Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord!
We have come to the end of Great Lent. Behind us are weeks of labor, prayer, struggle, falls, and attempts to start anew. And now the Church brings us into special days — Lazarus Saturday and the Feast of the Lord's Entry into Jerusalem.
This is no longer a continuation of the fast. It is its transition to the most important. Lazarus Saturday reminds us that Christ is the Author of life and the Vanquisher of death. He comes to the tomb of Lazarus and restores his life. This miracle is performed on the eve of His own sufferings and as if in advance reveals to us the meaning of everything that is happening: death does not have the last word.
But in this event, there is also something very personal for each of us. The Holy Gospel says: “Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days” (John 11:39). Christ comes where, by human standards, there is no hope — where everything seems final and irreversible. And by this, the Church tells us: there is no state from which God could not raise a person. There is no depth of fall that God's grace could not touch.
Lazarus is not only a man from Sacred history. He is also an image of each of us when we lose a living connection with God. And Christ comes not when we are "ready," but when we need Him most of all.
The next day we celebrate the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem. People meet Christ with joy, with palm branches, with shouts: "Hosanna!" They see a King in Jesus of Nazareth. But very soon this same crowd will cry out: "Crucify Him." And in this, there is a serious reminder for each of us. Faith cannot be built only on feelings and inspiration. It requires faithfulness, steadfastness, and inner devotion — even when it becomes difficult, when the cross comes, when external joy disappears.
These two days stand side by side not by chance. Lazarus Saturday gives us hope: Christ conquers death and restores life. The Entry into Jerusalem shows us the way: this victory is accomplished through suffering and the Cross. And now the Church leads us to the most important thing: not to remember these events, but to enter into them with our lives.
We are almost at the goal. But ahead are the deepest and holiest days of the year, Holy Week. The Church quietly tells us, as it were: do not stop now. Do not slacken your attention. Lent was a time of preparation. Now begins the time of encounter — an encounter with Christ in His sufferings, in His path to the cross, and in His Resurrection.
Let us not remain passive observers. Let us pass these days with Him — in prayer, in silence, in attention to our soul. May these holy days help us to be gathered, attentive, and open to what the Lord wants to accomplish in our hearts.
I invite everyone to prayer in the church — to share the services together and to walk this path until Pascha, until the joy of Christ's Resurrection, so that we may be crucified with Christ and resurrected with Him.
