The Third Sunday of Lent is called "The Veneration of the Cross." At the Vigil of that day, after the Great Doxology, the Cross is brought in a solemn procession to the center of the church and remains there for the entire week—with a special rite of veneration following each service. It is noteworthy that the theme of the Cross which dominates the hymnology of that Sunday is developed in terms not of suffering but of victory and joy. More than that, the theme-songs (hirmoi) of the Sunday Canon are taken from the Paschal Service— "The Day of the Resurrection" —and the Canon is a paraphrase of the Easter Canon.
The meaning of all this is clear. We are in Mid-Lent. On the one hand, the physical and spiritual effort, if it is serious and consistent, begins to be felt, its burden becomes more burdensome, our fatigue more evident. We need help and encouragement. On the other hand, having endured this fatigue, having climbed the mountain up to this point, we begin to see the end of our pilgrimage, and the rays of Easter grow in their intensity. Lent is our self-crucifixion, our experience, limited as it is, of Christ's commandment heard in the Gospel lesson of that Sunday: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Mark 8:34). But we can not take up our cross and follow Christ unless we have His Cross which He took up in order to save us.
It is His Cross, not ours, that saves us. It is His Cross that gives not only meaning but also power to others. This is explained to us in the synaxarion of the Sunday of the Cross:
On this Sunday, the third Sunday of Lent, we celebrate the veneration of the honorable and Life-Giving Cross, and for this reason: inasmuch as in the forty days of fasting we in a way crucify ourselves... and become bitter and despondent and failing, the Life-Giving Cross is presented to us for refreshment and assurance, for remembrance of our Lord's Passion, and for comfort.... We are like those following a long and cruel path, who become tired, see a beautiful tree with many leaves, sit in its shadow and rest for a while and then, as if rejuvenated, continue their journey; likewise today, in the time of fasting and difficult journey and effort, the Life-Giving Cross was planted in our midst by the holy fathers to give us rest and refreshment, to make us light and courageous for the remaining task....Or, to give another example: when a king is coming, at first his banner and symbols appear, then he himself comes glad and rejoicing about his victory and filling with joy those under him; likewise, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is about to show us His victory over death, and appear to us in the glory of the Resurrection Day, is sending to us in advance His scepter, the royal symbol—the Life-Giving Cross—and it fills us with joy and makes us ready to meet, inasmuch as it is possible for us, the King himself, and to render glory to His victory .... All this in the midst of Lent which is like a bitter source because of its tears, because also of its efforts and despondency...but Christ comforts us who are as it were in a desert until He shall lead us up to the spiritual Jerusalem by His Resurrection ....for the Cross is called the Tree of Life, it is the tree that was planted in Paradise, and for this reason our fathers have planted it in the midst of Holy Lent, remembering both Adam's bliss and how he was deprived of it, remembering also that partaking of this Tree we no longer die but are kept alive....
Thus, refreshed and reassured, we begin the second part of Lent. One more week and, on the Fourth Sunday, we hear the announcement: "The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill Him, and when He is killed, after three days He will rise again" (Mark 9:31). The emphasis shifts now from us, from our repentance and effort, to the events which took place "for our sake and for our salvation."
O Lord, who made us anticipate today the Holy Week foreshining brightly by the resurrection of Lazarus, Help us to achieve the journey of the fast.
Having reached the second half of fasting, Let us make manifest the beginning of life divine; And when we reach the end of our effort, May we receive the never-fading bliss.
At Matins on Thursday of the Fifth Week we hear once more the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, but this time in its totality. If at the beginning of Lent this Canon was like a door leading us into repentance, now at the end of Lent it sounds like a "summary" of repentance and its fulfillment. If at the beginning we merely listened to it, now hopefully its words have become our words, our lamentation, our hope and repentance, and also an evaluation of our lenten effort: how much of all this has truly been made ours? how far have we come along the path of this repentance? For all that which concerns us is coming to its end. From now on we are following the disciples "as they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them." And Jesus said to them: "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles, and they will mock Him and scourge Him and kill Him, and after three days He will arise" (Mark 10:32-45). This is the Gospel of the Fifth Sunday.
The tone of lenten services changes. If throughout the first part of Lent our effort was aimed at our own purification, we are made to realize now that this purification was not an end in itself but must lead us to the contemplation and comprehension and appropriation of the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection. The meaning of our effort is now being revealed to us as participation in that mystery to which we were so accustomed as to take it for granted, and which we simply forgot. And, as we follow Him going up to Jerusalem together with the disciples, we are "amazed and afraid."
The Sixth and last week of Lent is called "The Week of the Palms." For six days preceding Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday, the liturgy of the Church makes us follow Christ as He first announces the death of His friend and then begins His journey to Bethany and Jerusalem. The theme and tone of the week are given on Sunday night at Vespers:
Beginning with zeal the sixth week of Lent, we shall bring to the Lord hymns, announcing the feast of the palms; to Him who comes in glory and power divine to Jerusalem to put death to death....
The center of attention is Lazarus—his sickness, his death, the grief of his relatives, and Christ's reaction to all of this.
Thus, on Monday we hear:
Today the sickness of Lazarus appears to Christ as He walks on the other side of the Jordan....
On Tuesday:
Yesterday and today, Lazarus is sick....
On Wednesday:
Today the dead Lazarus is being buried and his relatives weep....
On Thursday:
For two days now Lazarus has been dead....
Finally, on Friday:
On the morrow Christ comes... to raise the dead brother [of Martha and Mary]....
The entire week is thus spent in the spiritual contemplation of the forthcoming encounter between Christ and Death— first in the person of His friend, Lazarus, then in Christ's own Death. It is the approach of that "hour of Christ" of which He so often spoke and toward which all His earthly ministry was oriented. And we must ask: What is the place and the meaning of this contemplation in the lenten liturgy? How is it related to our own lenten effort?
These questions presuppose another one with which we must now briefly deal. In the commemoration of the events of Christs life, the Church very often, if not always, transposes past into present. Thus, on Christmas Day we sing: "Today the Virgin gives birth ..."; on Good Friday: "Today stands before Pilate..."; on Palm Sunday: "Today He comes to Jerusalem ...". The question is: What is the meaning of this transposition, the significance of this liturgical today?
An overwhelming majority of church-goers probably understand it as a rhetorical metaphor, as a poetical "figure of speech." Our modern approach to worship is either rational or sentimental. The rational approach consists of reducing the liturgical celebration to ideas. It is rooted in that "Westernized" theology which developed in the Orthodox East after the breakdown of the Patristic age and for which liturgy is at best a raw material for neat intellectual definitions and propositions. That which in worship cannot be reduced to an intellectual truth is labeled "poetry"—41.e., something not to be taken too seriously. And since it is obvious that the events commemorated by the Church belong to the past, the liturgical today is not given any serious meaning. As to the sentimental approach, it is the result of an individualistic and self-centered piety which is in many ways the counterpart of intellectual theology. For that kind of piety worship is above everything else a useful framework for personal prayer, an inspiring, background whose aim is to "warm up" our heart and direct it toward God. The content and meaning of services, liturgical texts, rites, and actions is here of secondary importance; they are useful and adequate as long as they make me pray! And thus the liturgical today is dissolved here, as are all other liturgical texts, into a kind of non-differentiated devotional and inspirational "prayer."
Because of the long polarization of our Church mentality between these two approaches it is very difficult today to show that the real liturgy of the Church cannot be reduced either to "ideas" or to "prayer." One does not celebrate ideas! As to personal prayer, is it not said in the Gospel that when we want to pray we should lock ourselves up in our room and enter there in personal communion with God (Matt. 6:6)? The very concept of celebration implies both an event and the social or corporate reaction to it. A celebration is possible only when people come together and, transcending their natural separation and isolation from one another, react together as one body, as indeed one person to an event (e.g. the coming of Spring, a wedding, a funeral, a victory, etc.). And the natural miracle of all celebration is precisely that it transcends, be it only for a time, the level of ideas and that of individualism. One truly loses oneself in the celebration and one finds the others in a unique way. But what then is the meaning of the liturgical today by which the Church inaugurates all her celebrations? In what sense are past events celebrated today?