Слово в Великий Вторник

: “The coming Lord to free passion, the Apostle said on the way: behold, we are ascending to Jerusalem, and the Son of man will be betrayed, as it is written about Him. Come, then, we too, with purified meanings, will descend upon Him, and let us be crucified, and let us die for His sake with worldly pleasures, so that we may come to life with Him” (at the evening, stichera 1). When the Lord said to His disciples: “Lazarus our friend has succeeded”; then one of them exclaimed on behalf of everyone: “Let us also go, let us die with him!” (John 11:11, 16). Now, brethren, the time of death is coming not for Lazarus, but for our Lord Himself, who says that “the Passover will be in two days, and the Son of Man will be given up to be crucified” (Matthew 26:2). Will any of us hesitate to say at this point: “Let us also go and die with Him?” But, not only should this be said, but it should actually be done. With Lazarus there was no need to die; with our Lord and Savior we must certainly die. Do you hear how He Himself calls us to this high honor? “He who does not accept his cross,” He says to everyone, “and comes after Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:38). After this, to renounce the cross and death with the Lord means to renounce the Lord Himself and one’s salvation. Who can decide to do this? So, brethren, come, come, all of you, not only “let us go down” to the Lord who is coming to suffer, to which we called you yesterday, but also “let us crucify with Him and die for His sake with worldly passions.” “But where is Golgotha ​​and the cross necessary for such a crucifixion?” Wherever you and I are, listener. In fact, brothers, in this world there cannot be a shortage of material crosses. How many of Christ's followers at different times and in different countries ended their lives, like their Savior, on the Cross? And now these cases may be repeated; for a significant part of the human race still considers faith in the Crucified One to be impiety, and is ready to persecute His Cross with new crosses. A Christian is not obliged to look for these crosses; but when they meet him, he must go towards them without hesitation. Therefore, everyone, no matter what place or rank they may be in, must always nourish and strengthen within themselves the holy determination to stand, if necessary, for the name of their Savior to the point of blood; must do this first, so that when danger comes, fearing death, he does not disgrace his faith and then make his Savior ashamed of such cowardice in the face of God and the Angels. And when is it more fitting to strengthen within ourselves this holy determination to remain faithful to our Savior until death, if not in the days of His own suffering and death, raised for us. But these are crosses for a few: there are others that are completely inevitable for everyone, evasion of which is always a crime; for the crucifixion on them is the essence of Christianity. And firstly, brothers, the whole external world in which we live and move is so structured that every thing in it can become a cross for us. In the world, as the great crusader Paul noted, “trouble is in the rivers... trouble in the cities, trouble in the desert, trouble in the sea” (2 Cor. 11:26). Secondly, every human society, to which we necessarily belong as members, is such that everyone in it encounters many crosses; and here, according to the remark of the same apostle, “trouble comes from the robber, trouble from the relatives, trouble from the tongue... trouble from the false brethren” (2 Cor. 11:26). Finally, the most multi-part composition of our humiliated nature, transformed by sin, forms for everyone a terrible multi-cross. What a heavy cross, never removed for the spirit, is our mortal and sinful flesh! Its very appearance clearly shows this: for one has only to stretch out one’s hands to see the full cross in oneself. You will see all the more so when you stretch them out for constant prayer; you will see all the more so when you use them to help your neighbors, to protect persecuted innocence, to defeat strong and triumphant vice; all the more will you see if these hands, which you decided to stretch out for good, loved and were accustomed to stretch out for evil. Paul had already been crucified to the world, had long lived a new life in Christ; and, however, at times he felt so much the burden of the cross of the flesh that he cried out: “I am a damned man, who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). Truly, there is no one to save! For the spirit itself, destined to bear the cross of the flesh, contains within itself many crosses. Oh, how in his present sinful state he is divided, opposed, self-hostile, self-tormenting! Conscience draws him to the side of duty and truth, and unclean desires - to the side of lies and crime; faith directs his gaze to grief, and earthly wisdom rivets him down; Christian love disposes him to be everything, but self-love strives to subjugate everything and everyone: how many compulsions! How much struggle and languor! And where is the end of all these crosses of flesh and spirit? In one tomb, if only in it “the death of sin will be consumed by the life” of grace (2 Cor. 5:4). Otherwise, it will be necessary to move from many temporary crosses to the eternal cross. So, if you want to be crucified with Christ, do not be afraid of the lack of crosses. The wisdom of God knows how necessary it is for your old man to be crucified; and therefore she first arranged everything for this execution of love to be carried out on him. You are constantly called from the cradle to the grave, driven, drawn to the cross - by all the shortcomings of body and soul, by all sorrows and deprivations, by all temptations and seductions: just do not contradict and do not persist - and you will be crucified in body and spirit, mind and will, visibly and invisibly. Do you want to know, beloved, what our crucifixion itself should consist of? – To understand this, imagine that you are actually on the cross. - What would happen to you then? – You would stop free movement in both your arms and legs; the whole world would lose value for you; all its benefits would become alien to you, as if non-existent; you would have only one thing left on your mind and in your heart: how to quickly free yourself from earth and flesh, and surrender your spirit to God. Put yourself in such a state of spirit voluntarily, by the power of faith and love for Christ: and you will be crucified with Christ. The one crucified with Christ has no movements according to his own will, but everything is according to the will of God; his hands and feet are as motionless to evil and untruth as those of one crucified on the cross; the world with its benefits and temptations is unattractive to him; the thought of the end of his earthly journey is his favorite thought; he has already been lifted up in spirit from earth to heaven, and his life is hidden in God. Be like that, and you will be crucified with Christ. But how can one maintain this extremely difficult position of spirit for the flesh? - And how, beloved, do those crucified on the cross hold on? - With nails. Nail yourself to the cross of self-denial, firstly, with the fear of God and the thought of God. “The fear of the Lord takes away sins” (Sir. 1:21) and temptations, makes a person motionless to evil and firm in good. Nail yourself to the cross with the memory of death. He who has his death before his eyes will not stretch out his hands to the forbidden fruit. Nail yourself with the hope of eternal blessings, which are promised to all who fight to the point of blood. If the hope of a corruptible crown directs thousands of people to obvious death, then will the hope of a heavenly crown not produce this? – Finally, nail yourself to the cross with love for your Savior, crucified on it. “This love, by its very nature, endures everything, trusts everything, and never falls away” (1 Cor. 13:7). And these four nails are enough to hold the self-sacrifice of the heaviest flesh on the cross. “But this condition is terrible, painful! Is this really the essence of Christianity? In him, beloved, in this state, terrible, painful for the old man. Are you afraid? But isn’t this old man of ours, condemned to crucifixion, himself terrible and tormenting? Wasn't he the one who drove us out of paradise? Isn't he tormenting us all our lives? Isn’t he the one who will put us all in the coffin and consign us to decay? At least we won’t let him cast us into hell; let us kill him by the power of the cross before he takes away eternal life from us. And what is the use of turning away from the cross? This should have been done in Eden, before eating from the forbidden fruit; but now this is impossible. We cannot lay down either the cross of the flesh or the cross of the spirit; with them we come into this world, with them we will leave the world. It depends only on our will to die on this cross for God to the world, or to God for the world; to betray the spirit with Christ in faith and love, or to betray the spirit to the devil in unbelief and self-love. Therefore, if ulcers are inevitable, then it is better to bear the ulcers of the Lord than of His enemy and ours. By suffering with the Lord, we will be glorified with Him; and suffering with the world and the spirit of malice, what will we get except eternal disgrace and torment? For our encouragement, let us not forget that the Cross of Christ is terrible only in front, and behind it is paradise, not only in heaven, but also on earth. An ordinary cross takes away the entire life of the crucified; and the Cross of Christ, taking away worldly, sinful life, gives instead a new one, in God and Christ. Just as much as “the outer... man decays” on this cross, testifies one who has experienced almost all the crosses in the world, “only the inner man is renewed all the days” (2 Cor. 4:16). “The sorrows of one crucified with Christ are so abundant,” he says, “so are the consolations of the Holy Spirit so abundant.” Indeed, could anything be more joyful for a person than to rise from the grave? But the same thing happens to those who crucify themselves with Christ to the world and sin; the death of the flesh is followed by spiritual resurrection, which, by its very essence, is the most blessed state. So, brothers, putting aside all bewilderment and fear, let us follow our Lord to the cross of self-denial. In vain is our faith and love, He, the omnipotent and all-good, Himself will hasten to strengthen our wavering feet in this holy and necessary feat. Amen. You might be interested in: