Слово в неделю Ваий. Св. Димитрия, митрополита Ростовского

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest (Matthew 21:9). Let us imagine, beloved, in our minds, how our Lord Jesus Christ solemnly entered Jerusalem, how with branches in his hands he met His people, and the children exclaimed: “Hosanna!” Let’s imagine the place where this happened, remember how it happened, and look at everything with spiritual eyes. The procession of Christ our Savior began from the Mount of Olives or, in other words, the Mount of Olives (the Greek word “Eleon” in our language means “oil”), so named because olive trees covered it with a dense forest; This mountain was located on the eastern side of Jerusalem and was five stadia, that is, one mile, from the old city. This is the way of the Sabbath, as it is written about in the Acts of the Apostles: the Apostles returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem, having the way of the Sabbath (Acts 1:12); and the journey of the Sabbath was five furlongs. According to the commandment of their law, the Jews revered their Sabbath so much that they could not even go a long way on Saturday, except for five stages, that is, one mile, which is called the path of the Sabbath. Thus, this mountain was not far from old Jerusalem, but it was quite high, and it was considered six stages from the very top of that mountain to Jerusalem, and five from the foothills: for there was a whole stage of ascent to that mountain; between the mountain and Jerusalem lay the Valley of Jehoshaphat (so called because in ancient times Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, built himself a coffin in that wild before his time, and above the coffin a pyramid or a wonderful pillar: from that time that wild was called the Valley of Jehoshaphat); That valley was deep, and in the middle of it flowed the stream of Cedars. That valley was otherwise called the Valley of Weeping: since there was a cemetery for all of Jerusalem, for the Jews did not bury their dead in the city, but outside the city: they carried their dead into the Valley of Jehoshaphat for burial, and according to custom they wept over the dead, and therefore the Valley of Jehoshaphat was called the Valley of Weeping. In that vale, Scripture and the Holy Fathers foretell the terrible judgment of Christ. Above that valley from the eastern country there is the Mount of Olives. Christ loved the Mount of Olives for its silence and desolation and often spent nights on it in His prayer vigil: He usually chose for this either the very top of the mountain, from where he later ascended to heaven, or the heliport of Zebedee, which lay on its slope. The leader was a relative according to the flesh of Christ the Lord, and our Lord entered the heirloom of his relative as into His own, and performed all-night prayers to God His Father. Christ the Lord often visited this mountain also because the flight here of the forefather David, persecuted by the son, served as a prototype of His undeserved suffering. There on Olivet, David wept, fleeing from his son Absalom, as it is written in the books of Kings: David ascended the Mount of Olives, weeping, covering his head, and walking barefoot (2 Samuel 15:30). From this Mount of Olives or Mount of Olives began the glorious and solemn procession of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem through the Valley of Jehoshaphat and the Kidron Stream. Let us consider, beloved listeners, spiritually this whole procession. Just as Jesus Christ began His procession from the Mount of Olives, that is, the Mount of Olives, so every Christian who wants to enter heavenly Jerusalem must also begin his journey from the Mount of Olives. David says about himself: I am like an olive tree that is fruitful in the house of God (Ps. 51:10). Likewise, each of the people must be an olive tree, that is, they must bear spiritual fruit to the Lord. The Apostle says that such fruits are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, mercy, faith, meekness, self-control (Gal. 5:22), and all good deeds, such as fasting, prayer, almsgiving, forgiveness of our debtors, forgetfulness of offenses, renunciation from sinful deeds, repentance and deeds in good deeds. These are spiritual fruits pleasing to God; everyone who does this is like a fruitful olive tree. To this we must add the following. Following the example of the Lord Himself, who ascended the Mount of Olives to pray, it is necessary that a Christian man rise to the height of spiritual contemplation and from there, as from a high mountain, in humble prayer ascend from the earthly to the heavenly, seeking the heavenly, despising the earthly, and during prayer abandoning all concern for everything worldly. Moreover, so that the path of one’s salvation begins from Vertograd, that is, so that he has a clear conscience, well protected from everywhere by the fear of the Lord, and adorned with good thoughts, like the flowers of Vertograd. From there, we began to walk through the valley, which was the common tomb of Jerusalem, where the terrible judgment of God will take place, that is, to walk through the valley of humility, the remembrance of death, of the future terrible trial at judgment, to walk through the vale of crying and lamentation about the sins we have committed, and to wash our cheeks with tears, as if by the stream of Kidron. In this way we will approach the heavenly Jerusalem. But let us look again, beloved, with spiritual eyes at our Lord. Our Lord makes His procession, sitting on a donkey and a colt; First the Lord sat on a donkey, and then soon moved onto a colt: this has its own mysterious meaning. The donkey, accustomed to the yoke, serves as a sign of the Jewish people, as if yoked to the yoke of the law on Mount Sinai; not accustomed to the yoke, the colt symbolized the entire family of pagan peoples who did not yet know the law of God. The Lord moved from a donkey to a colt in order to show that He would soon reject the Jews as unfaithful and bitter against Him, and would accept to Himself the new Church that was to be born from the pagans and would be glorified in the pagans, which we now see clearly: for the salvation of God was taken away from the Jews, but was given to us, the pagans, and Christ the Savior, our true God, is glorified in us. Imagining the solemn entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, we involuntarily marvel at such a wonderful humility of our Master. In fact, there were countless people meeting and following behind. Not only the twelve larger apostles followed Christ, not only the seventy smaller ones, which are remembered in the Gospel: the Lord revealed the seventy others, and sent them two by two before Him (Luke 10:1); but also another people, who came to Bethany in great numbers, as we heard reading in the Gospel: the people were many of the Jews, as they were: and they came not only for Jesus’ sake, but also for Lazarus, who was raised from the dead (John 12:9). All that people walked in large numbers with the disciples of Christ - some preceding, others following, but those who met were impossible to count: for at that time not only from Judea, but also from many other countries and from many pagan nations, numerous crowds flocked to Jerusalem for the holiday. The church leaders in Jerusalem in all years counted the people gathering in Jerusalem for Easter, and never, neither before nor after, was there such a flow of people to Jerusalem as in the year of the Lord's suffering: up to three million flocked from all over the world. This is seen as a matter of Divine dispensation: the whole world had to see the innocent suffering of the Son of God. All those peoples came out with fronds to meet Christ, as it is written in the Gospel: many people came on the feast, hearing that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, and took a frond of dates, and went out to meet Him, and called with the verb: Hosanna (John 12:12-13). Miraculously, the mouths of the children were opened, sucking the breasts of their mothers, according to what is written: from the mouth of the child and of the sucklings did you bring praise (Matthew 21:16), and they cried out: Hosanna, blessed is he who comes (Matthew 21:9). They say that there were thirty thousand of those babies and youths. And so, among such a multitude of people, among the exclamations: “Hosanna, King of Israel!” - Our Lord goes in glory and honor. But how? Is it royal? in a gilded royal chariot? on the tsar's horses that had been dressed up? - no! just as the prophet Zechariah predicted: “Say to the daughter of Zion: behold, your King comes to you meek” (Zechariah 9:9). Christ sits on a young donkey and teaches everyone humility and meekness - he teaches not only ordinary people, but also those who have risen to the royal steps and possess the wealth and glory of this world. Do not boast, He said, and do not speak high in pride; let great talk come from your mouth (1 Samuel 2:3). When teaching humility, our Lord, sitting on a donkey, clearly strikes the glory and pride of this world and shows human inconstancy and vanity. Jesus Christ seems to be saying to everyone: like a reed shaken by the wind, so you people waver in your inconstancy. Now you meet Me with branches, and in a few days you will dishonor Me! Now you are cutting branches from the trees, and in a few days you will be cutting and trimming these same trees for the cross. Now you place branches under My feet; and after a few days lay rods and whips on My back, beating me and inflicting many wounds. Now you cry out: Hosanna is the King of Israel, and in a few days you will cry out: Crucify Him, crucify Him. Now you meet Me with glory, but in a few days you will drive Me to death with reproach. O human impermanence! the impermanence of the glory and honor of this world! Here we learn from our Lord humility and meekness and not to desire or seek temporary honor and glory; and if God gave them to someone without searching, then do not be proud of them, and do not trust in them: for every hill will be humbled, says the Forerunner of Christ (Luke 3:5), that is, every proud height will fall to the ground. I, a sinner, think: why did our Lord deign to enter only sitting on a donkey? and the above-mentioned interpretation comes to my mind that the donkey is the image of the Jews, and the colt is the image of the pagans. What were the Jews like at that time? - the most fierce, evil sinners who conspired to kill Christ, as David says about them: having learned in vain, and the princes gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ (Ps. 2:1, 2). What were the pagans? - they were especially sinful: for they did not at all know the true God. So, when our Lord sat on a donkey or a lot, he sat on the image of a sinner: for the donkey signified the sinful Jews, and the colt signified the lawless and godless pagans. And truly, a donkey is a decent image of sinners: a sinner with all his morals is like a donkey. A lazy donkey is lazy and a sinner: with many blows you can barely motivate the donkey to the yoke, but with many punishments you cannot easily turn a depraved sinner to correction. The donkey, even if it was hit, does not walk quickly, barely drags along the way, and does not know how to run quickly; and the sinner does not rush to salvation, even if sometimes we are struck by various allowances from God. And since our Lord, in His triumph now celebrated, sat on the image of sinners - on a donkey, it is clear that He who rests in heaven on cherubim wants to rest on earth on sinners, for for their sake He came down from heaven: He did not come, He said, to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Matthew 9:13). This is true peace, that is, to saddle a sinner like a donkey, to impose on him the law of the fear of God, that is, to mount him, to subjugate him to His will of the Lord, and to ride him as He wants and where he wants, that is, to put him on the path of the commandments leading to heaven; This is the peace of the Lord - to make sinners righteous, forgiving their sins. Saint Ambrose, discussing the words from the book of Genesis: God rested on the seventh day (Genesis 2:3), says: “God created the heavens, but I do not read that God rested after creating the heavens; created the earth, and did not rest here; create the sun, the moon, the stars, and there I do not read that God rested.” But when God created man, then he rested, having someone to forgive sins.” Let us heed these last words of this teacher: “Then the Lord rested, having someone to forgive sins.” As if on a donkey, on a sinner, God wants to rest and be carried. When does God begin to rest on a sinner? - at the time when the sinner begins to turn to God with true repentance, then he is dear and dear to God, just like that prodigal son, who when he said: I rose up to my father and said to him: “Father of those who have sinned,” immediately his father saw him from afar, and was dear to him and fell on his neck. Are you an ass in the right, sinful man, submit to God, bow your neck to his yoke, and immediately from an ass you will be for him a throne of cherubs: for for this purpose He has now ascended on an ass - the image of the Jewish race, and on the donkey's lot - the image of the pagan generations, so that from the Jewish race many and from the pagan race the greatest he may make cherubim and seraphim, to whom it is sung: "What shall we call you, saints? Cherubim? For Christ rested upon you. Seraphim? For ye unceasingly glorify Him." And that is the real triumph now - to transform donkeys into cherubim, that is, sinners into cherub-like saints. The whole beginning of the present triumph of Christ was that the Lord raised Lazarus of four days from the dead. In the Gospel it is written thus: your people, who were formerly with Him, testified when you called Lazarus from the tomb, and raised him from the dead. For this reason, you will meet His people, because they heard Him and performed this sign (John 12:17–18). So, people, glorifying Christ’s victory over bodily death in Lazarus, constitute a triumph for Him: for having heard Him, they performed this miracle. The Lord himself most of all begins to triumph over the spiritual death of people, defeating sin and the devil, who encourages people to sin. Truly, it is a great and great miracle that Christ the Lord raised a four-day-old dead man who had already begun to rot; An incomparably greater miracle of Christ is when He resurrects a great sinner, dead in soul, and already, as it were, in the grave, rotting for a long time in an evil custom, from spiritual death and brings him to eternal life in heaven. To resurrect the dead body is the work of God’s omnipotence; to resurrect the soul that died by sin, i.e. calling a sinner to repentance and directing him on the path of truth and salvation is a matter not only of the omnipotence of God, but also a matter of immeasurable mercy and the great wisdom of God. However, neither the wisdom of God, nor the mercy of God, nor the omnipotence of God resurrects the dead soul of a sinner when the sinner himself does not want it. It is not in vain that God says to the sinner: “I could create you without you, but I cannot save you without you." I did not ask anyone how to create you: I wanted and created you. But how to save you, I ask you yourself, as one of the paralytic, do you want to be whole? Do you want to be saved? If you want to yourself, then My wisdom will guide you, My mercy will have mercy on you, My omnipotence will help you and save you. If you yourself do not want salvation, if you yourself want to remain in sinful death, if you yourself love your destruction more than salvation: then neither My wisdom, nor My mercy, nor My omnipotence will help you. Can warm wax stick to ice? So, neither My mercy, nor My wisdom, nor My omnipotence will stick to you, like ice to a heart that is cold and has no warmth of desire for salvation. If you yourself desire to be saved, then I will gladly help you. My angels will rejoice and triumph over you: for there is joy of the angels in heaven over a sinner who repents (Luke 15:10). After this, it should be clear to us that resurrecting a sinful soul that died for a righteous life is a greater triumph and miracle for the Lord than resurrecting the dead Lazarus. Lazarus, resurrected from bodily death, although many years later, died again; the resurrected soul of the sinner’s wife, who cried at the feet of Christ, remains immortal. She was, like an animal, enslaved to bodily lusts and suddenly became in communion with the angels. So, if the Lord, riding on a donkey, goes and triumphs, then let it be known to us that He rejoices and triumphs not so much about the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead, but about those who had to rise from spiritual death, in the foreknowledge of salvation. Here it would also be necessary to consider the mystery of the vestments and fronds laid out along the way and date and olive branches and all kinds of tree branches held in the hands, like ours - willows; but I don’t want to burden you, my listeners, with a long conversation; for the previous time, if God pleases and we are alive, I leave it. And now I end my word with this, worship the Lord and exclaim: blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna in the highest! Amen 177. Works of Saint Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov. Part two. Kyiv. 1895, countries. 102–113. You might be interested in: