In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
“Look, the fire and the wood,” Isaac speaks to his father Abraham,
‘but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’
Genesis 22:7–8, 9–12
And Abraham said, ‘My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.’ So the two of them went together. …
and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood.
And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’
So he said, ‘Here I am.’
And He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.’
This is a strange account, so Elder Zacharias has given us a beautiful understanding of it. “Scripture,” says he,
tells us how Abraham loved Isaac (cf. Genesis 22:2) so as to prepared us for the strange intervention of God a few lines further down. God says to Abraham, ‘Take Isaac, go up on the mountain and offer him in sacrifice.’ In other words: ‘Offer sacrifice of the son of my wondrous promise to you, the son of the miracle by which Sarah has been loosed from her barrenness!’ Here is a great mystery. Abraham was a man wholly dedicated to God and therefore enjoyed all God’s favour. But when he received the son which had been promised him, his heart became attached to Isaac and was thereby divided. To free his heart, God put him through a terrible test: He asked Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac. Abraham obeyed, and when God saw that his heart had been restored to its first love through his obedience and readiness to sacrifice his son, He gave Isaac back to him who had put all his confidence in God.
Archimandrite Zacharias (Zacharou), ‘Remember thy first love,’ p. 29.
Isaac, through the faithfulness of Abraham, was dead until the Lord restored him to life. Isaac, the son of the Promise,
was led as a sheep to the slaughter,
Isaiah 53:7
and as a lamb before his shearers,
so he opens not his mouth.
And in the narrative the next event in Isaac’s life is he is espoused to Rebecca,
Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent; and he took Rebecca and she became his wife, and he loved her.
Genesis 24:67
“He loved her:” he gave himself to her completely, serving and honouring her, he was willing to lay down his own life for her sake, “He loved her.” Isaac was dead but was made alive by the power and intervention of God and was united with his beloved.
Then when Jesus had received the vinegar, He said, ‘It is finished.’
And we hear, “It is finished,” as “it’s all over, it’s done, it’s the end,” but this is not its meaning. “Τετέλεσται” [tetélestai] has a much greater depth of meaning which we can hear even in the Latin translation—“consummatum est”—“it is fulfilled, it is accomplished, it is consummated.”
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for her,
Ephesians 5:25–32
that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,
that He might present her to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the Church.
For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.
‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’
This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is from the Cross that the Lord unites us to Himself, it is from the Cross that he nourishes and cherishes us, it is from the Cross that Death has been trampled down by a death. And if I am to be united with Christ then I must be crucified along with Him, together with Him, beside Him. And I am crucified with Him through baptism, and I am crucified with Him through serving others, and I am crucified with Him by offering forgiveness even when it is not deserved—especially when it is not deserved!—and I am crucified with Him whenever and wherever I remain faithful to Him.
And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, ‘Alleluia! For theLord God Omnipotent reigns!
Revelation 19:6–8
Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the Marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.’
And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
Let us, therefore, dear brothers and sisters, prepare ourselves for the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, arraying ourselves “in fine linen, clean and bright,” for the Lord has taken us as His Bride, that we may be united to Him and to His Resurrection and show ourselves as heirs of the Promise and inheritors of eternal Life.
That we may offer true glory, honour and worship to our crucified and risen Saviour Jesus Christ, Who offers Himself to us that we may be united to Him, together with His unoriginate Father and the All-holy, Good and Life-creating Spirit. Amen.
Brethren, the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
— First Corinthians 1:18–24
At that time, when the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no crime in him.” The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God. When Pilate heard these words, he was the more afraid; he entered the praetorium again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore he who delivered me to you has the greater sin.” When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Pavement, and in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross; it read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. Then when Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished”; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
— John 19:6–11, 13–20, 25–28, 30