Слово на Страсти Господни

As we now begin to worship the Passion of Christ, I think, brothers, everyone would like to hear something from the Cross of the Lord for their edification. But the Cross is silent!.. Silent because from it, once and for all, everything was spoken from Calvary: a sermon was preached there, which must be heard by peoples and centuries, until the end of the world. Therefore, if you want to hear the teaching from the Cross, you must, brothers, transfer your reverent thought to the Mount of the Cross, stand at the foot of the crucified Lord and listen to what comes from His mouth. In this way, you can hear your own preaching of your Savior and Lord, and His Cross will not seem silent. To make this holy task easier for you, I will take on the face of the narrator, and I will try to present the last sayings of the Lord from the Cross, as much as possible, in the clearest light for you. Seven times the mouth of the Lord opened on the Cross, as if according to the number of those seven thunders that will thunder, according to the testimony of the Seer of Mysteries, before the end of the world (Rev. 10:3). The first three sayings relate more to those persons who surrounded the Lord in His last minutes; the last four directly express His own state on the Cross. But let us turn to the Cross of Christ itself. After various sufferings in the courtyard of Caiaphas, in the praetorium of Pilate and in the courtyard of Herod, after a grueling procession under the Cross to Golgotha, the moment of execution finally came. The tree is established in the ground. The last clothes have been taken off. The crucified one is ascended to the Cross. Arms and legs are extended. The terrible hammer is knocking. Blood is pouring into the earth in streams... What would the Archangel himself say at this moment, in this place?.. The God-man meekly raises his eyes to heaven and, in the hearing of all, prays. About what? - About taking revenge on enemies, about defending Your cause, about bestowing patience on Yourself? -No: “Father,” He says, “let them go; They don’t know what they’re doing!” - They don’t! - So! The Roman warrior-crucifixor did not know what to do, being only a blind instrument of the commands of his procurator Pilate; the Jewish mob did not know what they were doing, instigated by the flattering and at the same time menacing suggestions of their blind leaders and rulers; The Sanhedrin itself, with all its immorality, probably did not know that it was now encroaching on the life of its true Messiah. “If they had understood,” let’s say in the words of the apostle, “the Lord of glory had not been crucified” (1 Cor. 2:8). How many crimes, however, were there in this ignorance, especially in those who could so easily discern everything, and closed their eyes a hundred times so as not to see anything! And this is completely forgotten by the Crucified One! How many, even in ignorance, there are sharp traces of deliberate deceit and base cruelty, which revealed in the enemies and persecutors of Jesus personal malice towards Him, an obvious desire to brutalize the execution, already terrible, to dishonor the Cross, which in itself is blasphemous! But all this is neglected by the Crucified One! And the most severe diseases when the hands and feet are pierced! Weren't they alone enough to focus the very first feeling in the Crucified One on Himself, on His own suffering? But the crucified God-man ascends in spirit above all else, forgets His Cross and His death; and, as a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek, he barely ascends to the Cross before he offers a prayer for His enemies: “Father, let them go; They don’t know what they’re doing!” Oh, who by this one feature does not recognize in Him who is Crucified the Lamb of God, slain for the sins of the whole world? And at the same time, which of His true followers will not take a vow to be meek towards their enemies? -Whoever has never forgiven his enemy in the name of his crucified Savior, who prayed on the Cross for His enemies, is not a Christian! From the crucifiers and enemies, the Lord’s gaze from the Cross turned to the Mother and the disciple-friend, who, not restrained by any fear, finally had the opportunity to approach the Cross through the crowds of people, so that they were visible from it. At another time, in another place, such zeal and such closeness could serve as consolation: but now, but here!.. The look at the inconsolable Mother and disciple, torn by grief, was a new source of suffering for the loving heart of the Son. -But won’t this heart have enough courage and love for His relatives? -When it was necessary to perform a miracle of omnipotence, the Lord said to the Mother at the wedding in Cana of Galilee: “My hour has not come” (John 2:4). The time has come for everything at the Golgotha ​​wedding! Looking at the Mother, the Lord immediately said: “Woman, behold Your son!” (John 19:26). Then to the student: “Behold your Mother!” (John 19:27). Greater consolation from the Cross could not have been taught to either a Mother or a friend... Just as, brothers, it was impossible to teach us more about the holiness of family and friendly relationships. In fact, think about it: if the Son of God, until His death, was the loving Son of His Mother, the constant friend of His disciple, then what title or what relationship can disqualify you from fulfilling the holy duty of love for our relatives by kinship and friendship? When the cross did not prevent us from making a will that ensures the most earthly state of the mother we are leaving behind, then what can prevent us from caring about the fate of those who will remain after our death? The Apostle of Christ noticed and said long ago that he who does not care about his relatives “has rejected the faith... and is a greater believer” (1 Tim. 5:8). With a prayer for enemies, a loving testament to their relatives, it seemed that they embraced the extremes of pure love from the cross. But there was still a place in the middle, near the heart itself, not yet pierced by a spear, but of itself open to everyone. Who will take this place? The robber is a penitent. Two villains were crucified - one on the right hand, and the other on the left, precisely with the intention of making the crucifixion of the Lord more vilified in the eyes of the whole Jerusalem: what need is there for love, which “covers everything”! (1 Cor. 13:7). One of these damned begs to be remembered in the kingdom, and he will be remembered this very hour. The King of this kingdom Himself is now on the Cross in terrible torment: even to this there is no need. Hands nailed to the Cross will not prevent the Lord of life and death from opening paradise, concluded by the sins of man. “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43), the Lord answered the prayer of the repentant thief. - Oh, who will not see again by this one feature of the Only Begotten Son, to whom “the Father gave all things into His hands,” Who even on the Cross remains the Lord of life and death, the Lord of heaven and hell! I’m not even talking about oblivion of one’s own suffering in the presence of this Lord; hearing the royal words: “Today you will be with Me in Paradise,” you involuntarily think that you are hearing them not from the cross, but from the Royal Throne. This is what it means, brothers, to do your job, “until there is day” (John 9:4), until there is the last ray of this day. This is how you can consecrate the very last minutes of your life, your very suffering, your very struggle with death - with deeds of love for your neighbors! – Blessed is he who, like his Savior, can conclude on his deathbed the last use of the gift of speech with some word of edification or consolation to his fellow men! Judging by these three sayings from the cross: by prayer for the crucifiers; according to the will of the Mother and the student; according to the promise of paradise to the thief, one would think that the crucified God-Man Himself does not suffer any torment. Alas, these torments were terrible! – One of the direct effects of the execution of the cross in those crucified was that the blood, stopped in its natural circulation, rushed to the heart, producing the most painful languor and thirst. The Only Begotten Son of God now endured this languor and this thirst on the Cross... In Him Who with such selflessness had hitherto forgotten all His sufferings, would, without a doubt, now have the courage to hide them in Himself, but what would this hiddenness of the Cross, which already contains so many mysteries, serve? The Universe should have known, earthly people should have heard from the lips of the Universal Sacrifice Himself, what it costs to cleanse the sins of the whole world. And the Son of Man always appeared as what he was: he rejoiced when there was a reason for joy, cried when he was at the tomb of Lazarus, or looked at Jerusalem perishing in sins. Therefore, now, scorched by mortal thirst, the God-man loudly exclaimed: I thirst!.. To quench precisely this need for the crucified, compassionate people used to bring various drinks. But the malice of Jesus’ enemies considered it their duty to upset even these small drops of consolation for Him. It is known, brothers, how and with what the thirst of the Lord was quenched - with ocet and gall!.. Blessed are we if we do not quench it with the same - until now! For the Lord still thirsts for our salvation! And what else are our sins for Him, if not otset with gall? Already by the painful exclamation: I’m thirsty! One could see, brethren, that the torment of the Lord’s most pure flesh had reached the extreme level of human suffering. But, as the Sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, He was faced with one more, cruelest suffering, which none of us can bear - such torment that all the malice and power of man is not able to produce. Who made it? - Father! The Father Himself! His justice!.. Being one with the Father in Divinity, the God-Man, in the midst of the most severe mental and physical suffering, could from the consciousness of this unity receive strength and consolation for His relief. The justice punishing the sins of people in His person demanded that this source of consolation be completely blocked; and it's blocked! The Father, the Father Himself, finally left the Son! – Without being separated from humanity, the Divinity hid itself so much in the soul of the crucified God-Man that His humanity was given over to all the horrors of helpless sorrow, and He found Himself as one from us. Such a feeling of abandonment, at such moments, was the height of torment, not only for the most pure body, but also for the most holy soul and spirit. For what did such abandonment entail? Everything that human thought can suggest is the most terrible and inconsolable. The Spirit of the Son of Man, like the flesh, could not help but faint under the weight of this internal, no longer human, but completely Divine cross. But there was not and could not be another Simon of Cyrene: it was an indivisible cross! -What does the God-man, exhausted under this cross, do? Abandoned by the Father, He again turns to the Father and cries out: “O God, My God, where have you forsaken Me?” “You left me, who was always with me, left me, who lived for you alone and am dying for your name!.. There was no answer! The Father seemed not to listen to the Son! Oh, brothers, do you feel the full extremity of this inscrutable suffering of your Savior for you? Saint David called these terrible moments the torments of hell. For even in hell there is no crueler torment than the complete abandonment of those tormented by God. Let us take note, brethren, of how we should act in moments of such abandonment by the grace of God, and where to turn for help and consolation: to the same Lord who leaves us. Through heartfelt prayer we will return to the arms of His fatherly love. The abandonment by the Father was the final flame for the burnt offering of the Sacrifice of the Cross. After this, there was no longer anything left, either on earth or in hell, that could still be transferred, and that would not be transferred. Therefore, when the hour of terrible abandonment had passed, the dying God-man exclaimed in the hearing of everyone: It is accomplished! Such a word, brothers, of which eternity alone will show all its breadth and all its power. For, no matter how much the Holy Scripture itself reveals to us the great plan of the wisdom of God about the salvation of the sinful human race and the whole world through the death on the cross of the Son of God, we are still far from seeing all the foundations and all the consequences of this unparalleled condescension of Divine love towards us. From Zion, if the Lord allows us to ascend it, from Zion we will see what happened for us on Golgotha. But to Zion, brothers, it will be given to ascend only to those who, like the Savior, could say before death that in their lives all the will of God for them was accomplished, at least that all-good will was accomplished, so that we depart from this world, if not with the purity of the righteous, then with the repentance and faith of repentant sinners. For this, the Lord once again looked up to heaven and said: “Father, in Thy hand I commend My spirit; and bow your head, give up your spirit!” These were the last words of the Lord from the Cross! This is His Sermon on the Cross! What will be our last words, brethren, and will we be able to say anything before our death?.. At the very least, we must always be prepared for death and try to depart from this world in such a way that our very death will be a testament to our faith and love for the Lord and, if possible, a lesson for our neighbors. Our beloved Savior, as we ourselves have seen, gives us the best example of this. Didn't he suffer on the Cross? Wasn't his death terrible and even blasphemous in the eyes of the world? But look, what patience, what love for others, what devotion to the will of God! Each of us must die in the same way! We must depart from this world without grumbling and with Christian patience, having, if possible, arranged the fate of our loved ones, forgiving all our enemies from the bottom of our hearts, marking our exodus with some deeds of love for our distressed brethren, and finally betraying our spirit and our entire Being into the all-good will of Him who alone possesses the living and the dead. since our Lord was sinless and holy, and we, no matter how impeccably we try to lead our lives, always commit many voluntary and involuntary falls; then, at the same time, everyone needs to depart from this world with a spirit of contrition for their sins, with living faith in the merits of the Redeemer, with a firm determination to live a new and grace-filled life in the new world. This is what the seemingly silent Cross of Christ teaches us today! Amen. You might be interested in: