Беседа на вечерне, в первый день Пасхи

Christ is Risen! (John 20:19–25). The Gospel story, brothers, which you have just heard, is quite intelligible in itself, and does not require lengthy explanations. But you heard it according to the legend of the Evangelist John; and the Evangelist Luke also has it, with some additions that are very instructive. Moreover, in order to completely understand the spirit of the event you heard, it is very useful to know what preceded it and what followed it. Therefore, you will not be bored, brothers, if you hear from me a repetition of the Gospel story, with all the circumstances. What better way to spend these minutes than on such an interview? The Lord spent the entire end of this day talking with the disciples; and we, His disciples, although at the present hour, will talk about Himself. If He promised to be present whenever two or three were gathered in His name (Matthew 18:20); then all the more so it cannot but be now in our so numerous congregation. Therefore, let us talk as if the Risen One Himself was now invisibly looking here at both the preacher and those listening; that is, we will talk in the spirit of living faith and love for Him, our Savior and Lord. I said, brothers, that in order to understand the present appearance of the Lord to the apostles, they need to know the previous circumstances. What preceded it? Firstly, the double appearance of the Lord in the morning to the Myrrh-Bearing Women, of which one followed in the midst of the funeral heliport itself, and the other not far from it, as we saw in our morning conversation: - then preceded by the appearance of the Lord to the Apostle Peter, about whom we know nothing from the Gospel, except that it was and should happen in Jerusalem, in the middle of this day (Luke 24:34); Finally, the appearance of the Lord preceded, at the end of the day, two disciples going to Emmaus, who, not recognizing Him on the way and, finally, recognizing Him in Emmaus - in the breaking of bread, immediately returned to Jerusalem with the news of this to the apostles. – All these phenomena, however, did not produce much faith for the present phenomenon. Regarding the news of the pious wives about the resurrection, the evangelist directly says that before the disciples “they appeared...as if their words were lies” (Luke 24:11). Excited by the tears of Magdalene, John and Peter went to the tomb of Jesus; They did not find the body of the Teacher there; by the strange position of His clothing they were led to different feelings - John to faith, Peter to surprise (Luke 24:12. John 20:8). When Peter himself saw the resurrected Teacher in the middle of the day, there could no longer be any doubt in him: but the other disciples still continued to vacillate between fear and joy, so that when the Emmaus wanderers entered the meeting of the apostles with the news of the Lord’s appearance to them: although from some they immediately heard, “For the Lord has truly risen and appeared to Simon” (Luke 24:34); but others, according to the testimony of the Evangelist Mark, do not discuss the topic of faith (Mark 16:13). – The lack of faith in those who, apparently, were most likely to believe the comforting news of the resurrection! But we must not forget, brothers, that there is a lack of faith from reluctance and coldness, and there is a lack of faith from love and joy. What is greatly desired is sometimes believed too soon, and sometimes not too soon; - depending on how they imagine what is expected - difficult or easy. And what could seem more difficult than rising from the grave, after such torment and such death? “We are now not at all in such difficult circumstances as the first disciples of the Gospel were in, but how weak our faith is sometimes and how little hope we have!” - Moreover, we should not complain, but rejoice, noticing the slowness of the apostles in believing in the resurrection of the Teacher; for this slowness now greatly blocks the lips of the enemies of our faith, showing that in its first heralds there was not a shadow of gullibility. “But it’s time to start the story itself.” Among all the perplexities and obstacles, the joyful news of the resurrection of the Teacher, during the day, however, managed to reach each of the disciples; and, despite their scattering throughout Jerusalem, by evening they, except one, were already all together. His own heart told everyone that the beloved Teacher would not hesitate to please all of them with His appearance, or with the new, undoubted news of His resurrection; and now, despite the deep darkness, suddenly, “Jesus Himself came and was in the midst!” (John 20:19) The doors were tightly closed for fear of the Jews; and, however, He is “one hundred in the midst” (John 20:19): for His most pure body was already above the laws of our bodily existence. - A glance at the beloved Teacher, Who just one day hung on the cross, among the villains, in the face of all Jerusalem, and now appeared completely alive, immediately filled everyone with heavenly joy: “The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord!” “But this joy was involuntarily dissolved by a feeling similar to fear. The body of the Lord was so spirit-like, and His appearance was so heavenly - with all the simplicity of the appearance, He was surrounded by such Divine greatness, the very image of the appearance, “the closed door,” was so wonderful that the disciples involuntarily thought: is this really their resurrected Teacher with His flesh? Was it not only His spirit that came from heaven to visit them for a while? And at the thought of a phenomenon from another world, my heart involuntarily trembled with fear. “Having feared...and being afraid, I saw the spirit” (Luke 24:37). “Peace be with you,” said the Lord, “not so much as a custom of greeting, but to reassure the disciples.” But, in doubt, they did not know how to respond to this world - and they remained silent. “Peace be with you,” He repeated, wanting to calm their emotional unrest. “Why are you troubled?... Why are thoughts entering your hearts?” (Luke 24:36,38). But the confusion was so great that words alone could not quickly dispel it. “You see My hands and My nose,” the Lord continued, “as if I Himself am: touch Me and see that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see Me having” (Luke 24:39). Having said this, the Lord showed His disciples His most pure hands and nose, with their sores, which remained on the resurrected body, as signs of the recently won victory over death. Such proof was beyond all doubt. But the human heart, brothers, often follows different laws than reason; sometimes it warns him in faith, and sometimes it lags behind him, agitated like the sea even when there is no longer any wind of doubt. There could now be no disbelief in the disciples, but there was also no complete calm confidence - first from sadness, and now from joy itself. Touching the body of the Lord seemed bold, but on the other hand, the gaze continued to say that this body was much more spiritual than the previous one, and that the doors continued to be closed. Everything in which bewilderment and faith could be combined was nothing more than joyful surprise: a state of spirit, perhaps even sweeter than a certain joy, but which now could not continue without harm to the truth. The love of the Risen One has found a means to put an end to this indecision. “And to those who do not believe with joy and wonder, I say to them: they have nothing to eat here?” (Luke 24:41). This should have served as a decisive sign that the visible body of the Teacher was not airy and not just a ghost, but the same one that hung on the cross and lay in the tomb. The disciples served “part of the baked fish and honeycomb” (Luke 24:42) - the remainder, probably, of their own supper; - The Lord tasted both of them - a taste, perhaps, similar to that with which God’s chosen ones will one day eat “from the fruit of the tree of the animal” and “from the hidden manna” (Rev. 2:7, 17). After this, the fear and bewilderment of the disciples ended; but the goal of the phenomenon was only half achieved. It was necessary not only to convince the disciples of the reality of the resurrection, but also to dispel their gloomy thoughts about past events - to remove the temptation from the cross in their eyes: - therefore, at the sensual meal, prepared for the Lord by the doubt of His disciples, the spiritual meal began, which He Himself arranged for us with His love. The main subject of the interview, as I said, brethren, should have been passing the cross - removing temptation from it. There were two ways to do this: firstly, revealing to the disciples those reasons and purposes for which the Lord suffered - showing the need for atonement for the sins of the world through the blood of the Son of God. This method, with all its firmness, could not be chosen now. The apostles could accept the mystery of redemption in all its details with dignity and preserve it not before the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them - when they, having abandoned their previous prejudices, became in the full sense organs of truth, vessels of universal grace. Now, to calm the worried minds and hearts, it was enough to show from the prophets that everything that happened, despite its horror, happened exactly as it was once predicted; and, therefore, it happened not at the whim of any Caiaphas, but at the will of the Heavenly Father. - This last method was used now. “These are the words that were spoken to you by those who were yet with you,” - this is how the Lord began to admonish the disciples. What happened that you would not have been notified of? “Didn’t I tell you many times, “that it is fitting that all that is written in the law of Moses and the prophets and psalms concerning me must come to an end”? (Luke 24:44). There were truly many such predictions of the Savior about future events, especially about His Cross: for we have many of them now in the Gospel, although it contains only one part of His conversations and deeds. Therefore, with a living reminder, many cases in which they heard predictions about the death of the Teacher should now come to life in the memory of the disciples. As for the reference to the prophets and psalms, although they were done repeatedly before, and no doubt with an explanation of the prophetic passages; but due to the very vastness and difficulty of this subject, they could not be so conveniently stored in memory. Therefore, the Lord has now made up for this deficiency with a new, detailed application to His death and resurrection of the most important prophecies of the Old Testament. Such a conversation, by its very essence, should have been one of the most majestic and instructive. Who better to preach about the necessity of the cross than the Great Crusader Himself? And where can the full breadth and depth of the prophecies about the cross be seen better than from the very height of the cross, from which He recently descended? But the real teaching about the cross was delivered to the universal teachers of the cross themselves; therefore it remained in them alone. We, their disciples, can now hear only echoes of it in those places in their writings where they cite various prophecies of the Old Testament about the death and resurrection of their Teacher. Just hearing “such” a Teacher, at “such” a time, could not help but introduce the apostles into the spirit of the Old Testament prophecies about the suffering of the Son of God, and into the spirit of suffering itself. But to complete the matter, for the great admonition of the disciples, the Lord, according to the legend of the Evangelist Luke, used one more means that could be completely understandable only to those on whom it was used; namely, he “opened” to the disciples “the mind to understand the scriptures” themselves (Luke 24:45). The Evangelist does not say what this mysterious revelation consisted of: but the expression itself shows that in this case something miraculous happened. Without a doubt, by the secret action of the power of Christ, the minds of the disciples were brought into such a state that they themselves became able to see in Scripture what they had not seen before - to understand clearly what had previously seemed dark. No matter how wonderful such an event is, brethren, some experiences testify to the most unbelievers that our mind is capable of being lifted up and opened to the truth by an alien force, so to speak. With such natural and supernatural aids to the understanding of the Cross of Christ from Scripture, it is not surprising if the disciples, according to the testimony of the evangelist, clearly saw, after a conversation with the Lord, “as it is written in Scripture, and thus it is fitting for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead” (Luke 24:46), and at the same time they understood another, equally important truth, as it is fitting “to preach in the name of the Risen One repentance and remission of sins,” not only in Judea, but “in all nations,” only “beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47). You,” the Lord said to the disciples at the conclusion of His conversation with them, “must be witnesses and heralds of these events and truths. “As the Father sent me, and I am sending you” (John 20:21), - for conversion to the path of salvation of the whole world. At these extremely important words - for they conveyed to the disciples the world-wide, Divine embassy - the Lord breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit! For whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven them: and whose sins you hold, they hold fast” (John 20:22–23). The disciples will be baptized in the spirit entirely by the Spirit Himself on the day of Pentecost: and now the beginning has been made and the foundation for this has been laid. During the terrible days of the death of the beloved Teacher, so many spirits of malice and doubt blew over them that their preliminary animation with the breath from His own lips was a necessary cure. The Evangelists do not say how the Lord departed from among the disciples for this. In all likelihood, the same as in other phenomena, that is, “he was invisible to them” (Luke 24:31). You see for yourselves, brethren, that the words and actions that concluded the present appearance of the Lord are such that he could be honored as the last meeting with the disciples. The purpose and position are indicated; the subject of work and preaching is assigned; gifts and powers are given and accepted; All that remained, apparently, was to begin to act in the name of the Crucified One. Meanwhile, the apostles still had new appearances ahead of them in Jerusalem and Galilee, and they still had other, probably very extensive conversations about the “Kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3); They still had time to receive the Spirit in tongues of fire; - and then go out into world service. Such uncertainty of the situation was allowed, as the Church Fathers guess, with a special intention - so that the apostles, not having an earthly Teacher, and not expecting previous guidance from Him, began to act in advance with their minds, and as soon as possible developed in their actions and lives the teaching and those rules that they were then supposed to convey to the whole world. When for the disciples, with joy at the appearance of their Teacher and the reception of the Holy Spirit from Him, the night itself became clearer than the day; for one of them, Thomas, all subsequent days turned into dark night. The apparent reason for this misfortune was that, during the present appearance, Thomas was not with the other disciples, and therefore did not see the Lord. It is not known why this absence occurred at a time when everything should have united the disciples. Lack of zeal can least of all be assumed in this case; but there could have been an indiscretion of love that missed a precious opportunity, and therefore suffered the eight-day punishment of deprivation. For others, with a calmer imagination and a quieter heart, such an incident would not have had an adverse effect: trust in ten disciples could easily replace the testimony of one’s own feelings. But Didim was not like that. In all cases where he appears in the history of the gospel (John 11:16, 14:5), we see in him a strong swiftness of feeling and a demanding mind. Both were expressed even more strongly now. To the joyful words of the disciples: “I have seen the Lord,” he decisively answered: “If I do not see the mark of the nails in his hand, I will put my finger into the marks of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I have no faith” (John 20:25). It was not disbelief in the testimony of his fellow disciples that the future apostle of India, without a doubt, wanted to express with these words (for was it possible to reasonably doubt the truth of the testimony?), but the desire for the strongest assurance of the reality of the phenomenon, especially that the body of the appeared Teacher was not a ghost. – Such a demand could have been prompted by the very story of the other disciples about how they first thought that the One who had appeared was a spirit, and how the Lord invited them to touch Him. To Thomas, who did not see the phenomenon, it seemed that this was exactly what had to be done to be completely sure; since this has not been done, the phenomenon, he thought, does not yet have full reliability. Meanwhile, at the basis of this speculation lay a secret grief over the loss of joy from the presence of the Teacher at the appearance. Bitter sorrow! For while others did not see the next days with joy, Thomas had to suffer greatly with his whole being, until, after eight days, the Lord appeared again and brought him out of the arbitrary hell of doubt. Thus, at the first meeting of the Risen One with His disciples, the remark with which He, even during separation from them, warned them against the spirit of darkness, was already justified in full force, saying that this murderer asks permission to “sow” them “like wheat” (Luke 22:31). Thomas, with his doubts and objections, was clearly close to falling out of the peaceful circle of his fellow disciples and becoming the subject of a terrible sowing. But the wise love of the Teacher will find a way to ward off this danger: Thomas will see the nail ulcers and forget the desire to touch them; fiery exclamation: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28), - will reward the cold words: “Unless I see, unless I put my hand in”; - ending with unshakable confidence, the short-term unbelief of the apostle will forever confirm the truth not only of the Resurrection of Christ, but also of the entire Christian faith. That is why the Holy Church, in her hymns, without hesitation, calls Thomas’s unbelief “good unbelief” (Stichera 4, for eternity in it. Thomas). This, brethren, is the Gospel story, which you have now heard, in all its details. Perhaps some of her features did not seem too interesting to your imagination, but, nevertheless, they should be precious to our hearts. Ah, we read many fictional stories and are not bored by their details, although their subjects have nothing to do with our good, often even harming the purity of our souls! Is the story of the apparitions of our risen Savior really not worth knowing it in its entirety! – What would have happened to us if the apostles had not gone out to preach worldwide? But they would not have undertaken this task unless they were convinced of the resurrection of their Teacher, and they would not have been convinced if the Risen One had not appeared to them in the same way as we saw. Therefore, the history of His appearance is the history of our salvation: shouldn’t we listen to it and read it with attention? What deserves special attention in it? - Everything, if you think as you should. See how the Lord is active for your salvation! - As soon as He came out of the tomb, there were already so many appearances on the first day! - Two in the morning: in Vertograd and near it - to the myrrh-bearing women; in the middle of the day one - to Peter; in the evening, alone again, on the way to Emmaus, two disciples; and finally at night in Jerusalem - to the ten apostles. Only the greatest love for His loved ones could have disposed Him, to Whom all power in heaven and on earth had already been given, to spend almost the entire day - and what a day! In a poor helicopter city! On the way! Over the meal! Unrecognized, exposed and even exposed! - He who acts in this way has the right to say: “My Father works hitherto, and I do!” (John 5:17). Consider further how solid the foundations of our faith are! The apostles do not rush to the first news of the Resurrection; they do not trust each other in this regard; do not rely at all on the testimony of others; They don’t suddenly believe even their own eyes. But when they saw it, they were convinced, they believed; then nothing could confuse or frighten them; They walked calmly not only to the whole world, but also to the whole world: with joy they all died for Him who died and rose again for all. Finally, accept how unfounded and dangerous doubts in faith are! Thomas could still be doubted when several people testified about the resurrection; when on Golgotha, perhaps, there still stood a cross drenched in blood, and in Vertograd lay a tombstone, when the Christian faith was contained in one upper room, and unbelief embraced all of Judea and the whole world: but is it possible to reasonably doubt the truths of the Christian faith now, when it has conquered the whole world: it has formed hosts of Angels from people, has spread blessings and grace everywhere and to everyone: when our entire being has become akin to faith so that we involuntarily believe in our soul even when the tongue utters objections? However, if anyone now had the misfortune, like Thomas, to suffer an eclipse of faith (the enemy never sleeps, sowing tares): then let him not despair: the wounds of the Lord are intact, and His love for all sinners is intact. Let him only impartially delve into the actions of the Lord, into the spirit of His teaching, and even more so into His love for humanity - into His death for us all on the cross: it is impossible that at the same time the coldest heart would not be warmed by the fire of holy love for the Crucified One, and would not recognize the true Savior of the world in the One who offers salvation not in red words, but in His Blood and Death. The real Gospel story presents so many subjects, brethren, to the attention of those who listen to it! And it will bring it even more to the attention of the reader. I mention reading with intention: for I think that I can’t conclude a real conversation with you in any better way than by inviting everyone who can read to devote some time in the following days to reading the Gospel stories about the resurrection of the Lord and His appearances to the apostles. For, no matter how much we speak from this place, we can never tell you everything that is contained in the Gospel. What are our words? Small streams, and then the sea. Therefore, you need to read it yourself, who can. And what better way to spend the holiday time than on this reading, which is both very sweet and very instructive? To increase the sweetness of this spiritual meal, invite your household to it; let them hear from your lips about the resurrection of the common Lord and Lord of all. In this way you will become an angel of good news for them, and your house will be like that upper room in which the Lord was now with the disciples. Seeing your zeal, He Himself will invisibly stand in the midst of your family, overshadow it with His most pure plagues, speak peace to you and give you the grace of the Spirit, so that all of us may be awakened! Amen. You might be interested in: