489. Слово во вторник недели о слепом 971

(Said during a visit to the city of Klin in the local Cathedral, May 21) It is fitting for me to do the works of Him who sent Me, while it is day: night will come when no one can do it (John 9:4). In passing I find myself in this God-saved city, and although with desire I hasten to the end of the journey, what kept me here was the memory that for eight years now I have been among you for the seventh time, and I have still enjoyed very little of your communication. Another memory also attracts me to the Christ-loving inhabitants of this city: in these years, your zeal for the church was marked by new activity, in awakened concern for the church, which was built for a long time; What excites me most is the word of Christ the Savior, Who gave Himself the rule, and taught us, even His unworthy servants, to “do the works” of His embassy “until the day is”, not to miss the time to do something according to His will, for the glory of His name. For this reason, after communicating with you, if possible in prayer and sacrament, I now begin to communicate in the word and teaching of our common salvation. And for your excitement, if God grants, I will use the same word that now excites me. “It is fitting for me,” says the Lord, “to do the works of Him who sent Me, until it is day; the night will come when no one can do anything. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:4–5). In order to extract from this saying an instruction useful to each of us, let us note, firstly, that the Lord arouses Himself to action that saves mankind on an occasion suddenly encountered in passing. “I walked past,” the Holy Evangelist prefaces, “seeing a man blind from birth” (John 9:1). The blind man sat and begged for alms. The Lord Jesus passed by. It is not visible that the blind man called upon Him or asked for healing. There seemed to be no reason to stop, no obligation to act. But the Lord stops and says: “It is fitting for me to do this.” Why is this so? Because goodness motivates; because philanthropy calls; because there is an opportunity to do a good deed; because a good deed that can be done at the present hour should not be postponed until another, for which there is or will be a deed: because an opportunity for good can pass, and with the lost opportunity the good to which it was favorable would be lost. Notice how Christ works; and learn how a Christian should act. There is little need to say that you should not pass by a beggar or otherwise unfortunate person without helping him, if you can do so, and that you should not wait for screams and tears when the very sight of misfortune speaks without words about the need for help. This rule is both understandable and pleasant to the unhardened heart. Enough to mention this. There is a matter more important, more general, more close to each of us, which cannot be sufficiently reminded so that we do not miss the favorable cases for it. Did God the Father send one Christ, did Christ choose only the Apostles to do the works of Him who sent them? And you, whoever you are, was not sent into this world by God, your Creator and Seer of your ways? And if you sent it, then didn’t He who sent you also give you the work to do, Who, being wise in great and small things, does nothing without a good purpose! What is this matter? Christ, the Son of God, was sent by God the Father; Christ chose the Apostles to do the work of saving all human souls in general, or at least all who agree and desire to receive salvation; God sent you into this world, Christ called you into His Church to do the work of salvation, at least one of your own souls - a work that you will never do alone, by yourself, without Christ, but which Christ will not do without you, because He who created you gave you freedom, and also does not want to take away His gift, just as you do not want to lose your freedom. The Lord once proclaimed this matter to the Jews under a parable; about this they asked the Lord: “What shall we do, that we may do the works of God?” And they received a clear answer: “This is the work of God, that you may believe in Him, His messenger” (John 6:28–29). We, walking the common path of earthly life for everyone, usually go towards some goal of our own. For the most part, through work and care they go to gain food and contentment; having reached this, they continue the path to wealth; the rich strive for nobility; and for others, life is like a long walk, not directed towards any goal other than the search for various pleasures. We, companions, need to look around to see if any of us has passed by our own soul, left it without care, without attention, isn’t your inner man sitting like a blind man at the crossroads - isn’t he sitting in the darkness and shadow of death, not seeing the light of God, not the path of salvation, barely knowing the name of Christ the Savior, not experiencing the action of His saving power over himself? Christ the Savior does not pass by any of us: in His infinite wisdom, constantly marching towards countless goals of goodness and bliss for His various creatures, at the same time in His infinite mercy, He stops over each of us; appearing to those who do not seek Him, and finding those who do not ask about Him, He stands before each of us with ready saving help: but we are in our frivolity, or we do not recognize His closeness to us, or we ourselves run past Him; either we do not accept His help, or we do not preserve what we have accepted. Doesn’t the ever-speaking Word of God approach us internally, in our conscience, reproaching for evil and rejoicing after doing good? And we hear her reproaches, but for the most part we do not delve into the important matter of testing ourselves, repentance and decisive correction; We feel her affection for a good deed that we accidentally did, but we are not attracted to the constant exercise of virtue. Doesn’t Christ speak to us in the church, in His Divine Word, in the teaching of His saints, in the examples of their lives; Doesn’t He offer us His saving power in visible and tangible images of the sacraments, like a blind man, illuminating power in the clay of spitting. But how hastily we sometimes run from a brief hearing of the word of God to the long idle chatter of human conversations: with what inattention we leave aside the examples of the saints, as if another path of salvation is possible other than that proposed by Christ and His followers, or as if the true and safe path is easier to find in our own heads than to recognize by the footsteps and legends of those who passed along it! If we do not completely move away from the saving sacraments - and there are, unfortunately, those who are mistaken to this extreme, if, I say, we do not move away from the sacraments, then we approach much less often than those who are skilled in the matter of saving souls have betrayed us; and having received holy communion, we do not constantly continue the work of our sanctification, but interrupt and destroy it with new defilements. After a short-term bath of repentance, we fall into the same sinful impurities for a long time. The daily call of the minister of the Lord's Table to approach it with the fear of God and faith, for the most part remains in vain. Living with feelings that are too open to the earthly, and at the same time too closed to the heavenly, we almost do not know the heavenly taste, we almost do not feel the Divine nutrition, no doubt characteristic of this meal, at which Life Itself feeds into eternal life, while the taste for the decaying food, and dulled by time and immoderation, daily directs us to the meals of seduction and intemperance, at which Their zealous participants consume their health and their future years with delicious dishes. Thus, for the work of saving our souls, not only do we not catch cases with insightful and constant observation, but we also use constant means only accidentally and inattentively. How long has it been like this? What we need, and the sooner, the better, the more decisively, the more useful, is to stop ourselves on the paths of the world, to rise from the flesh to the spirit and to the Savior of all souls Himself, to cut off unnecessary worries about insignificant matters that will burn with the earth on which they are done, to arouse ourselves to the active concept of our immortal soul, to make it a rule of activity that of all the affairs in the world the most important and the most necessary are the deeds that take place between God and the soul - the deed of repentance, the deed of faith, the deed of prayer, the deed of our spiritual Enlightenment and sanctification. Another remarkable circumstance that preceded the Lord’s saying about the saving work is that he stopped the apparently important conversation about the destinies of God that the Apostles had begun. When they saw the man born blind, they asked the Lord: for whose sins was this man destined to be born so miserably? Is it for his sins, or his parents? The question, apparently, is worthy of thorough research and resolution, since it tends to justify the ways of Providence, as a precaution against unbelief, or murmuring. But the Lord in a few words rejects both plausible guesses: “neither this one has sinned, nor his parent,” and with even more intense brevity marks the discovery of God’s true intention: “that the works of God may be revealed in him” (John 9:3). This answer gave rise to a new question: why did he suffer before the works of God appeared on him? But the Lord did not allow the competition to continue, and immediately added: “It is fitting for me to do the works of Him who sent Me,” and after this he began the very work of healing the blind man. This quick transition from reasoning to action, this noticeable effort to say as little as possible, it seems to me, told the Apostles a lot. I hear something similar to the following here: “you want to justify the destinies of God; God has little need of human justification; will justify Him in everything, His own final judgment and eternity; it is not a competition about fate that the unfortunate person needs, but help; the one born blind will justify his fate when he receives sight, and at the same time spiritual enlightenment; Christ did not appear to satisfy the curious, but to save the perishing; as few words as possible, and as many deeds as possible; as little curiosity as possible, and as much benefit as possible. “It is fitting for me to do.” Not only the Apostles needed this kind of instruction. And we may often need something like this to further excite us to the work of saving our souls. People who think that they are more selective than others in engaging in this matter, how many questions they ask that hinder themselves rather than help the cause! How could the first fall of the ancestors happen? How did we inherit their sin and its punishment? How does the death of Jesus Christ on the cross atone for all sins and destroy all their consequences? If everyone allows himself to go into such preliminary research, you can get so confused in them that you will not get to the point. But following the example of Christ, everything can be resolved briefly. You see that there is sin in the world; You yourself feel that you live in sin. And how the death of Christ on the cross heals from sin, and frees from the wrath of God and from eternal condemnation: go and find out by experience. Repent, believe, and begin to lead a Christian life. "It's the right thing to do." How many more questions about various details of the saving work! Someone, for example, talks a lot about the best way to pray, and prays very little. He enters into proceedings about old and new sacred and church books: but he understands neither one nor the other and does not do what both of them equally command. Beloved! The sacred and church books are all old, because there is nothing in the world older than true Christianity in its essence, but they are also all new, because they proclaim a new man and renew life. Take those of them that are closest, and best of all those that the church offers, and do not argue over Slavic words and writings, of which the oldest are far from being as old as the faith itself, and the newest depict the same ancient apostolic and paternal faith, try to enter into the spirit of Scripture, most of all, hold on to the faith of the one Word, which is not older, since It “was in the beginning ... with God” (John 1:1 ), and there is no newer, since He will create everything new, that is, Jesus Christ our Savior, but to hold on to Him, and testify to faith in Him, not by one oral confession, not by one sign of the sign, but by actual adherence to His teaching and life, by constant heartfelt prayer to Him, by love for His sacraments, by obedience to His Church. If you doubt whether you know how to pray, pray more diligently, as you know how: the work itself teaches you how best to do it, and the Heavenly Father, seeing your constancy in the feat of prayer, will not forsake “sending into your heart the Spirit of His Son... crying: Abba Father” (Gal. 4:6), and bringing to perfection the work of prayer. "It's the right thing to do." The third edifying circumstance of the Lord’s saying about saving work for us is that He excited Himself to work, despite the foreseeable difficulties on the part of people. The Holy Evangelist narrates that when the Lord accomplished the work to which He excited Himself, that is, healed the man born blind, the Jews persecuted the Healer to death, among other things, because He did this on the Sabbath day, which was then a holiday; for the teachers of the law deduced from this that Jesus did not respect holidays, although, however, it is not difficult to understand that if a day is sacred only by the remembrance of God’s past blessings, then how much more is it sacred by the present miraculous blessing of God; such an unfavorable consequence of the work of Christ, no doubt, was before the eyes of His omniscience, when He was still getting down to business: and, it seems, why not postpone it until the next day? It seems that little would have been lost if the blind man had received his sight one day later, and the temptation had been averted, or at least the slander had not been given a reason. Such reasoning is considered prudence among the sons of men, but, of course, the Son of God saw madness in it when he did not follow it. It is even noticeable that it was against this imaginary prudence that He directed his speech to the Apostles. “The works of God will appear,” he says, “on him,” that is, on a man blind from birth. And when? As soon as possible. The Jews will say: it would be better if tomorrow, and they will be angry if today. But anticipating this difficulty will not stop the undertaking. Works entrusted by God cannot be put off to please people. These must be fulfilled immediately and without fail, while there is time. “It is fitting for me to do the works of Him who sent Me, until the day is.” Isn’t it right, Christian, that it behooves you to do things pleasing to God zealously and without neglect, and at this time not to look at how others think about you for this, what they demand of you, or how they treat you? The prevailing way of thinking and custom today is hardly as much armed for the strict observation of holidays as against this observation. You would like, perhaps, to spend the holidays in prayer and reverence, as it should be according to the concept and purpose of the holidays, but only a few hours of the holiday morning are second to you for this, and for almost the entire day they call you to participate in communities and amusements that are completely worldly and vain, if not completely sinful; and if you refuse, you have reason to fear that you will seem strange, and even suspicious, what will you do? What will you decide on? Oh, if only you were sensible enough to say to yourself: it is fitting for me always, and all the more necessary on the Lord’s Day, to do deeds pleasing to the Lord! Oh, if only you were strong enough to turn these words into action! But in order not to continue the word too much, let us hasten to draw attention to the fact that the Lord also hastens with His saving work. For the words: “It is fitting for me to work until there is day,” what do they mean if not this: I must act and not delay; You cannot put off your current affairs until another day, or even until late in the evening; you must hurry in order to prevent the approaching night by completing them. “The night will come when no one can do anything.” What do you say, Lord? Should you hasten and worry about any day? Is it you, whose days are countless, whose “years... will not fail” (Ps. 101:28), who created all the days, who has all eternity for your wonderful works! What day is there that can contain Your works? What is the night that could threaten Your day? The Lord explains His parable when he adds: “When I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:5). The presence of the sun determines the day for those living on earth, and especially the working day for those who work the earth, or build a house: so the presence on earth of the sun of righteousness, God revealed in the flesh, determines the special day of Divine work. The night after this day is the time of suffering and death of Christ. Oh, the night in which truly “no one can do!” During the earthly day of Christ, not only He, but also His Apostles, taking over from this Great Worker, did and did a lot: they believed in Him, followed Him, leaving everything; they confessed His Divinity, preached the kingdom of heaven, healed the sick, cast out demons. Everything was interrupted when the terrible night came, until the best day of the resurrection of Christ. “The night when no one else can do anything.” The Lord truly had to do a lot, firmly establish His works, skillfully complete them, so that this stormy night would not completely destroy everything that He had created. And the Lord, having foreseen this, hastened, “to do it until there is day.” Do you see, short-day son of time, how the Eternal Himself protects the time that you so carelessly waste? He will not touch the work of your salvation; and you are procrastinating on this matter, your own! He is in a hurry, and you are delaying! In the morning you say: I’ll start work at noon; at noon you also make yourself a promise for the evening, in the evening you still postpone it from hour to hour, until the last. In your youth you say: I will think about the soul in the years of reason and maturity; in mature years, more entertained than before by the vanity of the world and the cares of life, you calm yourself with the hope that in old age you will certainly live for God and for your soul; old age comes, and you again seduce yourself with the thought that you can still bring pure repentance during your last illness. So morning, noon, and evening disappear, and after this, of course, it is already very likely that you, unprepared, will be overtaken by the mortal “night when no one can do anything.” Would you trust your day laborer if he, without working in the morning, promised you to do everything in the afternoon that he would have done in the morning? But you believe in yourself incomparably more recklessly when you promise to do from half of your life all the good that you would have done from the beginning throughout its entire continuation. Do not point out to me the robber who, at the very west of his day, did more than another did in his whole day. Such success is not very reliable, because it is very rare, and perhaps it is not given easily, but only to such people who, in their past life, worldly in its main phenomena, had some deeds that secretly attracted grace. But here is what is known much more accurately: the day of the earth always ends in the evening; and therefore, he who has lost the morning can have some hope in the evening to return what was lost: and the day of human life is often before the evening, often before noon, the night of death suddenly ends. In this case, where will the hopes of those who postpone go, if not into hellish night, in which no one can do what was not done during the day of earthly life, which has passed irrevocably. Moreover, one should not lose sight of the fact that the special opportuneness of doing some good deeds sometimes meets its end even before the end of life. Now, for example, you live in abundance; do not hesitate to do deeds of mercy, “until there is day”: maybe literally the next night a thief, or fire, or another accident will make it so that you will no longer be able to “do for yourself other wickedness from mammon, but when you become poorer” with other virtues, “they will receive you into eternal shelter” (Luke 16:9). May Jesus Christ Himself, the Divine Mentor, instruct each and every one of us to do deeds that are pleasing to God and useful to our immortal soul, “until there is day,” and bring them to perfection so that they can follow with us, and penetrate with us through the night of death until a new, better, non-evening day of blessed resurrection and eternal life. Amen. In the collection of 1848 there was placed the Word at the consecration of the church in the Eye Hospital, in places literally identical with this word, but with major changes and additions, in view of which we print both, each in its own place. 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