481. Слово в день Святого Царевича Димитрия

(Said in the Archangel Cathedral, May 15th) Woe to you, for you are a prophet who built the graves, and your fathers beat them up. (Luke 11:47). In these words the Lord pronounces an unexpected accusation against the scribes and Pharisees of Judah. “Woe to you, for you are a prophet who builds graves!” So, is it really a crime to build the tombs of the prophets? “Your fathers beat them up.” But what about the children who didn’t kill them? Is it not written in Your law, O Lord: “The son will not bear the iniquity of his father” (Ezek. 18:20)? These doubts are not idle, and this matter is not alien to you, who hear this. Alas! From the family of our fathers were those monsters of the family who killed this royal martyr. The most worthy of the family of our fathers, with the favor of God’s fate glorifying the innocent sufferer, created a coffin for him. You decorate the shrine of the righteous - with reverent visitation, worship, kissing. So, are you sure that you are not threatened by the “woe” announced to the children of those who killed the prophets, “who build the graves of the prophets, and paint the crayfish of the righteous” (Matthew 23:29)? Let us stop and think about what crime does the word of the Lord accuse the scribes and Pharisees of, what crime does it warn us all against? “Woe to you, for you are a prophet who built the graves, and your fathers beat them up.” Without a doubt, it was not the crime charged to the scribes and Pharisees that their ancestors killed the prophets. The word of the Lord from the prophet Ezekiel decisively frees them from this guilt: “a son will not bear the iniquity of his father, and a father will not bear the iniquity of his son: the righteousness of the righteous will be on him, and the iniquity of the wicked will be on him” (Ezek. 18:20). It is even less possible to believe that they are guilty of the fact that the tombs of the prophets, or in general the holy people of previous times, were created, decorated, and revered. Was it not out of respect for the tombs of his holy ancestors that Jacob bequeathed Joseph with an oath, saying: “Let me rest with my fathers: and carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their tomb” (Gen. 47:30). Was it not with reverence for the holy ancestor that “the sons of Israel carried the bones of Joseph out of Egypt” (Joshua 24:32). And when it happened that the body of a dead man was accidentally thrown into the unclosed and unguarded tomb of the prophet Elisha, “I touched the bone of Elisha, and he came to life” (2 Kings 13:21); Then shouldn’t it have been recognized not only as innocent, but also commendable and due, that action was to create and distinguish the prophet’s coffin from others with decent signs, so that the unclean would not touch the holy, and those seeking purification and sanctification could without difficulty find life-giving bones between the bones of the dead. What are the building tombs of the prophets guilty of? Why does “grief” threaten them? They are guilty of hypocrisy; for hypocrisy grief should come upon them. “Woe to you scribes and hypocrites, for you are building the graves of the prophets.” A hypocrite is one who pretends to be a pious and virtuous person, without being such in his heart; or, in the words of the Apostle, who has “the form of godliness, but has rejected its power” (2 Tim. 3:5), or “he confesses God, but his works are rejected” (Titus 1:16). A hypocrite is one who in words is strictly zealous for the faith, like an Orthodox Christian, but allows himself to live weakly and carelessly, like a pagan; who loves to teach others, but does not try to follow his own instructions; who does good deeds, but not with a good intention, somehow out of self-interest, self-indulgence, vanity; who boasts of the precision with which he performs the external rites of piety, but, like the famous Samaritan, while engaged in disputes about the place and other external circumstances of worship, does not at all understand “God worships in spirit and truth” (John 4:24) and even worse than the Samaritan, does not want to understand this, and persecutes those who understand this. As hypocrites, the scribes and Pharisees were guilty of their fathers, and together with them were subject to the rebuke of the Lord, not because the prophets were born in the flesh from those who beat them, but because in their spirit the ungodly properties of their own will revived them. A long time ago a question was asked by people who do not understand the ways of God: “What is it that the son of his father’s iniquity did not take?” And God, through the prophet, responds to this: “Because the son has done righteousness and mercy, he has kept all My laws; Therefore, if someone asks the opposite question: what if a son takes away the iniquity of his father? Without a doubt, on the basis of the same answer of God, one can answer: without righteousness and mercy you will not do, and you will not keep the law; since he freely made himself the heir of the untruth and iniquity of his ancestors: then, of necessity, he will be made the heir of their disasters and executions. This is precisely the reason that the Lord’s rebuke against the Jewish hypocrites has. The Lord convicts them: “Let your fathers be pleased with the deed” (Luke 11:48); you, just like them, are located internally. He predicts: “Behold, I will send you prophets and wise men and scribes: and by them you will kill and crucify, and by them you will scourge in your congregations, and you will destroy them from city to city” (Matthew 23:34). And penetrating such their dispositions, and foreseeing such their deeds, He both mourns and condemns them: “Woe to you! for all righteous blood may come upon you” (Matthew 23:29, 35)! Given the ungodly internal dispositions and intentions of these hypocrites, what is the use or dignity in the mask with which they cover themselves, no matter how plausible it may be? They build the honorable tombs of the murdered prophets: what is the use of that when their heart is a treasury of enmity and death against the living saints, when “their throat is opened” (Ps. 5:10) for murderous slander against the innocent children of wisdom? They paint externally the material crayfish of the righteous: what dignity is there if they do not decorate themselves internally with the spirit and living feelings of the righteous? It is not enough to say that in this case there is no benefit in that, there is no praise in that, there is no dignity in that: indeed, woe to them, what they do is, it would be better if they did not do that. If they did not show respect to the dead prophets and righteous people, then one could conclude that out of ignorance they do not give justice to the living, and therefore deserve an apology; but when what is respected in the dead is insulted in the living: then “woe” to them, as guilty, and again “woe”, as inexcusable! And among us humans, the one who does not show us love or respect is not so much hated as the one who shows a form of love to the hated or a form of respect to the despised: how should he be disgusted before God, who knows the heart, who, before piety and holiness, shows outward signs of reverence, which his heart does not know? “Woe to you hypocrites, for you are building the graves of the prophets!” From this, today’s admirers of the tombs of prophets, or apostles, or martyrs and other righteous people can see what, despite this, however fair and sacred traditions-established reverence, they should beware of. They should beware of hypocrisy. If you are looking with apparent zeal for the tombs and remains of the holy bodies of the prophets or apostles, the divine preachers of the faith, but do not have the inner zeal to seek the living word and spirit of faith and shrines in their sacred writings, especially when you have no shortage of methods for this search: then beware lest the “woe” spoken against the hypocrites one day come upon you. If you honor the tombs of the martyrs who confirmed the faith by patiently suffering for it, but you yourself are not so much disposed to prove the invincibility of the faith through your own patience, and, when necessary, through suffering, as to torment others for your favorite opinions: then beware; and this disposition of spirit not so much does not encourage you with the joy that the saints found in suffering, as it threatens you with “grief”, which was foreshadowed by the imitators of those who beat the prophets. If you decorate the shrines of the righteous and saints with signs of reverence, and the Knower of the Heart sees untruth and iniquity entrenched in your heart: - beware, - “woe!” On the contrary, may God's blessing come to you, truly reverent worshipers of righteous tombs, when you, flowing to these holy tombs, sincerely desire to draw from them the spirit of truth and holiness, for your inner justification and sanctification; when, approaching incorruptible bodies, you try no less to get closer to the blessed spirits who animated them, through obedience to their intact teaching, through imitation of their pure life, through the communication of the grace given to them from God, when, with the love of the spirit, kissing the remnants of the departed saints, with the same love you open your arms to everything good and holy, which, according to The grace of God still appears in living people. May the grief of hypocrisy pass us all by! May the blessing of sincere reverence and love for all that is holy visit us! Amen. You might be interested in: