Слово первое в пяток недели 2-й Великого поста

“On the rivers of Babylon, there weeping and lamenting, we will never remember Zion. In the middle of both willows are our organs. For there we were the ones who asked us about the words of the songs and the one who led us about the singing: sing to us from the songs of Zion! How shall we sing the song of the Lord in foreign lands? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, my right hand will be forgotten. Cling my tongue to my throat, if I do not remember you, if I do not offer Jerusalem, as at the beginning of my joy... Accursed daughter of Babylon, blessed will you repay your reward, which you have repaid us: blessed is he who has and will dash your babies against the stone! (Ps. 136). After the psalm: Have mercy on me, O God (Ps. 50), there is no other in the entire Psalter of David that would be filled with such emotional tenderness as this psalm. It seems to be written not with ink, but with tears; and there should be not a cry, but a cry. That is why it is proclaimed in church in those weeks that serve as preparation for Holy and Great Lent. But it will not be at all superfluous if we now, during Lent, briefly repeat for ourselves the content of this touching psalm. Having thus brought to mind the pitiful fate of the Israelites in captivity in Babylon, we can see in it, as in a mirror, our plight on earth - in the bonds of sin and passions; and this will awaken in others the thought of spiritual freedom and will encourage them to seek it from the great Releaser of all bonds, for which the present time of Lent provides so many means for the weakest in faith and spirit. So what are the Israelites doing in Babylon? “On the rivers of Babylon, there weeping and lamenting, we will never remember Zion.” This is what the captives of Jerusalem are doing! Instead of building houses for themselves in Babylon, planting helicopter towns, engaging in buying and selling, for which permission was given through the Prophet from God Himself, they will sit on the banks of the rivers of Babylon, as if expecting that the river waves will pick them up from hour to hour and carry them to the Fatherland; they sit and cry, remembering their beloved Zion. Their body is in Babylon, but their spirit and heart are in Jerusalem. No matter what they look at in a foreign country, nothing pleases them, but everything awakens the thought of the Fatherland: “on the rivers of Babylon, there weeping and weeping, never will we remember Zion.” When looking at the organs that the Israelites brought with them into captivity (not for fun, but to rattle on them the praise and glory of Jehovah), the Babylonians were born with curiosity and a desire to listen to the “songs of Zion.” Should the prisoner refuse this request to the victors? Some would consider it a blessing to please their proud rulers in this way, but the Israelite is not like that now! He is afraid of the very thought of desecrating the sacred song of Zion with pagan ears. Instead of satisfying the desires of the Babylonians, the captives, in full consciousness of the greatness and dignity of their faith, answer: “How can we sing the song of the Lord in foreign lands?” They answer this way, not caring in the least that their fate, already bitter, might become even more aggravated. An untimely challenge on the part of the victors to fun and games, when tears flow from the captives’ eyes, awakens in the Israelis a new impulse of love for the Fatherland - and they vow never to betray it: “If I forget you, Jerusalem, my right hand will be forgotten!” After the removal of the Babylonians, left alone, the captive Israelites indulged in indignation against them all the more strongly because they see how, having deprived them of their Fatherland, they would like to deprive them of their nobility of spirit: “Wretched daughter of Babylon, blessed is he who will repay you the reward you have repaid us: blessed is he who has and will dash your babies against the stone!” This is how the Israelites thought, this is how they felt, this is how they behaved in captivity in Babylon! Who would not bow with respect before these feelings? Will he not say that the people of Israel, in their very captivity and humiliation, showed on this occasion that it was not in vain that they were loved by the Lord and were once chosen by Him to be a special inheritance for Himself out of all nations? The Babylonian captivity was hard, my brethren; crushing is the yoke laid by Nebuchadnezzar on the poor children of Israel! But what do all the captivities of Babylon and Egypt mean in comparison with the terrible captivity in which the entire human race is located? For where are we all? In a foreign land, in a land of darkness and cold, curse and death. We also had a Fatherland - in a paradise of sweets; but the enemy came and captured us; captivated and plunged into unsolvable bonds of sin and passions. What were we and what now? They were honored and adorned with the image of God; Now often there is no human image in us. They enjoyed the eternal health of soul and body, did not know death and decay; Now we have all been groaning since childhood from mental and physical illnesses, and after many sorrows and troubles we are turning into the earth, from which we were taken. At first all creatures served us with joy and were like small household members in the great house of God: now all creatures either run away from man, or rebel against him and torment their ruler. The very birth of each of us, like some kind of monster, is washed with blood and tears; The purest and most righteous labors are accompanied by sweat and sometimes bring nothing but sorrow and sighs. Darkness in the mind, anger in the will, grief in the heart, uncleanness in feeling, frailty in the body, deadness in the whole being, removal from the Heavenly Fatherland - this is our lot for each and every one: from Adam to this day! Should we not then expect that we, like the Israelites in Babylon, will weep and weep for our lost Zion? That we will at least always remember where we are and what is happening to us; Let us not cleave our hearts to a foreign country and our captivity, but wait with joy for that longed-for hour when, by the hand of the Angel of Death, all bonds will be removed from us, and we will return to a place where there is neither sorrow nor sighing? But look at the human world. What will you see? You will see those buying and selling, you will hear faces and tympanums, you will meet people everywhere who only think about rejoicing and having fun, celebrating and triumphing every day. Many have lost the very thought of Zion, of that blissful state in which primordial man was; others, if they sometimes remember him, do so as an object that does not concern them. To remain, if it were possible, on earth forever, that is, to live forever in captivity of earthly needs and anxieties, in the bonds of passions and illnesses - this would be the height of rewards and desires for many!.. Nothing can open our eyes and show us that we are not in our homeland, that we are in captivity and imprisonment. In vain does death, without any order, delight us, one after another, into eternity: we calmly take the place of those who have passed away and continue the same delusion!.. We have become so humiliated, coarsened, and desensitized in our captivity! We have so forgotten what we once were - and what we should still be! Only a small part, as if by some miracle saved from general blindness, sees the true position of man on earth; feels how heavy the yoke is on all the sons of Adamlich; sighs and cries for the fallen state of each and every one. So what? These chosen ones, these clairvoyants, seem to everyone else to be gloomy people, frivolous dreamers, creatures incapable of social life, such persons who should be regretted, and whom it is useful to avoid!.. Truly, if anywhere, then in this pitiful human blindness all the power and terrible property of sin are revealed: for it is clear that it not only deprives a person of his likeness to God, not only humiliates him to the state of unreasonable creatures, makes him look like an outcast spirit, but, in addition to humiliation and captivity, wrests from him the very memory of his former greatness and future destiny. After this, the poor sinner does not dare to raise his eyes to heaven, as if it is alien to him; sees nothing in front of him except the earth; to please the poor belly he supplies all his bliss; chases after fleeting benefits and amusements like a child; He looks at his very death as a tribute to nature, whereas it is exactly (only) a tribute to sin. Fallen soul, captive soul, perishing soul, awaken from your insensibility and find out who you are! Sin and passions have humiliated, blinded, suppressed, and killed you; but even now you contain more within yourself than there is in the visible world: for you are the animated image of God. On your own, you cannot think of fighting your cruel enemy and breaking the bonds placed on you; but you have an Almighty Intercessor, Who can bind your “strong” (Matthew 12:29) enemy, destroy all his strongholds and give you all the means to return to the Fatherland. Surrender yourself to Him - and the impossible will become possible. No matter how immersed you are in sensuality, no matter how grave and great your sins are, even if in your blackness you resemble the very spirit of evil, everything will be corrected, everything will be whitened, everything will be brightened, and you will again become such a being in which God Himself will rest; You will still achieve on earth that greatness, before which all creation will begin to bow not only with fear, but also with love. Do you want, beloved listener, to know how we need to behave in our captivity in order to return to the primitive state of innocence and bliss? For this purpose, let us take as an example the Israelites and their behavior in Babylon. Despite their distance from their beloved Fatherland, they were constantly in Zion and Jerusalem in spirit and thought. May our thoughts and our spirit soar, as often as possible, not in the villages of sinners like us, but in the bright abodes of the Heavenly Father. May the thought of Heavenly Jerusalem, of that blissful hour when we, having thrown off the heavy bonds of the flesh, must return to our Fatherland, become the beginning and end of all activities and all fun, like for the Israelis and for all of us. Thinking about the holy joys of Zion, the Israelites did not want to take part in the unclean amusements and pagan amusements of Babylon. Let the pernicious amusements and pleasures of the flesh be removed from us as much as possible, which, in their most purified form, are harmful by the fact that they destroy precious time and earthen the heart. Let us speak more often to our souls in the words of the Israelites: “How shall we sing the song of the Lord in foreign lands?” How can we have fun and rejoice madly when we are in captivity of sin, under the wrath of God, with fierce ulcers in our conscience? Should we indulge in vanities and waste time when death, the Last Judgment and eternity await us? The Israelis, in a fit of righteous indignation, expressed a desire that the very babies of the daughter of Babylon, who had deprived them of their Fatherland, would be smashed against a stone. Let us also arm ourselves with holy zeal against all the offspring of our sinful nature. Let us begin not only to rasp (averse) gross sins of the flesh, but to beat the most impure thoughts, the most secret evil desires of the soul and heart, against the stone of self-sacrifice. If we, inspired by faith and calling on the grace of God for help, remain constant in this holy feat, then the bonds of sinful captivity will weaken on us from day to day; and we, while still in the Babylon of this world, will begin to feel the blissful freedom of the spirit, to rise above everything mortal. And after the short days of earthly life, when the Angel of Death removes the last bonds of the flesh from us, we will return in peace and joy to Heavenly Jerusalem. Amen. You might be interested in: