Беседа 25

Spoken to the people in the Church of St. John, called Constantine, on the fifth day of Easter. Reading the Holy Gospel: John 20.11–18. John 20.11–18. And Mary stood at the tomb and cried. And when she cried, she leaned into the coffin, and sees two Angels, in white robes, sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus lay. And they say to her: wife! Why are you crying? He says to them: They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him. Having said this, she turned back and saw Jesus standing; but did not recognize that it was Jesus. Jesus says to her: woman! Why are you crying? who are you looking for? She, thinking that it is the gardener, says to Him: Master! if you have brought Him out, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him. Jesus says to her: Mary! She turned and said to Him: Rabbi! - which means: Teacher! Jesus says to her: Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; But go to My brothers and say to them: I ascend to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God. Mary Magdalene goes and tells her disciples that she saw the Lord and that He told her this. 1. Mary Magdalene, who was a sinner in the city, having loved the Truth, washed away the stains of crime with her tears - and the word of the Truth is fulfilled, which says: “Her many sins are forgiven because she loved much” (Luke 7.47). For she who, while sinning, remained cold, later loved deeply and became flaming. For after she came to the tomb and did not find the body of the Lord there, she thought that they had taken it away and told the disciples. When they came, they saw and thought just as this woman said. And about them it was immediately written: “So the disciples returned to themselves again” (John 20.10). And then he adds: “And Mary stood at the tomb and wept.” In this matter, it is necessary to evaluate what kind of power of love inflamed the soul of this woman, who did not leave the Holy Sepulcher even when the disciples left. She is looking for the One Whom she did not find, looking for the one she cried and, inflamed by the fire of her love, burning with the desire of the One Whom she considered taken away. That is why it happened that then only the one who remained to find Him saw Him; because the power of a good deed lies precisely in constancy, and the voice of Truth says “he who endures to the end will be saved.” (Mt 10.22; Mt 24.13). And the commandment of the Law commands to offer the tail of the sacrifice (Lev. 3.9). Because the tail is the end of the body; and he sacrifices well who brings the sacrifice of a good deed to the end of the proper action. Therefore, Joseph, among the other brothers, is described as having clothing to his toes 4 (Gen. 37.3). Because dressing to the toes is a good deed completed. 2. But Mary, when she cried, leaned over and looked into the tomb. It is known that she had already seen the tomb empty, and had already announced that the Lord had been taken away; What does it mean that she leans over again, wants to see again? – But for a lover it is not enough to look once, because the power of love multiplies the effort to find. So, she searched before and did not find; I continued searching and found it. And it happened that unsatisfied desires increased, and those who increased received what they found. That is why the Church says about the same Bridegroom in the Song of Songs: “On my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him and did not find him. I will get up and walk through the city, through the streets and squares, and will look for the one whom my soul loves; I looked for him and did not find him” (Song 3.1, 2). She aggravates the unsuccessful search by saying: “I looked for ... him and did not find him.” But since the finding does not go far, if the search is not interrupted, he adds: “I was met by guards going around the city: “Have you seen the one whom my soul loves?” But as soon as I left them, I found the one whom my soul loves, grabbed hold of him, and did not let him go until I brought him to my mother’s house and into the inner rooms of my parent” (Song 3.3, 4). For we are looking for the Beloved on our bed when, in some tranquility of this life, we direct our desire to our Savior. We search at night because although the mind is awake in Him, the eye is still dark. But whoever does not find his Beloved has only to get up and walk around the city, that is, run through the Holy Church with his mind, looking for the chosen ones. One must look for Him in the streets and squares, that is, one must pay attention to those walking on both narrow and wide paths in order to find traces of Him, if only they can be found; because there are some, even in secular life, who have something that should be imitated in the practice of virtue. Searching, we find guards who guard the city, because the Holy Fathers, who guard the state of the Church, promote our good desires, since they teach us either in word or in writing. When we go through them a little, then we find the One we love; because our Redeemer, although in humanity he was a man among men, yet in Divinity is above men. So when the watchers pass, then the Beloved is found; because when we see that the Prophets and Apostles were lower than Him, then we reason that He, who by nature is God, is higher than people. So, first the Unacquired is sought, so that afterward the Found may be more carefully held. For holy desires increase by delay. If they weaken from delay, then they were not desires. This love inflamed the one who could belong to the Truth. That is why David says: “My soul thirsts for the mighty, living God: when will I come and appear before the face of God!” (Ps 41.3). Therefore he exhorts us, saying: “Seek His face always” (Ps 104.4). Therefore, the Prophet says: “With my soul I have longed for You at night, and with my spirit I will seek You in my inner being from early morning: for when Your judgments are carried out on earth, then those who live in the world will learn righteousness.” (Isaiah 26.9). Therefore, the Church again in the Song of Songs says: “I am faint with love” (Song 5.8). Since it is fair that from the vision of the Physician she should pass on to salvation, who from the flame of His desire bears in her breast the wound of love: then again she says: “The soul was gone from me when he spoke” (Song 5.6). For the soul of a person who does not seek the face of His Creator is extremely coarse, and therefore remains cold within itself. But if she has already begun to burn with the desire to follow the One Whom she loves, then she runs, being melted by the fire of love. At will, she becomes greedy: everything that she liked in the world becomes unimportant: she likes nothing except the Creator; and what previously delighted the soul later becomes extremely painful for it. Nothing sweetens her sorrows until she sees Him Whom she desires. The spirit is sorrowful, the light itself is disgusting; and by this fire the rust of guilt is destroyed in the spirit, and the soul is melted like gold: because through use it has lost its appearance, but through burning it has become clearer. 3. So she (Mary), who loves so much, again leans into the tomb, which she examined; Let's see what fruit the power of love in her aggravates the effort to find. It continues: “and he sees two angels, sitting in white robes, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus lay.” What does it mean that in the place of the body of the Lord two Angels are visible, sitting - one at the head, and the other at the feet, if not that (since the Angel in Latin is called a messenger) that was supposed to announce, after His suffering, about the One who is both God before the ages, and man to the end of the ages? It’s as if an Angel is sitting at the head when, through the Apostle John, it is proclaimed that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1.1). And it’s as if an Angel sits at our feet when the same Apostle says: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1.14). Through two more Angels we can understand two Testaments, given - one before, and the other after. These Angels are connected to each other precisely by the place of the Lord’s body, because both Testaments proclaim with equal meaning about the Incarnate, deceased and risen Lord; but the first Testament sits, as it were, at the head, and the last Testament, as it were, at the feet. Why are the two Cherubim covering the purification place facing each other, with their faces facing the purification place (Exodus 25.20). Cherubim is the name given to completeness of knowledge. And what is meant by two Cherubim, if not two Testaments? – And what is transformed through purification if not the Lord incarnate? John says about Him: “He is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2.2). And when the Old Testament proclaims that what the New Testament preaches was already perfect from the Lord was about to happen, then it is as if one and the other Cherub mutually looks at each other, turning their faces to the purification; because, seeing the Lord placed between them, they do not disagree in their views, proclaiming in agreement the mystery of His economy. 4. The angels ask Mary, saying: “Wife! Why are you crying? He says to them: They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid Him.” For the most sacred conversations, which produce in us tears of love, dry these same tears when they promise us the vision of our Redeemer. But according to History, it should be noted that the woman does not say: “They took away the body of my Lord,” but: “they took away my Lord.” For the use of the sacred language is such that it sometimes denotes a part instead of the whole, and sometimes the whole instead of a part. For instead of a part, it denotes the whole, when it is written about the sons of Jacob: “all the souls of the house of Jacob that went [with Jacob] into Egypt were seventy-five” (Gen. 46.27). Because souls did not come to Egypt without bodies; but one soul signifies the whole person, because the whole is expressed by the part. And in the tomb lay only the body of the Lord, and Mary was not looking for the body of the Lord, but the stolen Lord, i.e. the whole designates a part. “Having said this, she turned back and saw Jesus standing; but I didn’t recognize that it was Jesus.” It should be noted that Mary, who still doubted the resurrection of the Lord, turned back to see the Lord, precisely because through the same doubt she seemed to have her back to the face of the Lord, not believing that He had risen. But since she loved and doubted, she saw and did not recognize; just as love pointed her to Him, so doubt hid (Him). Her ignorance is also expressed by the addition: “but she did not recognize that it was Jesus. Jesus says to her: woman! Why are you crying? Who are you looking for? She is asked about grief in order to increase desire; because when she named the One Whom she was looking for, then the strongest heat was ignited in her love. “She, thinking that it was the gardener, said to Him: Master! if you brought Him out, tell me where you laid Him, and I will take Him." Maybe this woman who thought Jesus was a heli-cutter was wrong, not mistaken. Wasn’t the one who planted the green seeds of the virtues of love for Him in her heart a heli-grader in the spiritual sense? 5. But what does it mean that when she saw the One Whom she considered to be the helihandler, she did not even tell Him about the One Whom she was looking for, saying: “Mister! if you carried Him out!” For as if she had already spoken with zeal about the One for whom she cried, now she speaks about the One Whom she did not name. But the power of love usually produces in the soul that it thinks that everyone knows the one about whom it always thinks. That is why this woman does not name the One whom she is looking for, and yet she says: “if you carried Him”; because she thinks that someone else knows the One from whose desire she herself so constantly cries. “Jesus says to her: Mary!” After He called her by a common gender name and was not recognized, He calls her by name. Clearly He seems to be saying: “Know the One who knows you.” And to the perfect husband it is said: “I know you by name” (Exodus 33.12); because man is the common name for us all, and Moses is his own name, to whom it is rightly said that he is known by name; and the Lord clearly says, as it were: “I know you not in general, like others, but privately.” So, since Mary is called by name, she mutually recognizes the Culprit, and immediately calls Him - “Rabbi”, i.e. “Teacher”: because He was both the One Whom she was looking for externally, and the One Who internally taught her so that she would seek. But the Evangelist no longer adds what this woman did; but the guess is made from what she heard. She is told: “Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father.” For these words show that Mary wanted to touch the feet of the One whom she recognized. But the Teacher tells her: “don’t touch Me.” This is not because the Lord, after the resurrection, rejected the touch of women, when it is written about the two who came to His tomb: and “they came, took hold of His feet and worshiped Him” (Matthew 28.9). 6. But why she should not touch, the reason is also added when it is further said: “for I have not yet ascended to My Father.” For Jesus in our heart ascends to the Father when he is recognized as equal to the Father. For whoever does not believe that He is equal to the Father, in his heart the Lord does not yet ascend to the Father. Therefore, the one who truly concerns Jesus is the one who believes that He is co-eternal with the Father. For in the heart of Paul Jesus already ascends to the Father when the same Paul says: “He, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God” (Phil. 2.6). Therefore, John touched our Redeemer with the hand of faith, who says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was with God in the beginning” (John 1.1, 2). So, the one who touches the Lord is the one who believes that He, in the eternity of his being, is equal to the Father. But perhaps someone has a secret question ready: how can the Son be equal to the Father? In this matter, what human nature is unable to understand due to surprise, it remains for him to know that for him it is certain due to another surprise. For it has something to answer to this briefly. For it is known that He is the One who created the Mother, in whose virgin womb He was created according to humanity. So, what is surprising if He who is before the Mother is equal to the Father? And according to the testimony of Paul, we know that Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1.24). Consequently, whoever recognizes the Son as lesser takes away in particular from the Father, Whom Wisdom recognizes as unequal to Him. For what powerful person would endure with indifference if someone said to him: “Although you are great, yet your wisdom is less than you?” – And the Lord Himself says: “I and the Father are one” (John 10.30). And again he says: “My Father is greater than Me.” (John 14.28). It is also written about Him that “and He was in subjection to them” (Joseph and the Ever-Virgin Mary) (Luke 2.51). So, what is marvelous if He claims that He is less than the Father in heaven in terms of His humanity, according to which on earth He was in obedience even to His parents? For this humanity He now says to Mary: “Go to My brothers and say to them: I ascend to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.” Saying: “Mine” and “yours,” why doesn’t He say “ours” at all! But speaking separately, He shows that He has the same Father and God, different from us. “I will ascend to My Father,” that is, by nature; “and to your Father,” by grace. “To My God,” because I descended; "to your God" because you ascend. Since I am also a man, He is God for Me; since you are freed from error, He is God to you. So, for Me He is Father and God perfectly, because Whom He begot as God before the ages, Him to the end of the ages He created in Me as man. “Mary Magdalene goes and tells her disciples that she saw the Lord and that He told her this.” The guilt of the human race ends where it originated. Since in paradise the wife brought death to her husband (Gen. 3.6–19), then from the grave the wife proclaims life to the husbands, and the one who spoke about the words of the deadly serpent tells about the words of her Life-Giver. The Lord, not in words, but in deeds, seems to be saying to the human race: “Take the cup of life from the very hand that brought you the cup of death.” 7. We briefly said this about the explanation of the Gospel reading with the assistance of the same Lord about whom we are talking; Now let us think about the glory of His resurrection and about inner piety. For He soon deigned to rise from death, so that our soul would not remain long in the death of unbelief. Why is it well said through the Psalmist: “He will drink from the stream along the way, and therefore he will lift up his head” (Ps 109.7). Because in the human race from the very beginning of the world a stream of death has flowed, but the Lord “drinks” from this stream on the way, because at the transition he tasted death. And, therefore, He lifted up the head, because by resurrection He raised above the Angels what He had put into the tomb by death; and forever defeated the ancient enemy from here, when he temporarily allowed the hands of the oppressors to rage against Him. The Lord clearly shows this to Job, saying: “Can you pull out Leviathan with a fish and grab his tongue with a rope?” (Job 40.20)? 8. For through the “serpent” (Leviathan), which is called the complement of them (the oppressors), this whale is designated - the devourer of the human race. He, having promised to impart Divinity to man, destroyed immortality. He increases the guilt of the crime that he brought to the first person with the bad conviction of those who followed him, and collects punishments for them without ceasing. On the "uditsa" the food is shown, but the tip is hidden. Therefore, the Almighty Father began the work of fishing; because He sent His Only Begotten Son to death, in Whom the flesh could appear to be passive, and the non-passive Divinity could not be visible. And when this serpent, with the hands of the persecutors, devoured the food of the flesh in him, then the edge of the Divine pierced him through and through. Previously, by miracles he recognized Him as God, but from his knowledge he fell into doubt when he saw Him suffering. So, as if the fish were kept in the mouth of the devourer, when the food of the flesh was revealed in Him (the Savior), which the devourer would have desired, and the Divinity of the Suffering, which would have killed, would have been hidden for the time being. By the snare of His incarnation he was caught (the serpent, or the devil), because when he desired the food of the flesh, he was then pierced by the edge of the Divine. Because there was humanity there that would attract the devourer; there was also a Divinity that would permeate (him) through and through; there was an open weakness that would lure (him); there was also a hidden power that would pierce the mouth of the devourer. So, he was caught by the fish, because he died from what he devoured. He also lost those mortals whom he held by right, because he decided to put to death that immortal one over whom he had no right. 9. For this reason this same Mary of whom we speak also lives; because He who owed nothing to death suffered death for the human race. That is why we, too, return to life every day after guilt, because the Creator condescended to our guilt without guilt. Now the ancient enemy has lost the spoils that he grabbed from the human race, he has lost the victory of his temptation. Daily sinners are brought back to life, daily snatched from his jaws by the hand of the Redeemer. Therefore, it is well said to blessed Job in the voice of the Lord: “Will you put a ring in his nostrils? Will you pierce his jaw with a needle?” (Job 40.21)? – Where the ring is put on, there it clasps and tightens. So, what does the ring signify if not the mercy of God that embraces us? – It passes through the jaws of this Leviathan, when, after the crimes committed, it still shows us the medicine of repentance. The Lord threads the ring into the jaw of Leviathan, because He, with the ineffable mercy of His power, stands against the malice of the ancient enemy in such a way that he sometimes releases even those whom he has already decisively captured. And how those who, after committing crimes, return to innocence fall out of his mouth. For who, once caught in his mouth, could escape from his jaws if they were not perforated? Didn’t he hold Peter in his mouth when he denied (Matthew 26.69 et seq.)? Was it not in his mouth that he held David when he was plunging into such a great abyss of fornication (2 Samuel 12.4)? But when both returned to life through repentance, then that same Leviathan released them in some way, as if through a hole in his jaw. And so, through the hole of his jaw, those who, after committing such wickedness, turned to repentance, were snatched from his mouth. What kind of people can escape the jaws of the aforementioned Leviathan without doing anything illegal? But from here we know how much we owe to the Redeemer of the human race, Who not only forbade us to fall into the jaws of Leviathan, but also allowed us to free ourselves even from his mouth. He did not take away hope from the sinner; because in order to open the way to the exit, he (Leviathan) had a hole in his jaw, so that, at least after remorse, he who, through negligence, did not want to prevent himself from remorse, would escape. So, everywhere we encounter the highest healing: because He (the Redeemer) gave commandments to man so that he would not sin, and gave medicine to the sinner so that he would not despair. Why is it extremely necessary to beware lest anyone, through the pleasure of sin, fall into the jaws of that Leviathan; and yet, even if he got caught, he would not despair, because if he sincerely mourns the sin, he still has a hole in his (Leviathan’s) jaw through which he can free himself. 10. The witness of Divine mercy is this very Mary of whom we are talking, about whom the Pharisee, when he wanted to stop the source of piety, said: “Seeing this, the Pharisee who invited Him said within himself: if He were a prophet, He would have known who and what kind of woman was touching Him, for she is a sinner” (Luke 7.39). But she washed away the stains of her heart and body with her tears, and touched the feet of her Redeemer, the one who abandoned her wrong ways. She sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to the word from His mouth. She was devoted to the living, and sought out the dead. She found alive the One whom she was looking for dead. And she found such a place of grace in Him that she announced Him even to the Apostles themselves, that is, to His Preachers. So, brothers, what should we see in this event, if not the unparalleled mercy of our Creator, who, for the example of repentance, as a sign for us, set up those whom, after the fall, He disposed to live through repentance? “For I judge Peter, I reason about the thief, I look at Zacchaeus, I look at Mary, and I see nothing else in them but examples of hope and repentance presented before our eyes. For if anyone has fallen in faith, let him look to Peter, who wept bitterly because he had denied out of fear (Matthew 26:75). Another, in the rage of cruelty, became heated against his neighbor - let this one look at the thief, who, already at the very moment of death, through repentance came to the rewards of life (Luke 23.43). The third, out of excessive greed, stole what belonged to others - let him look at Zacchaeus, who returned fourfold to the one from whom he took something (Luke 19.8). Another, inflamed by the fire of lust, lost the purity of his flesh; let him look at Mary, who burned carnal love within herself with the fire of Divine love. Here Almighty God everywhere presents to our eyes those whom we must imitate, everywhere he shows examples of His mercy. So, vices, even if experienced, should no longer be liked. Almighty God willingly forgets that we were harmful, is ready to impute our repentance to our innocence. Desecrated, after the waters of salvation, we will be reborn with tears. So, according to the voice of the Chief Shepherd, “like newborn babies, you will love... the milk” (1 Pet 2.2). Return, little children, to the bosom of your mother, Eternal Wisdom; suck the rich breasts of Divine Piety, mourn the past, avoid the threatening future. Our Redeemer will dry our momentary tears with Eternal Joy; He lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God through all ages of ages. Amen. You might be interested in: