To the words: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me” (Matthew 26:39). Good Friday

Church teachers are like a child-loving mother, enduring every burden and labor to raise her dear children. Just as she offers her nipples, delivering inexhaustible milk food to a dear child, so the teacher of the church, offering her mind to the children of the church, encourages them to willingly extract verbal milk. And just as a mother, after a time of milk food, serves for the life of her children by giving hard bread along with vegetables cooked on the fire, in the same way the teacher, after the announcement of divine words, as if after milk food, gives the difficult-to-explain bread of the word to the children who feed from him, along with various interpretations and teachings of Scripture. Therefore, we, beloved, after having fed you with the milk of easy words in the previous days, will now lead you to consider the teachings: The Holy Spirit is preparing for you a sound word of instruction. At the table of Scripture we are offered the following bread of the word: why does our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to take upon Himself suffering and death for the lives of all, before the glorious cross says: “My Father! if it is possible, let this cup pass from me" ("Father..., if it is possible, let this cup pass from me") (Matthew 26:39)? Many, not understanding the wise purpose and not delving into the treasure hidden in this saying, speak of His timidity. But we, beloved, will talk with Him like children, so that you, like children, can assimilate His thoughts. Let us tell Him, not as perfect people, but as children: “Why, Lord, before suffering for us, before crucifixion on the cross, do you shy and pray, saying: “My Father! if it is possible, let this cup pass from me"? If You exhausted Yourself by taking on the image of a slave, when no one forced You, why now do You ask for something else and say: “My Father! if it is possible, let this cup pass from me"? You held back and hurried to drink this cup. You said: “I must be baptized with baptism; and how I languish until this is accomplished!” (“With baptism... the imam will be baptized, and as long as I hold on I will drink it”) (Luke. 12:50); and while you restrain yourself and rush to drink it, (now) you refuse and say: “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me.” Do you really not know that You intended to suffer death for us? And after all, You said: “You must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and high priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day rise again” (“it is fitting for the Son of man to be betrayed and suffer... and to rise on the third day”) (Matthew 16:21); why, before the cross itself, do You refuse and say: “If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me”? And if You wanted this, why did you condemn your disciple Peter, who hindered You? You said: “You must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and on the third day you will rise again”; and Peter said: “Be merciful to yourself, Lord, let this not happen to you!” (“You are merciful, Lord; you shall not have these things.”) (Matthew 16:22); (then) being indignant at him, You said: “Get away from Me, Satan! you are a temptation to me! because you think not about the things of God, but about the things of men” (“follow me Satan, you are a temptation for me: for you think not the things of God, but the things of men”) (Matthew 16:23). If You reproached him then as speaking humanly, why are you now looking for what he then hindered, and saying: “My Father! if it is possible, let this cup pass from me"? We learn that You are the creator of the visible and the invisible; with the touch of your hand you healed from diseases, with a word you strengthened the broken bodies of the dead, you dried up streams of blood with the hem of your clothes, you fed five thousand men to satiety with five loaves of bread, you commanded the winds and the sea, and everything obeyed You with trepidation; and, performer of so many miracles and destroyer of death, now You are afraid of death, and say: “My Father! if it is possible, let this cup pass from me"? And if You are afraid of death, in whom will we henceforth have hope of life; and if you are afraid of death, then why do you say: “I ... the resurrection and the life” (“I am the life and the resurrection”) (John 11:25)? Life and the resurrection are never afraid of death. What does it mean that You say: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me”? Don’t You know, who knows everything before He exists, don’t you know whether it is possible or not to pass from this cup? Why did You say: “no one knows the Father,... only the Son” (Matthew 11:27)? You know the Father, whom you are not greater in anything, but you do not know about the cup; is it possible for it to pass? Why does Paul say: “And there is no creature hidden from Him, but everything is naked and open before His eyes” (“there is no creature hidden from Him, but all naked and declared before His eyes”); and again: “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword: it penetrates even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a judge of the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” heart" (Heb. 4:13, 12)? If there is no hidden creature before His face, everything is naked and declared in His eyes, why do You now, as if you don’t know, say: “My Father! if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” unless there is some hidden secret in this word? This word is not suitable, Lord, for You, since You are God, the Son of God, the Word, Wisdom, Power, Light, the Sun of Truth, the Source of immortality, Eternal Life, the Resurrection for us who died from sin. Father, even if it is possible to eat, let this cup pass by. Oh, how difficult it is to penetrate into this word, to examine and discuss it! How cramped (it is) and painful for many people! Teach us, Lord, this mystery of Your word; We are Yours, and we have believed in You. Let not the giant Eunomius rise up in his slander, and do not reproach the armies of Israel of the Lord; he reproaches us, and dishonor rises against You, our Master. Arouse in our hearts a mind like that of the meek David; give us one stone of the word, so that, throwing at them, we can destroy the essence of their wickedness, so that today the whole army will know that You are the Lord Most High, alone in all the earth (Ps. 82:19). We have a great host of heretics who say: “You see how afraid and timid He is; you see how he prays to the Father with the words: “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me! Now Eunomius rejoices, now Arius rejoices, like those who have found blasphemous words hissing against the truth. But don't have fun, you foreigners! The yoke of our tormentor has been broken. God is with us (Num. 14:9)! Know, O pagans, and submit; if you strengthen again, you will be defeated again; and if you take counsel, the Lord will destroy you; The mouth of the Lord said this - “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me.” O cup full of life and immortality! From it, having defiled with their evil faith, Eunomius and Arius will give their neighbor insidious death, considering her sweet confusion of thoughts to be bitterness, and not fearing the voice of Scripture, saying: “Woe to you, who gives your neighbor drink mixed with your malice” (“woe to him who drinks his friend with muddy corruption”) (Hab. 2:15); woe to those who say bitter is sweet, and sweet is bitter; putting light into darkness and darkness into light; “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and understanding in their own eyes” (“woe to those who are wise in themselves and understanding in their own eyes”) (Isa. 5:20–21). We, beloved, having taken the cup of our Lord, will lovingly draw from the teaching that fills it. “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me! It’s not your opinion, Arius – as if our Lord is timid, or afraid of death; why would He be afraid when He had the power to die and not die: “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again” (“Imam has the power to lay down my soul, and the Imam has the power to receive it again”) (John 10:18)? If He were forced by someone, then you would rightly say that He is timid; and now He himself says: “I have the power to give it away, and I have the power to take it again,” that is, “I am not forced by anyone. But just as I exhausted Myself, taking on the form of a slave, without being forced by anyone, and built Myself a body for habitation: “Wisdom built herself a house, she hewed out its seven pillars” (“wisdom built herself a house”) (Prov. 9:1), - in the same way I can resurrect My body, destroyed by death, for life. I am the one who says: “Destroy this church, and in three days I will raise it up” (“Destroy this church, and in three days I will raise it up”) (John 2:19), so neither out of timidity, nor out of fear of death I say: “My Father! if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me,” but offering the word of a hidden mystery. This saying is bait for the devil; I needed to catch him with this saying. The devil saw that I performed many signs, that I healed diseases with the touch of my hand, that I drove out legions of demons with a word, that I removed the scabs of lepers with a word, as if with a winnowing fan, that I strengthened the paralytic with my voice, that I commanded the winds and the sea, and everything obeyed Me with trembling; seeing from these deeds that I am the Son of God, he thought that if I were crucified on the cross, he would perish; If I descend into the pit, I will break its iron bars and destroy its brass gates. And, seeing this, out of fear he avoids placing the trophy of the cross, which is valuable to Me. What should I do? Like a wise fisherman, I pretend that I am timid, I pretend that I am afraid of death and say: “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me,” so that he, concluding from these cowardly words of mine that I am a timid person avoiding death, hastened to place in the middle of the earth the mystery of the tree of the cross, as if against Me. I needed, like a wise fisherman, to use my art against him; I had to endure everything for everyone’s life. If from the beginning he used the trick to destroy Adam, how much more should I use it to save everyone. With cunning words he deceived Adam; divine words: “My Father! if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” he is deceived, the treacherous one. If a fisherman, when he lowers his fishing rod into the sea, did not put a worm on it and show it as if it were slipping away, the fish would not rush to him. I have clothed My deity with the worm of the body; lowered the oud, hidden in the worm of the body, into the depths of this life; if the worm had not moved like a worm, the one who needed to be caught would not have come. I needed to take the form of a worm and say: “I am a worm, and not a man” (“I am a worm, and not a man”) (Ps. 21:7), so that he would run up and grab the fishing rod, and be pulled out by Me, and what was written in Job would be fulfilled: “Can you pull out Leviathan with a fishing rod?” (“Can you pull out a serpent with fishing rod?”) (Job 40:20). I become, as it were, a timid person, I become, as it were, running away from death, I say: “My soul is sorrowful unto death” (Matthew 26:38), I say: “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me.” He listens to these words with joy and cheerfulness; hastens to do what is hostile to Me. And what does he say to himself? “And this is a man. I have devoured Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the patriarchs and the prophets; I will consume Him too. Here He is timid, like a man; He is a man; I will consume Him." He will swallow Me up as a man, and I will appear in his womb as a perfecter God. “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me.” He will absorb the leaven of the body, and I will turn out to be an unquenchable coal of the deity, terribly burning him inside: “I have come to bring down fire on the earth” (“I have come to bring fire to the earth”) (Luke 12:49). “My Father! if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.” I will speak like a lamb; I don’t want him to see the sparkling sword of the deity, lest he, the wolf, run away. He will devour Me like a lamb, and from within he will be wounded by a sophisticated sword: “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (“I did not come to bring peace upon him, but a sword”) (Matthew 10:34). “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.” I will hide the shepherd of God in the body of a lamb; I do not want to discover the shepherd of God, lest the wolf flee; the wolf leaves if he sees shepherd I will speak like a lamb. “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me.” I will speak like a lamb without a shepherd; I became, as it were, a helpless person. He will devour Me like a lamb and crush me from within with the shepherd’s staff of the cross. He will gnaw a mustard seed, and I will turn out to be for him the sharpness of a terribly tormenting deity; he will gnaw Me like a man, and I will turn out to be a strong stone, greatly crushing his teeth, so that he learns not to gnaw people anymore; and what is written will be fulfilled: “God! break their teeth in their mouth” (“God will break his teeth in his mouth”) (Ps. 57:7). “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me.” If he knew what this cup is from which I pray, he would pray that it would pass; She is a sting against him, but for me it is salvation. When he consumes Me, then he will feel Whom he has consumed; when he sees that the sun is hidden by Me, the day is darkened, then he himself will be upset; and what is written will be fulfilled: “Hell hell has begun to move for your sake” (“hell is saddened, it will shit you”) (Is. 14:9). “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me.” Do not let these words, spoken wisely, confuse you; wait and see the conclusion of My words, and then be amazed at their wisdom. He thinks that My trick is stupid; but does not know that “the foolish things of God are wiser than men” (“man is wiser than God”); he thinks from here that I am the weakest, but does not know that “the weak things of God are stronger than men” (“the weak things of God are stronger than man”) (1 Cor. 1:25); does not know that I will drink the cup, he will get drunk and become darkened, but mine will be awakened and become vigorous. Now he listens with joy to these words of mine: “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me.” When he consumes Me, when he sees that the stones are split, the tombs and graves are opened and he himself is crushed, and the dead rise and ascend to heaven, then he will repent and will grieve over what he now rejoices in. He does not know that he is setting a trap for himself, which he sets, and he himself will fall, according to what is written: “He dug a ditch, and dug it out, and fell into the hole that he had prepared” (“the ditch of graves, and fossils, and, and will fall into the hole that he made”) (Ps. 7:16). He does not know that the cross he intends to erect is a bed for Me, a cross for him; for Me resting place is death for him. Oh, the cup, the thorn for the devil, the scarecrow of demons, the winnower of sins, the organizer of life, the propitiation for sinners, the cup of immortality! “However, not as I want, but as you do” “(Not as I want, but as you do”). He learned, unfortunate, that everything had become what I said; he heard My words: “Father! I thank You that You heard Me. I knew that You would always hear Me” (“I thank You, Father, for You have heard Me. And I know that You always listen to Me”) (John 11:41–42). Since I prayed that the cup of death would pass, so that you would not think, as a result of the prayer for the cup to pass, that the work of the cross had become weak, I draw a dubious conclusion from My prayer, and say: “However, not as I want, but as You.” To My Father I attribute power over death, although I myself have the power to lay down My soul, and I have the power to take it up again. I cover My divine dignity with spiritual leaves, I cover the authority of My deity with human words, I say: “not as I want, but as You want.” He, the blind man, did not say that My will and My Father are one: “Everything that the Father has is Mine” (“everything that the Father has is mine”) (John 16:15), and: “I and the Father are one” (“I and the Father are one”) (John 10:30). “However, not as I want, but as You want.” He will hang the grain of grain, and when he has swallowed Me, he will see that he himself is being strangled by a triple noose.” But maybe one of the listeners will ask: “Did Christ really laugh at the devil, or was it possible to laugh at him?” We will say to him: read the Scripture, and you will find that the Father himself says to Moses: “What have I done in Egypt?” (“You see, I was greatly mocked by the Egyptians”) (Ex. 10:2). So the Lord laughed at the devil and the demons. It was necessary that he be ridiculed as a madman for his greatness and words: “With the strength of my hand and with my wisdom I have done this is because I am smart: I rearrange the borders of the nations, and plunder their treasures, and cast them down from their thrones, like a giant; and my hand has seized the wealth of the nations, like nests; and as they take away the eggs left in them, so I took away the whole earth, and no one moved a wing, nor opened his mouth, nor squeaked" ("with strength... I will create and with the mind of my hands I will take away the borders of the tongues... and the universe. I will take everything like a nest, and like an abandoned egg I will take it, and there will be no one who... speaks against me” (Is. 10:13-14) It was necessary for him and the demons to be ridiculed, so that it would be revealed that in such their boasts they are more unreasonable than even children. Therefore, they did not know what they were doing: “for if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (“If they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”) (1 Cor. 2:8). Also, the prophet foretold about this dragon that he would be ridiculed: “there is this leviathan, whom You created to play in him” (“this serpent, whom You also created, curse him”) (Ps. 103:26). But so that it does not seem that by excessively lengthening the word we are hindering those who wish after us to convey the thought of Scripture even more clearly, we will stop our Word here. We have been called upon to say on this same chapter, not because we can speak without omission, but to explain to the best of our ability, and to give occasion to the inquisitive: “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be even wiser” (“Give wine to the wise, and he will be wiser”) ( Prov. 9:9 ). And you, beloved, having collected from the Scriptures, in support of what has been said, try to further understand the difficult thought - Lord ours, not out of timidity, as we said above, avoids the cup of death, but according to the divine dispensation, so that through my insignificant words and thoughts and your works, glory will be given to Christ, now and ever, and forever and ever. Amen. Creations attributed to St. John Chrysostom and in the Patrology of Min, classified as Spuria. The paragraphs in the text were arranged by us. – edition of the ABC of Faith.