sing this
marvelous Troparion as a doxastikon, at the procession of the Epitaphios, along
with the Doxology, in the service, before the dismissal of Great Saturday’s
service.
We don’t know
whether the author of this Troparion, when he was writing that real diamond and
gold of our hymnology, if he could actually realize, think, imagine how many
times it would be sung, it is sung and it will be·
How many eyes would be filled
with tears ·
How many teardrops would run
down·
How many souls would be moved·
How many people would love
Christ more ·
How many people would realize
the divine magnitude through it·
Saint John the Theologian and
Evangelist says:...
...He came to His own, and
His own did not receive Him... (John, 1, 11) ...
Through the word of the
Lord, all were made ....
....all things were made
through Him, and without Him nothing was made ....( John 1,3). ...
He.... spoke
and they were made, He commanded and they were created ....(
psalm 148, 5).
For all things are Your
servants...we admit in the Troparia…
And yet .....earth showed its
malice· we, the people, showed our cruelty ·
He came to His
own, on earth that He made, and the earth showed Him from the very
beginning what is awaiting Him.
Jesus had nothing
to call His own, only the Cross afterwards· He was born in a cave ... for there was no room for them in the
inn ...·
There was no room for
the Creator of the universe to be born· there was a place for Herod, for Herodias, for dances, for feasts, for
revelries and songs, for iniquities and for criminals , and yet for the Maker
of all visible and invisible, there was not even a small room· He was a stranger·
There was only
one place that the Hebrews gave Him willingly: that is Golgotha, where
they crucified Him.
He, who made the
leading light, the sun, and the stars , Who enlightens and hallows
everyone who comes into the world, ...the true Light ..., was born and
He encountered the light of this world for the first time, in a cave·
He was laid in a foreign,
strange place, in a manger made for animals ·
He was swaddled in borrowed
swaddling clothes·
The cave was alien· and yet in that foreign place the inviroment
was not tranquil and peacful, neither the days He spent there .
And still, later
on He is the One who will make us His fellow diners,
...A feast given
by the hospital Master, and immortal meal…
Herod's mania breaks
out· Christ is exiled, not only in a foreign
country, but most of all in a hostile one· in Egypt· a stranger a foreigner there, a refugee. When He
returns, they settle in an unfamiliar city· Nazareth ·
He spends His childhood
in a strange city, in a hostile inviroment.
He had no place to be called
His, and later, when His Disciples were asking Him :...Lord, where do
you stay? ... He was answering...come and see.... and ...the
Son of man, has nowhere to lay His head...
He was poorer than the birds
of the sky.
He never got
anything to be His, He didn’t even have the money to pay taxes to the Romans,
and for that reason, Peter performed that strange fishing. He was crossing the
lake on Peter’s boat, and on other boats belonging to others · He entered Jerusalem, sitted on a borrowed colt· in a room that was not His, on the upper dome , He
kept the Passover· He was buried into a grave, into a place that was not
His.
Jews could have their
own private tombs · but He didn’t· He was buried into an other’s grave, the one that was prepared for Joseph
from Arimathea .
A Joseph was protecting
Him, Joseph the Betrothed of the MOST HOLY THEOTOKOS AND EVER VIRGIN MARY
.
Another Joseph
buries Him, the one from Arimathea·
And another Joseph
prefigures Him, which is to say Joseph the blessed and noble. ( son of
patriarch Jacob ).
He had always
been the great STRANGER, but never ESTRANGED from us.
He embraced all people, ...He
passed along benefitting and healing all infirmities...· He was calling the babes embracing them....
...let the
little children come to Me, and don’t forbid them....
He started preaching in the
Temple, when He was twelve years old· He was sitting among the presbyters answering to their questions and
queries.
He was walking
along with those walking to Emmaus, in another form, as a stranger to
them ·
Where there was
pain, tears and unjustice in people He was involving Himself showing compassion
and sympathizing with them....
......don’t
cry....
.....Jesus
wept...
He looked for those
misled· He went to seek the publicans, He ate with them. He
who is more resplendent than the sun, tolerated the sinners condescendingly. He
accepts the mourning of the woman of Canaan, the Tax-collector’s sigh, the
widow’s coin, the prodigal son’s return, the confession of the criminal,
Peter’s tears, whom He rescued some times back with His own hand, extending His
divine hand over the waves. He rescued him at that time from a human wreck,
that of the body. And afterwards, He delivered him from a spiritual wreck, that
of the soul, using the rooster’s crow and His glance ·
He came as the great
benefactor, yet He remained the great stranger.
His era did not accept Him,
priests and scribes , law and society crucified Him ·
He was judged and was convicted
unjustly, by unjust people. He who is the only Just, who will come to judge
justly all those just and unjust ones.
We witnessed Him being
born in a strange way... Now that we have seen a strange birth... and the next
verse of Salutations exhorts us, to become strangers to the world.... like
sojourners and staying here for short.
For us, all the
things of the world should be strange, so that the Creator would be the only
one familiar to us. But we have upset that balance as well. We have made all
the wordly things familiar to us and we estranged and alienated ourselves from
our Maker.
He arrived as a
stranger, He lived as a stranger, He remained a stranger, as a stranger He
walked, as a stranger He led His life....
Since the very first day, to
the very last one on the Cross...
and two strangers , but also
familiar to Him and daring disciples, they took the most immaculate Body down
from the Cross, they did the Apokathelosis, giving a rest to that haggard and
full of wounds God-man’s Body...
That is the scene
that the Holy hymnographer has in mind, and he depicts it in his hymn,
eternalizing that magnificent picture.
Joseph armed himself
with courage, a sacred courage as the Holy Evangelist says: ....taking
courage , he went in to Pilate and asked for ...
O!!! blessed courage!!!
O !!! intension dear to God
!!!
O !! fullness of love !!!
O !!! divine thought !!!
O !!! steps of eternity !!!
O !!! glorious voice!!!
O !!! blessed hands!!!
O!!! hallowed feet!!!
O !!! burning heart !!!
O !!! godly strength !!!
O !!! cherubic eyes !!!
O !!! seraphical palms!!!
O !!! angelic power!!!
Being young in the spirit,
though old aged in the body, he throws back the social post ,
he preserves the values,
he arms himself with bravery ,
he obtains faith instead of a
spear ,
love instead of a shield
,
braveness instead of a sword,
and he paces forth. Though he
has instable feet and trembling knees because of age, the elder goes straight
ahead to meet Pilate and attain the permission to unnail Lord’s Body.
Taking
courage he went in to Pilate, and asked for the Boby of Jesus, moving and
softening that hard heart of the ruler with these words:....
Give me that stranger,
what do you need the body of the one that you convicted unjustly?
give me that stranger, who
from childhood, since he was a child was a stranger among His own people,
among the people that He sanctified.
give me that stranger, who is
a stranger to you and to Hebrews, whom the people of His own race killed, with
the consent of yours, as if He was a rejectable stranger·
give me that stranger , whose
strangeness I am amazed to see ·
give me that stranger to you,
whom Hebrews estranged as a stranger from His own people ·
give me that stranger , to
bury and hide in a tomb as a stranger. Him, who knows how to take in and
embrace with love the strangers ·
give me that stranger, who as
a stranger, doesn’t have a place to lay His head ·
give me that stranger , whom
seeing His PURE and MOST UNDEFILED Mother, with a painful and bleeding heart,
and a deeply sorrowful soul, cries out in tears :..my sweetest Child, why do
you suffer and endure all these for the salvation of man, my heart griefs
seeing your crucifixion, yet the world rejoices, but I take courage hopping in
your resurrection. I magnify Your Passion, I praise in hymn your Burial with
your Resurrection crying aloud, Long suffering Lord, glory be to you....
And with these
words, he defeats the tough ruler and he grands him the Body. He rushes like a
thirsty deer to Golgotha, renewed in the spirit, in the likeness of a cherubic
appearance, in order to be there in time before sun sets, and pay the least
tribute of honor and respect, as the last expression of the humane race, which
accepts the divine Passion.
The movements
are... dear to God, in fear and trembling...
....let all mortal flesh keep
quiet, giving no though to things of the earth.... the eyes are lowered,
the tears are streaming down, the breathing becomes slow and quiet, following
the rhythm of the movements, stable hands , but also shaky due to the noble and
sacred ministry, the strength is archangelic, the morale high. A divine
decision and purpose, a heavenly work, Burial of the Master, the tomb will
cover the life of all. And he rolls a stone to protect the Stone of live.
He uses mixture of myrrh and
aloe. Together with Nicodemus they bury Jesus, as the custom of the Jews is to
bury, so that He will descent to Hades’ chambers, to brake the power of death,
to shatter the copper gates and the iron bars and arose those who where
captured there from the ages.
The Great Stranger, but our
Savior.
Stranger to the Jews, Savior
of all believers and of those who will belive in Him.
He remained a Stranger
troughout the centuries, and unfortunately, even today and for most of
us, he is still a stranger, since we don’t know His voice.
We don’t accept Him as
a Good Shepherd, but we flee from Him....
He rose from the dead,
breaking the bonds of death, and yet as if we are His enemies we scatter away.
But may we listen to the voice of the good Shepherd and may He put us in the
spiritual sheepfold, which is unapproachable to wolves.
Τhat Troparion is known as :
When Joseph saw
the sun...
or ...Give me that
stranger ...
It is the Troparion which is
sung less times in the services than any other else, despite its beauty and
importance, and the depth of its meanings· in the parishes it is never sung · it is only sung in the Holy Monasteries, at the
process of Epitaphios.
It is a poem of
the scholar Georgios the Acropolite, written in the 12th century. He composed
its melody as well, and then he handed it to the Church almost at the same date
when the Lamentations entered into the liturgical worship.
We wish that the meanings of
that hymn will touch our souls and our hearts, and may we consentrate on the
Lord steadfastly , so that He will not be a Stranger to us, but our Lord, our
Savior and Redeemer. Through the intercessions of our MOST-BLESSED,
GLORIOUS SOVEREIGHN LADY THEOTOKOS and EVER-VIRGIN MARY, and may we all through
Her supplications become familiar to Christ. Amen. May it be so.
In the mission, Easter of 2021
.
Christ is risen..
Truly the Lord is risen,
evloghite .
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