50. Беседа 279 о упокоении труждающихся и обремененных

(Printed in the 1844 and 1848 collections). Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28. Do you hear the call: should anyone go to this call? They call upon “those who labor and are heavy laden”: are there any here? Or is it easy and not difficult for us, and therefore we don’t care about this calling? They promise to “put to rest”: does anyone need peace? Or it’s not worth the trouble to go after him; Do we want joy, fun, fun? Let's ask a little differently: do you want to be prosperous? Without a doubt, no one will renounce this. But what do you call the state of mind of a prosperous person? It seems to me that there is no more decent name for this than one of two: calm, joy. But the effect of joy common on earth is similar to the effect of wine; the state of joy is a state of rapture; but the intoxication does not last long, and leaves behind a feeling of deprivation, or even burden. Calmness is the state of a healthy and sober soul; it is not felt as vividly as joy, but for that it is more constant. So, do not be angry, lovers of joy, fun, fun: we wish - and we think that for your well-being we are obliged to wish you - more peace of mind than joy, fun, fun. And whoever has so accustomed his taste to earthly joys finds joy so easily, so tirelessly replaces work with amusements, that he does not place tranquility at any price: for him, although perhaps this may already seem too harsh, we even wish him to somewhat experience the state of the “toiling and burdened.” In this severity of desire, we imitate a certain, but very benevolent husband: “fulfill”, so he prayed to God - fulfill “their faces of dishonor, and they will seek Your Name, Lord!” (Ps.82:17) But perhaps the state of those who are toiling and burdened is neither rare nor alien to many of us: and in this case, we need to seek peace 280, and we must hasten to the Reposer. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden,” cried the Lord Jesus, when the Jews among whom He was preaching were before His eyes. What kind of yoke could He see on them that would hinder them, and a burden that would aggravate them? - Firstly, the burden of sins, under which the strong King of Israel fainted like a slave suffering pain in his bones from carrying weights disproportionate to his strength: “there is no peace in my bones,” He said, “from my face is the sin; for my iniquities have exceeded my head; like a heavy burden weighs heavily on me” (Ps. 37:4-5). Secondly, the yoke of the law of Moses, which the Apostle Peter specifically calls a yoke, “which,” He says in explaining this name, “neither our fathers nor we were able to bear with might” (Acts 15:10); whose burden, in the last days of Judaism, was doubled and tripled by the teachings and commandments of men from the scribes and Pharisees; “They bind,” says the Lord about them, “burdens that are heavy and burdensome to bear, and they lay them on the blanket of men” (Matthew 23:4). Thirdly, the yoke and burden of many and various evils and troubles that lay on the Jewish people in general, and that fell on many of them individually: for example, the yoke of pagan power, from under which, although the proud Jews tried to lay down their heads and cry out: “We are the seed of Abraham, and the work of no one” (John 8:33), but which nevertheless weighed on them them, and rose above their heads, since it lay even on their High Priesthood, and on the very vestments of the High Priest, which the Romans kept locked in their fortress; – the yoke of the Synagogue, which persecuted those who professed the truth, which was not pleasing to its prejudices and lust for power; - finally, the private burdens of poverty, oppression from the powerful, unjust judgment, illness, and sorrow. The Lord Jesus Christ called everyone to Himself with such and similar burdens, burdened with difficulties, tired of difficulties: and therefore He called everyone without exception; because God “the Father sent” His “Savior to the world” (1 John 4:14), and not to one people or time, because “His words will not pass away” even when “heaven and earth pass away” (Mark 13:31); even now He still speaks, and He seeks among us “those who labor and are heavy laden,” and calls us to Himself. A man who knows his sin! Aren't you "toiling"? Aren't you "burdened"? Feeling a wounded conscience, don’t you intensify to run away from yourself, but with a fruitless effort: like a wounded tree running through the forest, but can no longer escape from the wound that it carries with it, but only becomes exhausted in strength? Don’t you sometimes rush around, like a fish that has swallowed a hook, with useless impulses: because the yoke that binds you and the burden that weighs you down is inside you? Isn’t it a sin for you, partly a burden; since the soul is burdened by the memory of what has been done; In part, the yoke deprives you of freedom, hampers you, exhausts you with habit, just as a working animal is tied, hampered, and exhausted by a yoke? If then, how you live in sin, you still do not know and do not feel the yoke and burden in it: so much the better. In this case, you are like a wild animal under a yoke and burden, which rushes along the rapids, and the less it experiences difficulties, the less it feels the heaviness, the sooner it can plunge into the abyss and completely perish: and therefore in this case, as was said before, it is better that you tangibly enter into the unpleasant state of “toiling and burdened”, rather than remain in a dangerous state of unbridledness. But you, who know your iniquity, like your yoke and burden, do not hesitate to recognize the hope of relief: “Come, you who labor and are heavy laden.” A man striving in virtue! Aren't you also "toiling"? And are you not “burdened”? True, if the lot of a sinner is a yoke and a burden, then the lot of virtue should be ease and freedom. But just as the yoke and burden of sin is felt after it has been committed, so virtue makes one feel lightness and freedom after it has already been committed. Is it easy to achieve perfection in it? Her path goes up the mountain; steep, narrow, strewn with thorns. And to know the path of spiritual perfection, and to really ascend along it, is already difficult because, as an experienced ascetic of wisdom and virtue says, “the corruptible body burdens the soul, and the earthly dwelling burdens the mind with many cares” (Wisdom 9:15). The body, in addition to being perishable, and therefore does not withstand all the stress of the immortal soul, but either delays it in its striving, or is in danger of being torn away from it and destroyed - in addition, it is infected with sin, bound by habits contrary to virtue: and also the mind, in addition to being entertained by worries about its earthly home, is also bound by prejudices, darkened and carried away by the passions of the heart, deceived by the ghosts of feelings and imagination. And how many more extraneous obstacles will there be to the achievement of virtue! The abundance of earthly blessings seduces, their lack tempts, examples lead astray; the wrong judgments of men cause stumbling; persecution is terrifying; where, apparently, the “warfare against flesh and blood” ends, the war begins again “against the principalities, and against the powers, and against the rulers of the darkness of this world, the spirit of wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). Whoever strives not only to get the crown of virtue from people, but in order to win a true, inner victory over passions and vices: he understands the complaints that we hear from the lips of one of the most zealous ascetics: “No good thing lives in me, that is, in my flesh. Even though I want it, I am diligent, but I do not achieve good deeds. It’s not because I want good that I do it, but because I don’t want evil, I do it. “I have now acquired the law, because I want to do good, as evil is due to me.” “I am a damned man” (Rom. 7:18–24). Know also you, for whom the very law of goodness is 281, like a burden on the back of the powerless, know both the need and the hope of your relief or strengthening: “Come, you who labor and are heavy laden.” A man beset by disaster, suffering, sadness! You do not need to be tested whether you are, and whether you consider yourself, among “those who labor and are heavy laden.” What you should be afraid of is not that you do not know this well enough, but that you do not feel it too much; and with the excess of this feeling, don’t you make it difficult for yourself to know the means of calming down? The only true remedy reveals itself to you; collect the remnants of wasted forces; come closer to recognize and accept it: “Come, you who labor and are heavy laden.” “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I,” says Jesus Christ, “I will give you rest.” The refuge is true! The haven is safe! Help is omnipotent! All-conquering protection! Relief from heaven! Peace Divine! Just come. Just don't renounce. Jesus Christ lightens those burdened with the burden of sins: for even though the sins of the whole world lie on you, He lifts all this burden from you, transfers it to Himself, and thereby destroys it. “Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). If you are overcome by sin: the Lamb of God overcomes it in you. If you are sold under sin: it redeems you. If you are bound by sin like a yoke: it gives you permission. If you fall under the burden of sin: it raises you up. Even if you are killed by sin: God, who raised Christ, will “make you alive through your sins through Christ” (Eph. 2:5); “The blood of Christ, which you offer to yourself without blemish to God through the Holy Spirit, will cleanse your conscience” from dead works, so that you may serve “the living and true God” (Heb. 9:14). Jesus Christ gives rest to those who labor under the yoke of the law, those who, striving in virtue, experience the burden and obstacles of the feat more than the successes of it, and with its continuation, they seem to be more exhausted than able: for Christ, God's power and God's Wisdom, gives both the light of pure knowledge and the power of perfect fulfillment, and the feat makes it easier, and the ascetic strengthens, and obstacles He takes away, and sends help, and guides us through dangers harmlessly, and defeats our enemies within us, and crowns His victory in us. The ascetic who recently, in exhaustion, almost without hope, cried out: “I am a damned man!” approaches Christ, and no longer finds in himself any other feeling other than gratitude to Him for his peace: “I thank my God,” he exclaims, “Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom.7:24–25) To those who strive with Christ, “the commandments of God are not grievous” (1 John 5:3). “For Christ’s yoke is good, and His burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). With Him, even the most powerless can say: “I can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). Jesus Christ eases and gives peace to the needy, the suffering, the sad: for not only, as a deliverer, He can always avert or stop a disaster, stop suffering, destroy the cause of sadness; but, as the perfect conqueror of evil, in the very realm of evil establishing His own kingdom of good, He can, in the midst of disaster itself, open in a person a sense of well-being, dissolve suffering itself with pleasure, give sadness itself a taste of joy. This is his business, that Job, after the innocent loss of his property and children, blesses God, and in an unbearable illness, on a rotten spot, does not agree to grumble; that Peter, in prison and in chains, sings the all-night hymn as if on a holiday; that Paul rejoices in his suffering; that Cyprian, in response to his own death sentence, responds: “Glory to God!” Such, Christians, is truly the heavenly, and before death, immortal and blessed “peace of our souls,” which is “found” in Christ (Matthew 11:29); and which to seek, if we had not been enlightened by our own need, then our all-good and all-merciful Savior Himself seeks and calls us all to give us His peace. We can say that we have already been brought, and are repeatedly brought, to the rest of our souls in Christ: when we are brought to Him by baptism, and every time we come to Him in prayer, in repentance, in the communion of His Body and Blood. So what? Have we tasted this peace? Have we retained and do we retain the power of onago? Or are we again restless, again “toiling and burdened”? How long? Is it possible that Christ, who has called us in vain for so long, will finally leave those who do not heed or who are fickle; but on the contrary, hell, for the pleasure of which we labor in vanity and are burdened with sins, will come and say: you have worked hard for me and carried my burdens; Now come, I will give you rest as I know: I will lay a never-quenching fire under you, and cover you with a never-dying worm? Let us better follow, brethren, the gracious calling of Christ; Let's stop postponing; let us follow resolutely; Let's stop going back. “Let us be afraid,” I say with the Apostle, “lest, when I have left the promise to bring Him into His rest, someone who has been deprived of you will appear” (Heb. 4:1). “Today,” said the Holy Spirit “while still in David”; - “today,” He said several centuries later in Paul; - God’s long-suffering is marvelous, that even now there is still time to say: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 3:7). “Let us “come” from now on to Christ with zealous and undeviating adherence to His teaching and life; “Let us enter into His rest with heartfelt, living and active faith, preceded by the ascetics of faith and virtue who have existed from the ages, true followers of Jesus Christ, who from every yoke and earthly burden found with Him heavenly rest, to which they also invite us by their example, and together with them we glorify the One Reposer and “Savior of all men, especially the faithful” 283. Amen. According to Jew. collection: Homily in memory of our Venerable and God-bearing Father Sergius, the Wonderworker of Radonezh, spoken at the Trinity Cathedral of St. Sergius Lavra on September 25, 1825. According to Jew. collection: and to learn the means of calming... To the collection. 1844 it follows: like a yoke for the untrained,... According to Jew. collection: disastrous... According to Jew. collection: preceding us and motivating us with the example of this strong ascetic of faith and virtue, this true follower of Jesus Christ, who has rested in Him from every yoke and burden, from every evil and calamity, so that He also gives us from the abundance of His grace-filled peace abundantly to the glory of the Supreme Reposer and “Savior of all men, especially the faithful.” You might be interested in: