Today we commemorate the holy, glorious, Great Martyr St. Tsar Lazar, who sacrificed his life for the love of Christ and the Serbian people on this day, June 28/15, 1389, in the Battle of Kosovo. The night before the battle, an angel appeared to him and offered him a choice between a heavenly kingdom and an earthly kingdom. The saint chose the heavenly kingdom, which resulted in his defeat in the Battle of Kosovo and his martyrdom, along with his entire army. Read more about his life here.
Meditating on the martyrdom of St. Tsar Lazar, it is both shameful and awe-inspiring to realize that he was a human being just like us. While we struggle to deny ourselves our pleasures and comforts, he gave up his kingdom and his earthly life for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, without a second thought. Moreover, he fought valiantly in the battle despite the knowledge that he was in his final moments.
In The Mystery and Meaning of the Battle of Kosovo, St. Nikolai Velimirovich describes the conversation between St. Tsar Lazar and the angel who comes to speak with him and answer his questions before taking his soul to Christ. St. Tsar Lazar looks at the thousands of dead bodies of his soldiers covering the field before him and asks the angel why the Lord had permitted them to die.
The angel replies:
“If I, as a conscious and bodiless spirit, were forced to clothe myself in a corruptible body of dust, I would bless the hour that would liberate me from the flesh. Death is fearful for those who are being separated from the object of their love, but not for those who are being invited to the object of their love. Death is a horror for those who have chosen the earthly kingdom, but a joy for those who have chosen the kingdom of heaven. Where a man’s heart is, there also is his homeland. Whoever loves the world and what is in the world, does not have a healthy heart and knows nothing of true love. Such a worldly love is inspired either by the spirit of nature or — even worse — by the spirit of hell. Only that human heart, which burns with love for the Creator, is healthy. True love can refer only to the One, who demonstrated His love for man before His mother…
Therefore when the Lord of life and death sends death to those who love Him, He is sending death out of the flame of His love for them in order to free them from distance and draw them nearer to Himself. But when He sends death to those who have been partial to matter, and have not tasted the nectar of love for their Creator, He is sending death out of His wrath, in order to remove them an infinite distance from Himself.”
pp. 77-78
We all have within us the seeds of faith in the heavenly kingdom and all-consuming love for God. The difference between us and St. Tsar Lazar is that he allowed those seeds to grow into trees, while we relentlessly starve and smother our seeds with earthly cares and anxieties. What would our lives be like if we nurtured these seeds of faith and love, allowed them to grow into trees, and climbed these trees to heights we cannot even imagine from down here?
Why are we so afraid?
St. Tsar Lazar received Holy Communion and went to his death, rejoicing. He had complete faith that he had partaken of the fountain of immortality. How often do we receive Holy Communion casually, singing, “receive the body of Christ, taste the fountain of immortality…” with divided hearts and scattered minds? The taste of the Body and Blood of our Lord may still be on our tongue, yet we are thinking about coffee or what we are going to eat after the Liturgy.
There will be a Liturgy that is the last Liturgy of our lives. And although an angel may not appear to us to explicitly ask us the question, we are each faced with a choice: the earthly kingdom, or the heavenly kingdom? We face this choice hundreds of times every day and often choose the earthly kingdom without ever realizing that we had a choice in the first place.
How can we become courageous enough to choose the heavenly kingdom, to have true faith and love for God? What will it take?
The Holy Apostle James writes, “Ye have not, because ye ask not,” (4:2) and, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights” (1:17). If we truly want the warrior spirit of St. Tsar Lazar, we can implore God to give it to us through the prayers of St. Tsar Lazar and other saints who found the pearl of great price and gave up everything to obtain it.
He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
John 12:25
As we pray for this gift we must be watchful for the moments in which God is answering our prayer, for He does not answer prayers by magically injecting the requested virtue into our veins. Rather, He provides us with situations in which we can practice what we have asked for and gives us the grace to make choices we wouldn’t have been able to make before. To say no to a piece of chocolate cake, to be silent rather than making an angry remark, to wake up early to pray…
In his homily today, Fr. Turbo exhorted us that there is no love without sacrifice:
“Choices that you make either to please yourself or to please God, to either please yourself or to sacrifice for the love of others… These choices that you make today, tonight, tomorrow, they’re gonna be the ones that are gonna inform who you’re going to be because you are in the truth now. And that truth is that without sacrifice, there is no love…
This is what God has for all of us: to understand what it means to lay down our life for our brother, what it means to lay down our life in sacrifice. This is how we enter into the kingdom and this is how we enter into the knowledge of the Spirit of truth. Through the prayers of St. Tsar Lazar, may we all understand not just the power but the joy, the absolute satisfaction that comes from sacrificing for the sake of true love, for the sake of the good, for the sake of Christ.”
St. Nikolai writes that as St. Tsar Lazar laid down to be beheaded, he exclaimed: “O Christ our God, forgive everything and glory to Thee for everything!”
And as the angels carried his soul to heaven, they sang: “The earthly kingdom lasts only for a brief time, but the heavenly kingdom always and forever.”
O Holy St. Tsar Lazar, noble and courageous ruler, unshakeable pillar of Serbia and the Holy Orthodox Church, we honor your glorious victory over the three enemies of mankind: the world, the flesh, and the devil. We worship the Lord Who gave you the faith to choose the heavenly kingdom over the earthly, and we thank Him for His infinite love for mankind which our minds cannot comprehend. His love is a fire, and you allowed this fire to fill you completely, burning up all thorns of sin and doubt. For the sake of the honor of your homeland, you fought in the Battle of Kosovo with unsurpassed courage and zeal, but when the Lord determined that your time had come you gave up your life as calmly and peacefully as a gentle summer breeze. We thank you, Great Martyr Tsar Lazar, for showing us the heights of faith and love to which man can attain, and we ask you: beseech the Lord on our behalf, that He would grant unto us also these priceless, soul-saving gifts of faith and love. Witnessing the miracle of your suffering, we cry out with the father from the Gospel: “Lord, I believe! Help Thou mine unbelief!” Pray for us, O Holy St. Tsar Lazar, that the Lord will grant us the strength to fight courageously against our noetic enemies and vanquish them by the power of His Holy Name and His Precious Body and Blood. Pray that He will purify our hearts of all sinful attachments to the things of this earth so that when we are faced with the choice, in whatever small manifestation it may take, of the earthly kingdom or the heavenly, we will unhesitatingly choose the heavenly with full knowledge that the earthly kingdom lasts only for a brief time, but the heavenly kingdom always and forever. Amen.
Troparion, Tone 3
Having desired the beauty of God’s glory, * thou wast well-pleasing to Him on earth, * and thou didst double the talent entrusted to thee, * cultivating it well, * and laboring over it unto the shedding of thy blood. * Therefore, as a martyr thou didst receive a reward for thy pains from Christ God. * Pray to Him, O Lazar, * to save those who hymn thee.
Kontakion, Tone 8
Superb warrior of pietry and unashamed martyr for the truth, * thy flock honorably praises thee as is due, O wise one. * But as thou hast boldness before Christ God, * we who glorify thee ask of thee humility that we may cry to thee: * Rejoice, O ever-memorable Lazar!