Поучение на Воскресение Христово. Святого Димитрия, митрополита Ростовского 68 Видим Иисуса, за приятие смерти, славою и честию венчанна (Евр. 2:9).

In the past days of the free suffering of the Lord, we saw Christ our Savior inglorious, according to the word of the prophet Isaiah: we saw Him, and not in the name of appearance, nor kindness: but His dishonorable appearance was diminished more than all the sons of men (Is. 53: 2-3). On this bright feast of His Resurrection, we, together with Saint John the Theologian, see the glory of the Lord Christ, the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). At that time our Lord Jesus Christ was counted with the lawless (Isa. 63:12), and now God appeared in the midst of His people, redeemed by the honest blood, in the assembly of His saints, saying: I am seven with you. At that time, many passing by cursed the Lord, but now His most holy name is worshiped by every tribe of heaven and earth and hell. At that time the Lord was beaten on the shoulders and cheeks and was killed on the tree; and now He has killed death and the devil, now where is death’s sting? where is the victory (1 Cor. 15:55)? At that time our Life-Giver was dead, at that time the sun darkened in the sky; and now from the red tomb of truth the Sun has risen for us, and we see Jesus crowned with glory and honor for accepting death. Here, briefly, we will consider that there is no other way to eternal glory and honor except through many sufferings: since it was fitting for the Head of our life Himself to be glorified through suffering. We see Jesus crowned with glory and honor for accepting death. So, for a short time, let us ascend with our minds to heaven, and look through the Revelation of John the Theologian. We hear there, as it were, the voice of a large people (Rev. 19:6), and the voice of many angels around the throne. What are they saying? - They command every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea to render slavish worship to a certain royal person sitting on the throne of God. Who is this Receiver of royal and Divine honor, Whom every creature on earth and above and below would worship? So I look and see the Lamb reigning, but the Lamb slain, and I hear a thousand thousand saying with a loud voice: The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing (Rev. 5:12). Let us pay attention here: Christ is the Lamb (as one who suffered for all); however, when He (Christ) wanted to reign, He reigned in the person of the slain Lamb in order to show that to the crown of the kingdom of heaven, to eternal glory, there is no other way than the wound of the slaughter, suffering. If any of the earthly ones wants to accept that crown, let him prick his heart with tenderness, let him kill his passions by mortification, let him suffer in the labors of repentance. – Having looked at heaven, let us also look at paradise: paradise, described in the Revelation of John the Theologian, besides its other marvelous and indescribable decorations, has the fact that the great gates of paradise are made of one pearl (Rev. 21:21), and pearls are an image of tears (that is why St. Chrysostom says: “David’s eyes were decorated with rain of tears, pearls"). If pearls are an image of tears and a sign of crying, then why are there gates made of pearls - where nothing tearful is seen, nothing lamentable is heard, but everything is filled with indescribable joy? - this is so that those who want to enter heaven would strive there through no other gate than tears (for there is no other entrance to heaven except tear pearls). And tears come from contrition of the heart, contrition of the heart comes from sadness, sadness comes from sorrow for sins and from suffering for the Lord’s sake. This is the path to heavenly coolness. But let us return down and go to the Egyptian country. Let us remember blessed Joseph there. By arranging the beautiful Joseph to the royal throne, what path to that honor and glory did the Lord send down? - truly, thorny, sorrowful, an unexpected attack, a dark prison, nakedness, hunger, poverty of necessities. It was a long-term prisoner: his nose was humbled in chains, and his soul passed through iron (Ps. 104:18). Then, after enough time of suffering, the king sent and freed him and made him lord over his house and over all his acquisitions. This Joseph typified the passions of our Lord. What and how our Lord suffered before accepting the kingdom over all creation - there is no need to say much about that to those who know everything well. “I’m going to the helicopter city of King Solomon and seeing what’s going on there.” I see the Heavenly Bridegroom chilling there. He betrothed His bride, that is, His Church, redeemed with holy blood (and individually every Christian soul). Loving that bride more than His soul (for He laid down His life for her), the Heavenly Bridegroom called her a krin (lily) and planted that krin between sharp thorns (and not among fragrant flowers): like a krin among thorns, so is my sincere one among the daughters (Song 2:2). Here, listeners, let us think: why does the Heavenly Bridegroom want to have His crown - His bride in a fence of thorns: a crown in thorns?... When the Lord planted paradise in the east, He fenced it around with fruitful and blessed-leaved trees; Jerusalem, shown to (John) the Theologian in Revelation, is lined with precious stones, and the gates (of heaven) are made of one bead (Rev. 21:10); The fruitful grapes of the Gospel are protected by a certain considerable stronghold: and protect them with a stronghold (Matthew 21:33). The Lord places His dearest bride, for whom He did not even spare His soul on the cross, on earth, in a fence that is not paradise, garden, or fruitful, but He keeps it in one sharp fence of thorns: a crown of thorns. This means that the fence of thorns is better than those mentioned: for Adam was soon expelled from the fence of paradise for the red and good fruit as food; Lucifer stood for a while between the apocalyptic pearly walls: the decline of Lucifer; From the vineyard fence, the very workers exiled the heir and killed... May you, my neighbor, not be in the paradise of vain sweets, not in beauty; precious utensils, not in the vineyard of temporary joy, but remain in the thorns - in the thorns of troubles, sorrows, slaying, always bearing the death of Christ Jesus on your body (2 Cor. 4:10). Why is this so? - so that for accepting those sharp points of thorns, for suffering those troubles, you may receive a crown of glory in My palace. Let the Bride of Christ have for herself a true image of such a life. Here in her image was her Heavenly Bridegroom Himself - Christ, Who died and rose again, suffered and reigned, accepted dishonor and became glorified. And she and the Apostle see Jesus crowned with glory and honor for accepting death. One must be surprised how the King of glory was not ashamed to endure such dishonorable suffering and death. But it is not surprising when in those very sufferings the glory of the Lord appeared, as it were, like a dawn. In fact, going into free passion, the Lord said: now is the Son of Man glorified (John 13:31): for suffering itself is already glory, as one of the fathers said: “Glory to the Son is the cross, just as glory to the Father is the Son.” The cross, death - glory to the Son: since that is the root, the beginning, the mother of glory: dishonor will give birth to honor, the cross will give birth to glory, glory not only for the Lord Himself, but also for us - His servants, the sons of the Eastern Church, for by His free suffering we are glorified, as our mother, the Holy Church, sings: “even though you were, O Christ, from lawless men, but you are God, and I am ashamed: you were beaten by the whip, and I am not swept away: you were nailed to the cross, and I do not hide: I boast in Your resurrection: for Your death is my life! Not only earthly, but disembodied angels show off and are glorified by the sufferings of the Lord. We hear the Angel telling the Myrrhbearers: You are looking for Jesus, the Nazarene crucified: He is risen, he is not here (Mark 16:6). Even today, in the resurrection, the Angel remembers the cross more than the royal title, about dishonor more than the royal glory, clearly showing that in the very suffering of the Lord there is His glory and a special kind of praise for the Angels. And we heed the fact that suffering is glory not only for Christ, but also for people and for Angels. Let us also remember here what is described in the book of Judges of Israel, where all the trees gathered together and chose a king for themselves, and when many denied, they agreed to choose the thorn so that he would reign over them, and they said to the thorn: “Come, reign over us.” Someone would say to the trees: “Whom do you choose? Are there really no glorious cedars, tall dates, fruitful olives and other fair and useful trees among you, and what good will thorns be to you? The Gospel will not praise you (thorns), but will say: do they gather (are they gathered) bunches of thorns for food (Matthew 7:16)? But let not the concordant council of the trees be disgraced: they did well in choosing a thorn for themselves instead of a king: for although it is a thorn, it has a ready-made crown for itself - a rose, and in its very thorny sharpness and rigidity has its own natural glory and decoration (for thorns tend to give birth to beautiful flowers). And also, when thorns surround gardens and heliports, then there is already a ready-made fence and protection from offense (for no one will transgress through the edges). Reign, O thorn, over the trees, and you, great, tall trees, bow your tops under the thorn, bow to it: come and enter under its shadow. Different trees represent different saints. The phoenix signifies the righteous: for the righteous shall prosper like the phoenix (Ps. 91:13). The fruitful olive tree signifies church teachers who saturate the souls of faithful people with the spiritual fruits of the word of God. Grapes signify everyone in general, according to Bose, living people. And thorns signify suffering, signify martyrdom—troubles like thorns, sorrows like stings from thorns. The one who endures for God’s sake, in the midst of all those sorrows, is found like a bushel among thorns, already beginning to receive the firstfruits of eternal glory in the very suffering. For just as thorns tend to give birth to (beautiful flowers) roses, so sufferings and sorrows tend to bring glory, and just as all the trees made the thorn king over themselves, so all the ranks of saints received the crown of the Kingdom through many sorrows. The high rank of prophets, the high rank of apostles, the not low rank of teachers, saints, virgins, hermits and others: however, all those ranks, not without their special sufferings, achieved their perfection. The image of all this was our Lord Jesus Christ. He was a prophet, predicting the future about the destruction of Jerusalem, about the day of the Last Judgment, he was an apostle: since he was sent from God the Father, he went everywhere preaching, he was a teacher, and everyone listened to Him with sweetness, he was a free doctor, and all the people sought to touch Him and be healed of their ailments, he was a faster and a hermit: he was caught up by the Spirit into the desert and fasted for forty days, he was great miracle worker: raised the dead. But it was not here that (the Lord) established the crown of His kingdom, the crown of His glory; where? - in the crown of thorns, in the outpouring of His blood: as it was fitting for Christ to suffer and be brought into His glory. Do you see how the thorn reigns, how suffering gives birth to glory? Do you see that the Lord Himself had no other path to eternal glory than suffering?.. If Christ our Lord, who wanted to enter His true glory, had to suffer, then what kind of labors, what feats are needed for us, who want to enter not our own, but someone else’s glory? - into someone else's: for we have become alienated from it by our sins: the sinner has alienated herself from lies (Ps. 57:4). But on this joyful holiday I do not want to confuse your love with inconsolable words - to confuse you, to whom I wish to rejoice in the risen Christ and Davidically proclaim: this day, the Lord has made it, we will rejoice and be glad on it. Amen 69. In short. Works of the saint. Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov. Kyiv. 1895, part 2, pp. 125–134. You might be interested in: