Word on the Removal of the Body of Christ from the Cross. St. Kirill Turovsky

Of all the homilies I am posting, there are two that stand out as particularly unusual and poetic. The first was the homily of St. Isichiy of Jeruslem on the raising of Lazarus of the Four days. This is the other.

This is a profoundly beautiful oration about the removal of Christ from the Cross. While this is the main theme, indeed the majority of St. Kirill’s words are actually about St. Joseph of Arimathea. And that is what makes this Great Friday homily so unique (actually, it is a homily from after Pascha, on the day of St. Joseph’s commemoration with the Myrrh bearers, who are also spoken of here, but as the theme is so focused on the Cross and St. Joseph, about whom we sing so many times on Great Friday, I am including is as a Great Friday homily, even though it is properly a Paschal one).

This is so memorable that I am baffled at why St. Kirill is not among the popular rotation of patristic homilies. I did a brief search and could not find ANY of his writings in English. What a horror. But what a joy it is to bring it to you, and to have for myself as well!

After the past feast, it is most fitting to speak about delivering God's goodness to the holy church. For if even golden chains adorned with pearls and precious stones delight the eyes of those who gaze upon them, then spiritual beauty, the holy feasts, gladden the hearts of the faithful and sanctify souls. Thus, initially, by Christ’s Resurrection, the world was cleansed and Pascha came, sanctifying everyone in faith; then, by Thomas's recognition of Christ's ribs, creation was reborn: as soon as he touched the wounds with his hand, Christ’s resurrection in the flesh was affirmed to all.

But now let us praise Joseph of Arimathea along with the myrrh-bearing women, who attended to Christ’s body after the crucifixion; the evangelist calls him wealthy, from Arimathea. He too was a disciple of Jesus, awaiting the kingdom of God. While the voluntary sufferings of the Savior lasted, he saw terrible changes in creation: the darkened sun, the shaken earth, - filled with fear and wonder, he came to Jerusalem. And he found Christ's body already on the cross, naked and beaten, with Mary, his mother, in front of him along with Jesus’ lone disciple, who, heartbroken, wept bitterly, saying: “The world commiserates with me, my son, seeing the injustice of your execution. Woe to me, my child, light and Creator of creation! How shall I now mourn you? Was it slaughter, or a blow to the cheek, and beatings on the shoulders, your chains and imprisonment, or spittle on your holy face, which you accepted from blasphemers as a good deed? Woe to me, my son! Innocent, you were ridiculed and took death on the cross. How you were crowned with thorns, given gall with vinegar to drink, and even had your pure ribs pierced with a spear! Heaven shuddered and the earth trembles, unable to endure Jewish audacity; the sun darkened and stones split, revealing Jewish petrification. I see you, my dear child, on the cross: you hang naked, lifeless, sightless, having neither semblance nor beauty, and I, bitterly, am wounded in soul. How I wish I could die with you – I cannot bear to see you lifeless. No joy will touch me anymore, for my light, hope, and life, Son and God, have perished on the cross. Where, child, is the message once foretold to me by Gabriel: 'Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you!' – calling you a king and Son of the Most High, Savior of the world, and victor over sins! Now, however, I see you as a criminal, crucified between two thieves and pierced in the ribs – dead, and this is why I am losing strength in sorrow. I do not want to live, but to meet you in the underworld. Now my hope, joy, and merriment, Son and God, I am deprived of. Woe is me! At your miraculous birth, I did not suffer as much as now, Master, I am torn apart, seeing your body nailed to the cross. Your birth was glorious, Jesus, but your death now is terrifying: you alone were born from a virginal womb, not breaking the seal of my virginity, and, having chosen me as your mother in your incarnation, still kept me a virgin. I know your suffering for Adam, but, embraced by sorrowful grief, I weep, marveling at the depths of your mystery. Listen, heavens, and sea with earth, heed my tearful weeping: for your Creator suffers at the hands of priests, a solitary righteous man slain for sinners and lawbreakers. Now, Simeon, I understand your prophecy: for a spear now pierces my soul, seeing your mistreatment by soldiers. Woe to me! Whom shall I call to lament? Or with whom shall I pour out streams of my tears? For all have left you – relatives, friends, those of you, Christ, having enjoyed miracles. Where now is the assembly of seventy disciples? And where are the ruling apostles? One deceitfully betrayed you to the Pharisees, another in fear before the priests denied you, swearing he did not know you. And here I am alone, my God, your servant, weeping, standing before you with the keeper of your teaching and your beloved companion. Woe to me, my Jesus, my dear name! How does the earth, initially established by you over waters, stand if it feels you nailed to the cross, you, who by divine action enlightened many blind and raised the dead by your word? Come and behold the mystery of God's providence: how the one who enlivens all was himself slain by an accursed death!”

And hearing this, Joseph approached the bitterly weeping Mother, - and she saw him and turned with a request: “Hurry, honorable one, to Pilate, the criminal judge, and ask to remove the body of your Teacher, my son, and God from the cross. Take effort and arrange, you who are a participant in Christ’s teaching, a secret apostle, awaiting God’s kingdom, request the lifeless body already nailed to the cross and pierced in the ribs. Have compassion, faithful one, for the double crown you will receive after Christ’s resurrection: from all ends of the earth honorable glory and worship, and in heaven – eternal life.” Joseph, moved by such a tearful plea, did not say: “The priests will rise against me and become angry, the Jews will disapprove and beat me, the Pharisees will plunder my property, and I will be ostracized from their society.” No, he said nothing like that, but disregarded all and, not caring about his life, decided to find Christ. Boldly he entered before Pilate and requested, saying: “Give me, governor, the body of the stranger Jesus, crucified between two thieves, slandered by priests out of envy and unjustly mistreated by soldiers. Give me the body of Jesus, whom the scribes call the Son of God, and the Pharisees proclaimed king; above his head you ordered to nail a plaque with the inscription: ‘Here is the Son of God and King of Israel.’ Give me the body of the one whom his own disciple betrayed to the priests for silver, and about whom, prophesying, Zechariah thus wrote: ‘If you like, give me my price; if not, keep it’; and they set the price at thirty silver coins, a price most precious among the sons of Israel. About this body I ask you, about which Caiaphas prophesied that he alone must die for the whole world; and it was no simple prophecy, for he was that year’s priest, about whom Jeremiah said: ‘The worldly princes conspired against the Lord and against His Christ.’ They, like Solomon, ‘plotted—and were deceived, for their malice blinded them’, and said: ‘Let us seize the righteous one, torment him with mockery and wounds, and condemn him to senseless death.’ I ask for the body of Jesus who answered your question: ‘I am Life and Truth.’ And also: ‘You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above’; for whom your wife also pleaded with you, saying: ‘Do nothing to that righteous man, for I have suffered much today in a dream because of him.’ Give me the crucified one, whom, when he entered Jerusalem, infants met with branches, exclaiming: ‘Hosanna, Son of David!’; who, when his voice was heard, hell released the soul of Lazarus, already dead for four days; about whom in the Covenant Moses wrote: ‘You will see your life, hanging before your eyes’; I want the dead body, which the Mother, having not known a man, bore while remaining a Virgin; about whom Isaiah prophesied to Ahaz: ‘Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb and bear a Son, whose name will be Emmanuel’; about whom David predicted, saying: ‘They pierced my hands and my feet, and all my bones they counted’; give me the one already dead on the cross, about whom you said to the Jews asking for his death: ‘I am innocent of this righteous man’s blood,’ – and, washing your hands, delivered him to be killed; about whom the prophet says: ‘But I do not resist or contradict; I gave my back to the blows and my cheeks to the slaps, I did not hide my face from shameful spittings.’ I ask for the body of the Nazarene, to whom, spewing from frenzied mouths, demons cried: ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus, Son of God? We know who you are, the Holy One of God: you have come to torment us before the time’; about whom God the Father himself testified from heaven, when he was baptized in the Jordan, saying: ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’; about whom the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Isaiah says: ‘As a lamb led to the slaughter’, delivered by the lawless to death. Give me the body to take down from the cross, because I want to place it in my own tomb. For all prophecies about him have been fulfilled: indeed, he bore our suffering and suffered for us; by his wound we are all healed, for his soul was given to death and he was counted among the lawless; let us destroy him, they said, from the memory of those living on earth, and his name shall never be mentioned; therefore God will remove pain from his soul and give him firm strength, for it is written about him: ‘And you, in the blood of your covenant, freed the prisoners from the pit having no water’.”

And hearing all this from Joseph, Pilate was amazed, and called the centurion, and asked him: “Has the crucified Jesus already died?” And, having confirmed this, he gave the body to Joseph, that he might bury it as he wished.

Purchasing linens, he took down the body of Jesus from the cross. Nicodemus also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, worth a hundred shekels; together they wrapped Christ’s body in linens and anointed it with myrrh. And Joseph exclaimed, saying thus: “Unsetting sun, Christ, creator of all and master of creation! How dared I touch your holy body, if not even the heavenly forces, who serve you with fear, can touch you? With what linens shall I wrap you, who envelop the earth in mist and cover the sky with clouds? Or what fragrances shall I pour on your holy body, to which, bringing gifts with fragrances, Persian kings worshiped as God, foreseeing your death for the whole world? What funeral songs shall I sing at your departure, if in the heavens the seraphim already sing with an unceasing voice? How shall I carry you on my perishable hands, you who bear all the invisible creation? How in my humble tomb shall I place you, who established the celestial sphere by your word and who reclines on the cherubim with the Father and the Holy Spirit? But you do all according to a preordained plan, and you suffered all by your own will: for you go to hell, to bring Adam out of hell and Eve, who fell into sin, back to paradise, and to resurrect others with them by the power of your divinity. Therefore, thus exclaiming, I will bury you, taught by the Holy Spirit: ‘Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, taken down – have mercy on us!’”

And they placed him in the tomb, and rolled a huge stone to the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James both watched where he was laid.

And when the Sabbath was over, and the sun had already risen, all the women came together with fragrances, and this was already the fourth time. For the first time, as Matthew says: “In the evening of the Sabbath, two women came to look at the tomb; then there was an earthquake, when an angel rolled away the stone from the entrance, and, frightened by this, the guards became like dead men.” Then Jesus himself appeared to them, saying: “Rejoice, both of you go to my brothers, let them go to Galilee and there they will see me.” And again, around midnight, others came to verify what had happened, because they had heard from Magdalene about Christ’s resurrection; about these, Luke wrote thus: “Very early the women came to the tomb and found the stone already rolled away,” and two angels, standing before them, said: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”

Then, before dawn, other women came, and they saw inside the tomb two angels, where the body of Jesus had previously lain; about this John the Theologian said: “Having heard from them, Peter with another disciple hurried to the tomb, while it was still dark.” Mark, however, tells of all the myrrh-bearing women, who came with fragrances on Saturday; and, entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right, and were frightened. He said to them: “Do not be frightened! For now is not the time for you to fear, but for the lawless priests with the soldiers guarding here. You, however, examine the empty tomb and tell the apostles: ‘Christ is risen!’ See, the linens are already without the body, proclaim the praise of Jesus’ resurrection in the flesh, be heralds of human salvation, tell the apostles: ‘Today salvation has come to the world!’ No longer mourn, do not lament as if for the dead, but rejoice and be glad about the living God. I will reveal to you the mysteries of God’s love for man, for which he suffered for Adam, who fell into decay; for he descended from heaven, and became incarnate, and was a man, to renew the decaying and to ascend to heaven. Adam, listening to the advice of enemies, wanted to become God – and was cursed; but this one, obeying the Father, became man from God, to destroy the serpent and bring man closer to God. That one, stretching out his hands to the forbidden tree, plucked its deadly fruit and, becoming a slave to sin, descended from Eden to hell; Christ, however, stretched out his hands on the cross, freeing people from sinful condemnation and from death. Innocent, he was delivered up to free those enslaved to the devil for sins. He tasted gall on a sponge soaked with vinegar, to lessen the list of human sins. His ribs were pierced with a spear, to remove the fiery swords barring people’s entry to paradise. Blood and water flowed from his ribs, to cleanse bodily filth, sanctifying human souls. He was bound and crowned with thorns, to break the devil’s bonds on people and destroy the thorns of demonic deceptions. He extinguished the sun and shook the earth, and brought all living into mourning, to destroy the hellish storehouses and lead the souls there to light, turning Eve’s weeping into joy. Placed in the tomb as if dead, he granted life to those doomed to death. Sealed with a stone, he destroyed the gates and barriers of hell to their foundations. Visible guards watched over him – but invisibly, descending into hell, he bound Satan. And the angelic host, hastening after him, cried out: ‘Lift up your heads, O gates, that the King of Glory may come in!’ And some, freeing the bound souls, released them from the prisons; others, binding the hostile forces, said: ‘Where is your sting, O death? Where is your victory, O hell?’ To them the stunned demons cried out: ‘Who is this King of Glory, coming upon us with such power?’ He destroyed the prince of darkness and, plundering all his treasures, razed the deadly city, the womb of hell, and reclaimed the captives, the souls of sinners, with Adam among them. He rose, not disturbing the seal of the tomb, just as he was born, not breaking his mother’s seal of virginity. Let there be no fear for you – but for the lifeless guards! For having accomplished everything, Jesus rose gloriously and appeared first to the women who had come earlier, exclaiming majestically: ‘Rejoice, both of you!’ And he commanded his apostles to go to Galilee, that there, having sanctified you all, he might ascend to heaven in the body in which he will again come to judge the world.

Thus, all that the angel said to the myrrh-bearing women about Christ, we have conveyed.

Let us now forever praise the honorable, fair, and wondrous Joseph. Truly blessed are you, glorious and wondrous Joseph, having attained such bliss and great happiness on earth and in heaven! Worthy you served, as a cherub, the body of God; but they invisibly, carrying on their shoulders, from fear cover their faces, you, Joseph, did more than patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! For they only heard his voice – and were exalted in honor and glory above all, you however wrapped God’s body in linens. I will praise your hands, Joseph, on which you held the body of God’s Son and Creator of the entire universe; not daring to see his face, Moses, hiding under a rock at Horeb, heard: ‘You will see me from behind’, therefore and on Tabor, having seen Christ with Elijah, testified that he is God – and man. You are more blessed than King David, great Joseph! For David brought the Ark of the Covenant with God’s word from Shiloh, but was afraid to place it in his own house; you, however, not a tent with the Covenant, but God himself, having received him from the cross, joyfully laid him in your own tomb. Blessed and blessed by you, Joseph, is the prepared tomb, for in it indeed dwelt our Savior Christ! And it is no longer a tomb, but God’s throne, a heavenly altar, a resting place of the Holy Spirit, and the bed of the heavenly king, and around it, Solomon said, stand mighty warriors, experienced in battle, having swords on both sides; thus he spoke, announcing the faces of the saints, struggling with heretics and with Jews for Christ. Blessed are you, Joseph, accomplisher of God’s mystery, fulfiller of prophetic predictions! For whom the Covenant and the prophets depicted in parables, you anointed with myrrh according to the holy wounds in reality. Blessed are you, Joseph, for he who gave life by word and covered the firmament of heaven with waters, Him, as a dead man, you covered with a stone in the tomb, believing in the three-day resurrection! And blessed is your city, Arimathea, from which you came to serve the Son of God! What praise shall we render, worthy of your bliss, and with whom shall we compare the righteous? How shall I begin and how shall I continue? Shall I call you heaven? But you are brighter than heaven in piety, for during Christ’s sufferings heaven darkened and hid its light, you however then solemnly carried God on your hands. Shall I call you a blooming earth? but even to it you showed yourself more honorable, for then it too trembled from fear, you however solemnly, with Nicodemus wrapping in fragrant linens, laid down the divine body. Shall I call you an apostle and elder? You indeed passed on the example of your service to them, walking around and censing, and with prayers bowing to Christ’s most pure body with the words: ‘Arise, Lord, help us, deliver us by your name!’ Shall I call you a holy martyr, such love you showed for Christ? Although your chest was not pierced by a weapon, your blood did not spill from a sword, but by preference and faith for Christ you laid down your soul. And they would have struck you and cut you to pieces, but Jesus preserved you from this, for, burying his body, you were not afraid of Jewish anger, nor threats of priests, nor were you frightened by cruelly killing warriors, you did not regret your great wealth, you did not spare your life, believing in the three-day resurrection. But you have more faith in Christ than all, to him pray you also for us, praising you, and honoring your memory with the myrrh-bearing women, and celebrating your feast!

Grant, holy one, your help to all of us, be a protection to our city from all evil, granting the prince victory over the adversary and protecting him from all visible and invisible enemies; peace and health to the body, and along with it also to the soul, procure salvation for us. And deliver us from every need, and sorrow, and troubles, and all evil afflictions, and procure forgiveness of many sins by your prayer with God, that he may deliver us from eternal torments and make us partakers of the future goods of eternal life, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be glory with the Father, and with the most holy, and good, and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages..

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