497. Слово в день рождения Благочестивейшего Государя Императора Николая Павловича всея России

(Spoken in the Moscow Great Assumption Cathedral, June 25th) Grant us, without fear, those who have been delivered from the hand of our enemies, to serve Him with honor and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives. (Luke 1:73–75). The soul of the person who uttered these words is worthy of looking into its interior through these very words. Naturally unexpected, unusually predicted, the birth of a son, Zechariah finally sees it happening in the very fact. Having been mute for nine months, he affirms in writing for the newborn, the unfamiliar and disputed name of John, that is, “the one with grace”: and, having made amends for the guilt of unbelief, for which he was punished by muteness, with this act of faith, he immediately receives the use of the tongue. At this time his soul is filled with pure joy; pure joy is permeated with heavenly inspiration; his nine-month silent thoughts turn into living feelings and premonitions; all this pours out together from the overflowing soul: Zechariah says; and the Spirit of God prophesies in him. What did Zechariah long in his long life desire; then he finally foresees correctly and closely: and therefore, for what he would have prayed at another time, he now thanks and blesses God: “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel.” What is it that Zechariah desired so much that he anticipates its fulfillment with delight? “Deliverance for people is salvation from enemies” (Luke 1:68, 71): - it is not difficult to recognize the dignity of these desires, whether to accept these words in a simple, natural sign, or in the highest one, which faith gives. But what else does Zechariah desire as the further goal of these, however noble, desires, as the most gracious gift of God? - “Give us, without fear, having been delivered from the hand of our enemies, to serve Him in honor and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives” (Luke 1:73-75). Please pay careful attention to how he thinks and feels. “Delivering people” from various evils and troubles is very desirable; But this is not the end of desires. “Salvation from the enemy” is very necessary; You just can’t stop there. These righteous and humane desires must lead to one more desire, just as the race leads to the goal: - so that we, delivered from evils, saved from enemies, without fear, without obstacles, in peace of conscience, in freedom of spirit from passions, can serve God with reverence and truth, with holiness worthy of Divinity, and with virtue worthy of humanity. This is the heart of a true righteous man! This is the spirit of the man of God! Here is a soul in which God can live, and which is worthy to live in God and His bliss! But what is this instruction for now? - perhaps those who hear will say. “I think that the instruction I made is suitable for something at any time: let’s see if it can’t now be especially used in favor.” We are now celebrating one of the blessed births - the birth of a baby, Whom people for a long time saw only as a porphyry-born, not being able to say, “What shall this be?” Since this predestination has been accomplished; since He, by His very accession to the throne, brought “deliverance to people” from evils and troubles, the end of which would have been difficult to foresee if they had not been stopped at the beginning; since in the days of His reign, not yet many, He acquired for us not only “salvation from the enemy,” but also glorious victories over them: therefore we can learn from Zechariah his joy and praise: “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for you have visited and created deliverance for your people, and raised up the horn of salvation for us.” (Luke 1:68–69). But since we still see a remnant of enemies, we see with greater sorrow that these tares have grown next to our wheat in the field that we cultivated; Since there are also disasters that are still inevitable by human hands, from which people need deliverance, we now need not only thanksgiving and glorification, but also prayers and petitions to God. So, I invite you, brothers, to imitate the righteous desires and saving prayers, which I showed you as a model in the righteous Zechariah. Wish people to be delivered from evils and troubles: a natural and humane desire! Pray for salvation from enemies, unrighteous and evil, perjurers and therefore godless: righteous and beneficial prayer! But when praying for the well-being of the Tsar and the people, for the safety of each and every one, do not stop your thoughts and desires on the good only visible, bodily, earthly, temporary, but extend them to the invisible, spiritual, heavenly, eternal; desire above all to serve God with holiness and virtue; pray to Him to “give us, without fear, having been delivered from the hand of our enemies, to serve Him in honor and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives.” Crown your good desires with this sublime desire; and to those, both the Good and the Righteous God, imagine the convenience of crowning your desires with desired events. Is it necessary to prove that the desire to serve and please God should be the fundamental and main desire of a person, the beginning and end of all his desires? “Whoever knows God hardly needs to prove this; and whoever needs to prove this can at least suspect that he hardly knows God.” Whoever knows that there is a Tsar and a subject: for this reason he also knows that the duty to serve the Tsar is incomparably higher and stronger than the duty to serve any of the subjects, and that it is incomparably more desirable to serve the Tsar Himself than a subject. How much more, he who knows God over creation cannot but know that the duty to serve and please God is without comparison higher and more powerful than all the duties related to creatures, and that therefore the work of this service, both in desire and in execution, should be preferred to all possible human activities. People love to think, or at least dream, about sublimity, about the superiority of their nature. We will not now examine whether this comes from deep understanding or from unfounded pride. Be that as it may: you are so wise that you understand how “as a little thing man has become less than the angels,” and how he is prepared “for a crowning with glory and honor” (Ps. 8:6), marvelous for the angels themselves; or are you so proud that you want to somehow hide the ignoble side of your common race, your low affinity with dust and dirt, from yourself with higher views of your nature and views of its high purpose: be one or the other; just be in agreement with yourself: knowing yourself, by nature and by purpose, closer to God than other creatures, or although dreaming of being so, do not contradict, do not oppose this closeness with your spiritual dispositions, inclinations, desires, deeds; gods - if you wish, for the truth of God is not afraid to give you this name, not as food for pride, but for healing from vice: “I am a god, you are a god; ...the words of the gods were spoken by them, and the word of God came to them” (John 10:34–35); - So, gods, I tell you, do not place yourselves lower than despised idols; do not turn into idolaters of Mammon, Astarte, Baal, that is, greed, luxury, love of power; do not “serve these creatures more than the Creator, who is blessed forever” (Rom. 1:25); do not move away from heavenly things, pursuing earthly things; do not lose sight of God and His will when you seek yourself and your own pleasure or benefit; do not forget the infinite when thinking about the insignificant. I believe that many warn me in these reflections, and say in their thoughts: we undoubtedly recognize the incomparable importance of the duty to serve God, both because of the superiority of His being, and because of our dependence on Him in everything, because of the debt of gratitude to His continuous and countless benefits, and finally, because of the hope of the blessed reward promised to those who piously serve Him. Very well, the truth is satisfied with this recognition of it in thought or in word: only it needs another satisfaction: this truth requires the heart, it requires deeds. “Show me your faith by your works.” (James 2:18). Yes, they say, it is true that we cannot show many of the deeds of our service to God: but do God need them? On the contrary, we always have many needs; and therefore, is it possible to judge us strictly for the fact that we have served ourselves a lot, and are much concerned with creatures? “Many of us probably don’t have to go far to overhear such an excuse for not serving God enough.” Listen now. If any servant Tsarev began to reason like this: “The king of numerous subjects has little need for my service; and I have my own affairs; I will enjoy the Tsar’s salary, if possible, and the Tsar’s favor and honors, but I will not care much about the Tsar’s service”: what would you think of such a person? Wouldn't they consider him ignoble-minded, ungrateful, unfaithful to his King? Is it not these very reproaches, incomparably with greater severity, that are deserved by those who, taking advantage of the continuous and countless blessings of God, do not care about the deeds of serving God, turning truth for themselves into a means of deception - the lofty thought of God’s all-will as an excuse for low laziness? God, the all-sufficient one, truly has no need of your service: but don’t you also need to serve Him? How will you become capable of participating in the kingdom of God? How will you prepare for heavenly life? Will this really be done through carnal deeds, worldly pursuits, or through complete idleness? Christians! Children of the Gospel! Remember how the Gospel began: the message: “the kingdom of heaven is drawing near” (Matthew 4:17). Remember the commandment of the Gospel: “seek... first of all the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33). Remember the Gospel prayer to the Heavenly Father: “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10). What does this mean? Has not God reigned from eternity? Does he not reign from now on and forever? Is not His dominion in every place? So this King is eternal and sovereign: but those destined for His kingdom are temporary and are not always ready to partake of His kingdom. The kingdom of heaven was far away, when people almost did not know the true God, and served outwardly idols, and internally their passions and lusts; the kingdom of heaven drew near when the knowledge and grace of God the Father was revealed in His Only Begotten Son and in His Holy Spirit; the kingdom of God is sought and called, because although God reigns, people are still learning to serve Him, and are still preparing for the blessed communion of His Kingdom; The Kingdom of God will come when people chosen for this will succeed in serving God, and will be perfect in approaching Him in such a way that “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” will reign unhindered in all (Rom. 14:17), and untruth, warfare, every earthly burden, every hellish sorrow will lose all their power against them, “let there be” finally “all God in all” ( 1 Corinthians 15:28). You see that in the Gospel, in true Christianity, in the Orthodox Church, everything is about the kingdom of God, and therefore about the feat and perfection of serving God, because it is not the kingdom that is lacking on the part of God, but on the part of man, complete submission and service to God, through which God gives the grace and glory of His kingdom to people. So, Christians, children of the Gospel and the church, seekers and heirs of the kingdom of God, beware lest in seeking your own earthly pleasures and benefits, as if it were your own kingdom, you act against the holy title that you bear, and against the rights and ways of the kingdom of God, which you seek and which you call upon in prayer. If you desire and ask from God security for idle carelessness, abundance for luxury, strength for unrighteous dominance, honor for contempt for others, freedom for self-will, and not in order to use them as means and methods for doing good to humanity, for serving God and His kingdom: then you demand that God do good to you against the benefits of His own kingdom. Is it surprising if such desires and requests are not fulfilled? - “You ask and do not receive; you ask evilly, but depend on your desires” (James 4:3). Brethren! In our day there is a special need to point out such an obvious duty of service to God and His kingdom. “Behold, darkness covers the earth, and darkness is upon the tongues” (Is. 60:2). Christian peoples, or, to be more specific, people who are allowed to be the language of these peoples, representatives and proclaimers of their wisdom, directors of their activities, for the most part not only do not know, but what is much worse, do not want to know Christianity; they do not seek the kingdoms of the earth, do not call upon the kingdom of God, and pay less attention to it than to the kingdom of the last of their neighbors. They make new decrees for themselves, not based on the Divine decrees, with such strength as is characteristic of buildings without a foundation: their structures collapse in their eyes; however, they do not notice what the shortcoming is, and erect others that are no more reliable. These builders of the new Babylon are working to confuse everything, so that, having refuted accepted social concepts, established on the very truth of things, or strengthened by custom and antiquity, they end up not understanding each other. They want kings who are not sanctified by the King of those who reign; rulers enslaved by their subjects; on the contrary, they attribute royal and autocratic power to the people, that is, they assign the position of head to the hands or feet, and this position is fulfilled as correctly as this order is correct; Their people are ruled by rebellions, sedition, robberies, robberies, and burnings; and the fruit worthy of this imaginary autocracy of the people is the absence of public and private security. Thus “the heathen are tottering” because “they are taught in vain”; because in their unblessed congregations “they gather together ... against the Lord and against His Christ.” But for this reason the Lord is already “tormenting them with His wrath; like crooked vessels, he crushes them” (Ps. 2:1–2, 5, 9), and will not cease to crush until “they will demand... the remaining people" (Amos.9:12) of Him and His kingdom. Brethren! Let us hasten to fully render the inalienable glory to the King of Heaven on earth, still looking towards the eternal East, not yet enveloped in the darkness of the West, not yet mixed with the confusion of Babylon. Let us seek God with all our hearts and diligently fulfill His Holy Commandments; let us strive to affirm and maintain our prosperity on the basis of the kingdom of God; and for this sake, again and again, often and relentlessly, let us beg God to “give us without fear,” with the sacred hand of His Anointed One, “to those who have been delivered from the hand of our enemies, to serve Him in honor and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives.” Amen. You might be interested in: