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“Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant who will be found watching; he is not worthy again, he will be found in despondency. Take care, my soul, not to be burdened with sleep, lest you be given over to death, and be shut out of the kingdom; but arise, calling: holy, holy, holy art thou, O God, have mercy on us through the Mother of God!” Who is this mysterious Bridegroom coming at midnight? To whom is He coming, and what does this midnight mean? And again, who is this servant who is vigilant and therefore blessed, and who is meant by the servant who is despondent and therefore unworthy to meet the Bridegroom? It is impossible, my brethren, that these questions have not already been proposed by many of you to yourself and resolved, according to the instructions of the Gospel and in accordance with the needs of their souls and hearts, so that when the Holy Church proclaims: “Behold the Bridegroom comes!” - they already know who to expect and what is required of each of us to meet Him. “But not everyone, as the apostle says, has understanding” (1 Cor. 8:7). There are people who, even in the middle of the day, need a guide, some because of weakness of vision, others because of ignorance of the path, although it is not far from them, and others because of reluctance to go. Therefore, it will not be superfluous if we, in the decency of the present day, ponder in the hearing of everyone about the coming of the Bridegroom, so that the one who does not reflect on it Until now could he clearly see who he was - a vigilant slave and therefore blessed, or a despondent and unworthy, and therefore rejected? So let us say that the wondrous Bridegroom coming at midnight is our dear Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Among the many significant names that are assigned to Him in the word of God, He bears the name of our Bridegroom; because our soul is betrothed to Him, like a bride to a groom, for eternal and perfect union with Him by faith, love and bliss. “I have betrothed you,” writes the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, “we have betrothed you to one husband, a pure virgin of Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2). This holy betrothal - on the part of our Divine Bridegroom - took place on the Cross, where He, out of love for us, to redeem our souls from sins and curses, and to assimilate us to Himself for all eternity, suffered death and shed all His Blood. And on our part, this precious betrothal, by His direct order, takes place in the Sacrament of Baptism, where, having renounced the world, the flesh and the devil, we, like a bride to the groom, are united to Christ and our God. From the time of this betrothal, we are no longer, as the Apostle Paul puts it, “our own” (1 Cor. 6:19), but belong – soul and body – to the Redeemer and our Lord. How does it happen among us people that betrothal is not suddenly followed by marriage, and the engaged are separated from each other for some time before marriage; so the same thing happened in our betrothal to Christ. The marriage, for many important reasons, was postponed, and the Bridegroom himself, for our own good, had to withdraw from us. This followed, as we know, on the fortieth day after His resurrection, when He ascended from Olivet into heaven. He left many signs of love with us as a guarantee of our union with Him: His holy word is with us, His life-giving Cross is with us, His most pure Body and Blood is with us, the Church is with us, the confidante of His advice and our bride-guide, the Sacraments of the Church and the very grace of the Holy Spirit are with us; but He Himself, the Bridegroom of our souls, has been invisible since then and will remain so until the end of our separation from Him, that is, until the last day of the world, when He will again appear in glory to celebrate the universal wedding celebration. How long will this separation last, this slowdown in the mysterious marriage of the Lamb? Only the Bridegroom of souls and hearts knows about this. - When will He come, in what year and day, at what time and hour? Again a secret for everyone. “No one knows about that day... and that hour,” He Himself said, “not even the angels of heaven” (Matthew 24:36). And so, it is this deep unknown that makes up that mysterious midnight, on which, as the chant we are considering says, the Bridegroom will come, for midnight we have such a time when not only all business ceases, but also all expectations, and people, expecting nothing more, indulge in sleep. For thus the time of the coming of the heavenly Bridegroom is unknown; and on the other hand, nowhere is it said that this coming will follow only after a very long time, it is clear that it can always follow, at any day and hour; and therefore, those who are betrothed to the heavenly Bridegroom, that is, all of us, must always be ready to meet the Bridegroom, always wait for Him, not go anywhere, so to speak, into the distance, not do anything that could prevent them from appearing on time for His arrival. This is exactly what the Bridegroom Himself commanded us, before His separation from us: “Watch for it,” He said, “for you do not know the day or the hour when the Son of Man will come” (Matthew 25:13). Those who are faithful to their betrothal and vow, who truly loved the Bridegroom of souls, have always done so, and are doing so now. They are always on guard; their first and last expectation in life is the expectation of the coming of the Bridegroom. Hear the voice: “Behold the Bridegroom cometh”! - would be the height of their earthly bliss. In order to make themselves more capable of waiting and meeting Him, many of them completely left the world and everything in the world for this; they renounced forever the most innocent pleasures and earthly connections, so that, due to the weakness of nature, by becoming too busy with something worldly, they would not cool the love in their souls for the Bridegroom, would not split their attention and zeal, would not become heavy in spirit and not indulge in the sleep of sensuality. Others, without leaving the world, participating in all its movements and affairs, live, however, as if they were not in the world; they do not attach their hearts to anything; They subordinate all their everyday affairs and relationships to one principle - love for Jesus: and wherever they are, whatever they do, they are always ready to joyfully leave all their affairs and all earthly acquisitions, at the first voice of the coming of the Bridegroom. All of them, both outside the world and in the world, are obviously vigilant slaves: the Bridegroom sees their zeal, prepares for each of them a crown of glory; and they are truly blessed, no matter how low and bitter their fate on earth may be, for all the local hardships and suffering to which they may be subjected are temporary and fleeting, and in the future such bliss awaits them for this; which the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, and which has not entered the very heart of man. But there are those betrothed to the heavenly Bridegroom who have completely forgotten about their vows, do not even remember that they have a Bridegroom, that His coming must always be expected, and that it will be bad, extremely bad, for the one who, at the time of His coming, is found sleeping. Are there many such people among Christians? So many that the word of God calls them all: “I will touch the Bridegroom,” it says, “and I will all sleep and fall asleep” (Matthew 25:5). And truly, my brothers, how many Christians can you point out about whom one could confidently say: behold the servant who watches even at midnight! The future coming of our Lord and Savior has become a subject that no one talks about, and if anyone spoke anywhere, he would seem like a strange person, dealing with things that do not deserve the attention of so-called business and educated people. Meanwhile, the future coming of the Lord is an event that is extremely important for everyone, on which our eternal destiny completely depends, with which either all blessings or all disasters must come to us: and all this cannot arouse our attention, and all this is like a matter completely alien to us! In vain does the Gospel say with force: “Watch... for you do not know the day or the hour, when the Son of Man will come!” (Matt. 25:13) (Matt. 24:42, 44). In vain does the Holy Church exclaim: “Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight!” We hear and do not heed; we hear and, instead of preparing to meet the Bridegroom, we blithely indulge in the vanities of the world, trying to figure out how we can stay on earth forever. How many Christians are there who are already ending their lives, who do not even know that their souls have a Bridegroom, and that they can even live to see His coming!.. What is to blame for such unforgivable coldness towards the heavenly Bridegroom of souls and hearts? The fault is our immense addiction to earthly goods, our immersion in sensuality. Our heart is divided into so many objects that there is no longer room in it for the Beloved. Everything is given to the world and the flesh! Everything is captured by lusts and passions! In vain, completely in vain, to excuse our carelessness, we would begin to refer to the slowness in the coming of the Bridegroom: for this slowness is only on one side, and on the other there is extraordinary speed. It doesn’t matter whether He comes to us or we go to Him. He is delaying his coming, and perhaps he will postpone it for thousands of years, but will we really remain here and wait for Him for these thousands of years? No, today, tomorrow, the Angel of Death will appear and call us to the Bridegroom. How, after this, can we sleep carelessly and not expect the call and outcome that lies ahead for us? Especially when he is apparently not far from everyone, and at the same time completely unknown? For no one knows about the day and hour at which we will end our lives: this is our own midnight! - But, alas, the same thing should be said about her that is said about midnight, in the night the Bridegroom will come: “I woke up all, and fell asleep”! Preparation for death, this matter is so important that it should occupy us all our lives, is not even considered a matter of business. Those who engage in it as they should are an exception, and a very rare one at that. Everyone else lives as if they would live here forever. The diseases that visit us, these visible forerunners and messengers of death, are unable to make us think about it. Alas, no matter how many times we have seen dying people, we have almost never seen those who were previously certain that they must finally give up their lives. Many, on the contrary, a few hours and minutes before death, still indulged in thoughts about earthly things, thought about living, did not give up thoughts about such matters and about enterprises that require strength and a long life. This is how the young die; This is how the very oldest often die: you can judge from this the form in which these unfortunate souls appear before their heavenly Bridegroom, and what befalls them at the wedding supper!.. In the face of such a terrible example of carelessness, in the midst of this cruel whirlwind of vanity and passions, blinding the eyes of apparently the best people with dust, shouldn’t, my brothers, everyone who values ​​their own salvation even a little, come into fear, turn to themselves, and say in the words of a sacred song: “Take heed, my soul, and you, be not burdened with sleep, lest you be given over to death!” Please, don’t be carried away by any example, don’t follow any path that seems covered with flowers, but leads to the abyss of hell. Blyudi - stand guard until they are replaced; keep faith and hope until hope itself appears. The groom is invisible; but He is always near you, sees all your thoughts and desires, and counts all your labors and sacrifices, and prepares a crown for everything. A few more years, maybe weeks, days of patience: and the veil will fall, the world and everything in it will disappear from sight; The palace of heaven will appear, and you will be brought in to the marriage of the Lamb! Amen. You might be interested in: