373. Слово в великий пяток

(Said in the Trinity Lavra.) “It’s done!” (John 19:30) - Jesus cried out on the cross, and cried out “with a great voice” (Matthew 27:46), so that it could be heard in heaven and on earth and in the underworld; - with a voice that tore apart the church veil to show the passing of the legal canopy; - with a voice that shook the earth and passed into the hearts of the stone mountains, in order at the same time to penetrate and - if this is possible, omnipotence - to soften the stone heart of a hardened people. But “the heart of these people is clouded, and their ears are hard to hear, and their eyes are closed, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and be converted, and I will heal” (Is. 6:10) - complains the Physician of souls and bodies. O Crucified One! Even at the distance of many centuries, we hear Your cry, we see Your wounds - and the weapon of sorrow passes through our heart. “It’s done!” but the Redeemer was sold, the truth was condemned, holiness was desecrated, God “forsaken” (Matthew 27:46) God. “It’s done!” . But the blessing of Israel is on the tree of the curse, but the desire of the tongues dies. “It’s done!” but fallen man again falls lower than before - the suicide becomes a “deicide.” What a horror! It seems that hell is gnashing joyfully, and our proud enemy wants to assure himself and his like-minded people that “all is finished” (John 19:24) - which means “all is lost.” O Crucified One! we are not offended because of You; We are with Your disciples “the verb of you being Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24); we believe that You are “the words of the life of the eternal Imashi” (John 6:68). Heal with Your word the wound of the pierced soul with Your wounds, and at the same time stop the lips of those who speak unrighteously (cf. 2 Mac. 14:36); teach us the mystery of Your sufferings; Reveal to us what great work and for whom it ended with Your death? Christians! He no longer answers to us. He has already “bowed his head and given up his spirit” (John 19:30), as if wanting to leave us meditating at his cross and tomb. “It’s done!” (John 19:30) Do not think that dying wisdom has left us ignorant of the mysterious sign of this saying. We find his lengthy explanation, begun in the “book of human existence” (Gen. 5:1) and completed in the “book of the life of Jesus” 896. Reading these great books can and should take a lifetime, but a few lines from each are enough to enlighten us. The first of these books is similar to the Ezekiel scroll, “and there is written in it mourning,... and pity, and grief” (Ezek. 2:10); or, more precisely, this formidable scroll is one sheet of it. The natural position of Adam’s tribe includes not only “weeping,” but also despair, not only “pity,” but also bitterness, not only “grief,” but also destruction. “A man deliberately thinks evil” (Gen. 6:5); this is necessarily followed by a whole stream of evil, which from thoughts spreads to all deeds, absorbs all abilities, and even in the external state produces nothing but devastation. The unfortunate person in this stormy ocean often loses the very feeling of lost perfections. Lacking material happiness, he accepts the ghosts of a flattering imagination for it. “I am rich, and have become rich” (Rev. 3:17), he says, although nature, the law, and conscience accuse him: “thou art wretched, and poor, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17). Let us shorten the endless handwriting, which you cannot help but know, each writing in it his own fate with tears and blood. To be conceived in iniquities, to be born in sins, to live among the fears of death, to die in the fear of life - “this is the book of the existence of man” (Gen. 5:1). Can a just God look at the every-minute criminal without fiery anger? Can a good Creator listen with cold disdain to the groans of a distressed creature? Justice awakens vengeful thunders, goodness holds back the hand ready to launch them. Mercy wants to give the sufferer the cup of salvation, the insensitive son of destruction does not tolerate even a reminder of the healing of his severe illness. If unlimited Wisdom did not know the means to reconcile these incomprehensible contradictions that destroy the harmony of creatures and their union with their Creator; If I had not been able to reconcile – yes, let’s say humanly – God with God and then God with man, then it would never have been said in the eternal council: “Let us make man” (Gen. 1:26). In terms of the existence of the world, the “re-existence” of moral nonentity – man – must be assigned. Let's open another book and read the wonderful event of this predestination. – “The Book of the Kinship of Jesus Christ” (Matthew 1:1). He is the Son of God, “the radiance of the Father’s glory and the image of his hypostasis” (Heb. 1:3); He is the son of man, “who sincerely partook of flesh and blood” (Heb. 2:14). He is God in order to have the strength to bear human infirmities; He is a man in order to make men “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). He is the “Son... of Adam” (Luke 3:23, 38), so that the second Adam will be the new children of God; – “Abraham” (Matthew 1:1), in order to present oneself in the image of Isaac as the purest, most perfect sacrifice to the Lord; – “David” (Matthew 1:1) to inherit and restore the kingdom of grace. Finally, He is eternal love, descending to unite with itself mortals alienated from it by sin, satisfying Heavenly Justice for them. Thus, the very birth of Jesus points to His death. And what a majestic light extends over the cross, viewed from this point of view! This title, containing the guilt of the innocent, these servants of the vengeful laws, this instrument of execution - all this arbitrary Sufferer gathers around himself in order to remind us of the definition of the Highest Judgment Seat, which executes earthly injustice, driven in blind ignorance by malice alone. These outstretched arms embrace and support the world over the abyss dug beneath it by its depravity. This fading gaze still emits a ray of mercy and, being directed towards grief, repeats the prayer a thousand times, not only for the guilty tormentors, but even more for the guilty human race sent out: “Father! let them go” (Luke 23:34). This Divine blood... Oh, endless love! one drop of it would be enough to wash away our iniquities and quench our Gehenna, but You are shedding it in torrents! Oh, merciful even to the point of unmercifulness! Forgive the reproaches of amazed gratitude! - Enough, enough! - or not! pour this inexhaustible current of bliss, this water of life until exhaustion!.. Ah... I don’t know what to do - cry or rejoice? Should I cry about Your death, or rejoice over my immortality in it? But that's enough! At Your cross “mercy and truth are found”; at Your tomb “righteousness and peace were embraced” (Ps. 84:11). It's done! The redemption of those sold under sin is complete; an inestimable price was paid for his freedom: but what if the unbreakable slave loves his chains; if he does not and does not want to have an idea about the freedom granted to him? - God's power and God's wisdom had to overcome this difficulty, and - oh, the miracle of human cruelty! - in a few days our Intercessor bowed God to man. Whole years of tireless labor were necessary for Him to turn man to God: apparently, it was easier for Him to put a limit to the eternal Eternal enmity than to limit the audacity of the dust, swept up by the whirlwind of inconstancy. For the purest teaching, for the example of the most holy life, for amazing signs, for countless benefits, instead of gratitude, He demanded one consent to accept a new, greatest benefit. With these golden weapons He finally conquered unbelief, and solemnly confessed to His Father: “I have glorified You on earth; I have completed the work you gave Me; ...I have revealed Your name as a man” (John 17:4, 6). I reminded You to those who had forgotten You; I preached to them the glory of Your goodness, and instead of the names with which the earth-born had hitherto called You, and which only brought them into awe, I revealed to them the sweet name of the Father, with which I give them the area 897 to call on You. I have reached the goal of my embassy. It's done! But, O Performer of gracious looking upon us! Have you not done it for all people? Why isn’t everyone enjoying the fruits of Your exploits? You have revealed the name of the Heavenly Father: why are there too many of them even now, like “the tree: like a father... you are; and stones: Thou hast begotten me” (Jer. 2:27). How long, Lord, how long?.. What did I say? Let those to whom “the word... of the cross... is foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:18) ask this question. Why would one want to tear apart the veil of impenetrable destinies with such impudent curiosity? “Our understanding is not of times and years” (Acts 1:7); ours is only to wish with love and pray to the spiritual gardener, “that all the branches may be attached” to the fruitful tree of faith, “that the fulfillment of tongues may come” into the Church, and “all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11:24–26). Let us better turn our concern to ourselves. Has the great work of Jesus been accomplished for all of us throughout all space? - Alas! and the sun does not suddenly illuminate the whole earth; gloomy night is not ashamed to follow in his footsteps and spread its darkness in the places visited by him. The deepest silence is not the cessation of the storm, but only its effect in other countries of the air... Let the storm alone cover the Sun of Truth with clouds; let the Son of God suffer and be crucified once; but His gravest sufferings were not over yet. His Apostle and among the children of the new Israel sees monsters, “the second 898 crucifying him” (Heb. 6:6). Once abandoned virtue is surrounded by nasty hordes. Once again, in the abode of piety, the pure warmth of jealousy becomes scarce; and superstition and persecution “kindle their own fire” (Luke 22:55), fueled by raking and tares. Again, a timid and treacherous heart, fearing the difficult paths of Jesus, barely dares to follow him from afar and, at the slightest danger from his enemies, or even just shame from his detractors, “denies him with an oath: I do not know the man” (Matthew 26:72). In vain do Christ’s “alectors” 899 in these sacred places proclaim a pitiful song: it no longer produces tears of repentance; it is simple and uniform, like the truth, and does not touch artificial sensitivity. The Saint again surrenders to the wicked court - the court of a mind unrefined by faith. The new Pilate, instead of impartial research, tries to show his imaginary power, presenting Him in someone else's clothes and a strange appearance. The revolt of violent passions is multiplying; the weak judge hears the cry: “Crucify him” (John 19:15) and, to please the brutality of this crowd and the prince of this age, refuses to further defend justice. Paki crowns Christ with thorns - bliss; will drink bile and otstom - intemperance; hard-heartedness towards his smaller brothers exposes him and makes him hunger and thirst; malice bleeds from him; greed and robbery divide his garments; self-loving vanity and stubborn ignorance, with more fury than in the first torment, tear his unsewn tunic, torment his very body into pieces; freethinking and unbelief pierce his heart. And here everything is done, but it is done to the complete condemnation of deicide, and nothing is done for good, for salvation. “Behold, this one lies” even after his death, as before in swaddling clothes, not only “for rebellion”, but also “for the fall... of many” (Luke 2:34), - many who, chasing their high-minded dreams, stumble over his tomb and are cast irrevocably into the underworld. You are safe from this stumbling block, listeners, when you so carefully examine this tomb with both external and internal eyes; when your heart does not crucify Jesus, but crucifies him. Such dispositions constitute the glory of the present day and your future bliss. To bear the cross of selflessness and patience, to ascend to the very heights of love for Divinity and humanity, to crucify the flesh with passions and lusts, to die to the world in order to live for God - this is to acquire everything that the God-man has accomplished; this gives the right to every imitator of him at the end of his course to feel and say: “It is accomplished!” ( John 19:30 ) Finisher of our salvation! Make our steps in Your paths. Life is dead! Revive us through You forever. Amen. 900 The quote is inaccurate: “the book of the kinship of Jesus Christ” (Matthew 1:1). – AB. Region (ecclesiastical) power. – AB. Second (church) – second time, “again”. Alector (ecclesiastical) - a rooster (Matthew 26:74, also Matthew 26:34, Mark 14:68, 72, John 13:38). Both of these words in the lists are in the Moscow library. D. Academy in the collection owned by Rev. Pavlou, Archbishop Chernigovsky. In these lists, after the first word, it is noted: “with this word the writer attracted the attention of His Eminence Metropolitan Plato”; after the second it is added: “This word was composed on the orders of His Eminence Metropolitan Plato and was a test.” In the handwritten collection kept by the nephew of the late metropolitan, priest N.N. Drozdov, the following is stated: the original one is signed by His Grace. Metropolitan Plato: Prox, linguae hebraicae et graecae praeceptor! Prox! Mementö Prox! Cum norimus te esse in Laurensi Seminario principem praeconum!.. Wonderful, teacher of Hebrew and Greek! Wonderful! Note: Great, since we know you as the first of the preachers at the Lavra Seminary. You might be interested in: