Поучение в неделю Антипасхи. О христианстве

“Those who have not seen blessings have believed” (John 20:29). These words were spoken by the Lord to His faithful disciple, who refused to believe the resurrection of the Lord, when his brethren, the apostles, told him about the resurrection of the Lord; These words were spoken by the Lord to the disciple, who declared that he would not believe the resurrection of the Lord until he was personally convinced of such a wonderful and so important event for all mankind. “We have seen the Lord,” the other holy apostles joyfully said to the holy Apostle Thomas, to whom the Lord appeared on the very day of His resurrection, in the evening, entering the upper room without opening the doors of the upper room. The upper room was tightly closed and imprisoned as a precaution against the hatred of the Jews, who had just committed deicide and had taken all measures against the foretold resurrection. “If I do not see the mark of the nail in His hand,” answered Thomas, perplexed by the joyful news, “I will put my finger into the mark of the nail, and put my hand into His side, I have no faith” (John 20:25). This is not how unbelief, hostile to God, was expressed - this is how inexpressible joy was expressed; This is how the soul expressed itself before the greatness of an event that exceeded the human mind, before the greatness of an event that changed the state of humanity. With Christ and in Christ humanity was resurrected. The All-merciful Lord did not hesitate to deliver to his beloved disciple the certificate he desired. After a week had passed after His first appearance to the apostles, the Lord appeared to them again when they were all together again, and Thomas was with them. The doors were locked, as before, for fear of the Jews. The apostles suddenly saw the Lord standing in their midst. “Peace be with you,” He said to them. Then, turning to Thomas, he says to him: “Bring your finger to this, and see my hands: and bring your hand and place it in my side: and be not unfaithful, but faithful” (John 20:26–27). With these words, the Lord showed that even then He was present, omnipresent in Divinity, among His disciples, when Thomas, believing Him to be absent, expressed to them his state of bewilderment when they told them about the resurrection. Thomas wanted to be convinced of the resurrection: he receives an incomparably higher certificate, in which he no longer pays attention to the certificate of resurrection. “My Lord and my God!” - exclaims Thomas (John 20:28). “Having been convinced of Your Divinity, I no longer seek confirmation in the resurrection. All actions beyond human comprehension are possible for You, Almighty God.” In response to the apostle’s confession, the Lord blessed those who had not seen and believed. The Lord remembered us too, He remembered all those who had not seen Him with their bodily eyes! He also remembered us, who were removed from Him by both space and time! He remembered at the time when, taken upon Himself by humanity, sacrificed for humanity and already glorified by the glory of the resurrection, He stood in the midst of His holy apostles! We, who are present here in His holy church, remembering an event from which we are separated by eighteen centuries, are not forgotten by the Lord. Blessed are we who have not seen Him, but believe in Him! Blessed are those of us who believe in Him! The essence of the matter is faith. It brings man closer to God and assimilates man to God; she will present man before the face of God and place him on the last day of the life of this world, at the beginning of the eternal day, at the right hand of the throne of God for the eternal vision of God, for eternal pleasure in God, for an eternal co-kingdom with God. “Those who have not seen bliss and have believed.” With these words, the Lord united with the apostles all the believers of all the earth and of all times. When He brought a prayer for the apostles to His Father before going into our saving suffering, then He united all true Christians with the apostles. “I pray not only for these things,” He said, I pray not only for the apostles, “but also for those who believe their word for my sake” (John 17:20). So it is here: He makes all the children of the Church participants in the blessedness of the apostles. “Blessed are your hair, for they see,” He said to the apostles, “and your ears, for they hear. Amen, for I say to you, that many prophets and righteous women of the Old Testament desired to see what you saw, and did not see, and to hear what you heard, and did not hear” (Matthew 13:16-17). The blessed self-viders and servants of the Word gave us what they saw and heard (Luke 1:3), when “the Word became flesh and dwelt in us, and we saw,” says one of these self-viders of the Word, “His glory, the glory of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The clearest narrative of the apostles makes us, as it were, spectators of the events that the apostles were eyewitnesses. Through the church sacraments, we have entered into significant communion with the Lord and remain in this communion through these sacraments. God, invisible to the eyes of the senses, is made visible by living faith to the eye of the soul—the mind (Heb. 11:27). Living according to the commandments of the Lord brings us the mysterious appearance of the Lord. He appears spiritually inside the heart when the disciples of the Lord - concepts formed and assimilated to the mind from the Gospel - gather in the heart and close its doors so that the Jews do not penetrate there - thoughts hostile to the Lord, rejecting His all-holy teaching. Being partakers of the position of the holy apostles, we dare to assert that our position is more blessed than the position of the Old Testament righteous. Those believed in the coming Redeemer, we believe in the One who came and accomplished redemption. Gifts of grace were promised to those, we received gifts in abundance, we have them in our hands, we use them according to our will. The giver is both rich and endlessly generous. If we feel a lack, then we are to blame, only we. The lack of sensation of grace-filled gifts is caused by our weakness in faith; I will say more frankly: by rejecting it. Why don't we have faith? Because they did not accept, did not want to accept, any labor to study Christianity, to acquire faith from hearing (Rom. 10:17), which provides a clear theoretical knowledge of Christianity, to acquire faith from works (James 2:18), which provides active knowledge of Christianity. From these two knowledges, the one who has acquired them is elevated, elevated by God Himself as having attested to the sincerity of the desire to know God through the evidence that depended on him and possible to him, and is elevated to a mysterious, essential spiritual knowledge, always united with living faith. “Have my commandments,” said the Lord, “and keep them, that is to love me: and he who loves me will be loved by my Father: and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 14:21). Christianity can be likened to an excellent, vast harbor in which ships of all sizes and all types of construction can dock with equal convenience. The humble fisherman's boat, the huge merchant ship loaded with various goods, the armored giant armed with countless means of destruction and death, and the decorated yacht of the king and nobleman, intended for ceremonial and pleasure trips, find shelter in this harbor. Christianity accepts into its bosom a person at any age, in any condition and position, with any abilities, with any degree of education: it accepts and saves. “If you confess the Lord Jesus with your mouth, you believe in your heart, and you will be saved: for with the heart you believe the truth, but with your mouth you confess it for salvation” (Rom. 10:9-10). Whoever accepts Christianity with all the sincerity of his heart in the bosom of the Orthodox Church, in which alone true Christianity is preserved, will be saved. All men were redeemed at one price - Christ, and in the matter of redemption the only meaning is the redemption price. It is given without distinction and without partiality for everyone who wishes to be redeemed, who believes in the meaning of the price and who confesses this meaning. Confession of the meaning of the redemptive price is at the same time a rejection of all personal meaning and dignity. A redemption price is given on the condition of self-sacrifice. The simplest person, who has no development in the elements of the world, is saved through Christianity in the same way as the most learned and the sage. Christianity, as a gift from the all-perfect God, satisfies everyone abundantly: faith from the sincerity of the heart replaces understanding for the infant and simpleton, and the wise man who approaches Christianity in a legalized manner (1 Cor. 3:18) will find in it inexhaustible depth, the unattainable height of wisdom. Christianity contains both true theology, genuine psychology, and metaphysics. Only a Christian can acquire correct knowledge, accessible to man, about man, about the holy and rejected spirits, about the world invisible with bodily eyes. From the enlightenment provided by Christianity, the view of human learning that God has of it is formed. “The wisdom of this world is wisdom with God... The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise,” the thoughts from which their learning is made, for they are vanity” (1 Cor. 3:19–20). These thoughts, or knowledge, relate only to the temporary and vain, leading the one who has them to vanity, to pride, to self-deception, to the destruction of life in worries about one thing perishable and transitory, to a sinful life, to rejection and oblivion of God and eternity. When a person, not illuminated by the light of Christ, dares to talk about spiritual subjects, then his mind wanders, as it were, in a dark, boundless desert and instead of true knowledge, which he has no opportunity to acquire, he composes opinions and dreams, clothes them in dark and intricate words, deceives himself and his neighbors with them, recognizing wisdom where, with all justice, one should recognize insanity and mental damage. Strange, amazing is the blindness and bitterness of those contemporaries of Christ who saw Him, heard His all-holy teaching, were eyewitnesses of His amazing signs and did not believe in Him. Standing for seven centuries, as if at the height of a distant mountain, surprised by human insensibility, the prophet cried out to this large crowd of the living dead: “You will hear by hearing, but will not understand; and by sight you will see, and will not see” (Matthew 13:14). Just as strange is the current disbelief of many in Christianity, shining with the rays of the clearest truth. Scripture explains the reason for this unbelief, saying: “the heart of these people is thick” (Matt. 13:15). It became carnal, white from carnal life; it became blind and deaf, it became dead to everything spiritual, to the eternal and Divine. The study of Christianity proves with all certainty and decisiveness its truth. The conviction brought by the correct study of Christianity, the conviction of the existence of everything invisible, taught by Christianity, is much stronger than the conviction of the existence of the visible, delivered by the senses. So true is this conviction that thousands of thousands of people left the visible in order to acquire the invisible, did not stop to imprint their conviction with blood, did not fear the cruel executions with which madness and frenzy tried to extort from them the renunciation of their convictions. The most superficial glance at the establishment and spread of Christianity is astonishing. He proclaims in the hearing of the universe that the establishment of Christianity is by no means a human establishment, that it is a Divine establishment. The Lord, having accepted humanity, deigned to appear not in the splendor of earthly greatness, but in a position of earthly humiliation. He came in the flesh from the royal tribe; but this tribe had long since descended from the heights of the royal throne, moved out of the royal palaces into huts, and entered the ranks and position of commoners who earned food by the labor of their hands. Having borrowed nothing from human power and glory, the God-Man borrowed nothing from human wisdom. He was unlearned (John 7:15). Having gone out to preach at the age of thirty, He chose twelve disciples from the same community of common people to which He belonged. These disciples were simple people, unlearned, illiterate, infants, as the Gospel calls them in relation to development according to the principles of fallen nature (Acts. 4:13), - these are the persons who were supposed to be the founders of Christianity. What does this Teacher bequeath and foretell to these disciples? He bequeaths them to recognize God incarnate in Him, to assure the whole world of this, to turn the whole world to service and worship of Himself, destroying all the religions of the world. He bequeaths to them and to all who believe in Him renunciation of the pleasures of the world and renunciation of themselves in order to believe in Him and to assimilate Him. He says about Himself that He will be executed with the blasphemous execution of criminals and then He will draw everyone to Himself. He says about them that they will be hated by everyone, persecuted, killed, that they will catch all people with their teaching, overcoming both the mighty and wise of the earth, that they will be sent like sheep to wolves (Matthew 10:16), that from the struggle of these sheep they will emerge as decisive winners. According to the minds of the world, the institution of Christianity is alien to meaning; the Founder's assumptions are a pipe dream of one carried away by imagination and love of fame; the means and instruments of execution are insignificant, strange, ridiculous; in an enterprise that is in all respects inconsistent with anything, its impossibility is visible, destruction is visible in conjunction with the undertaking. Only three years were used by the Teacher for the education of his students; no care has been taken to acquaint them with the literacy necessary for reading the Holy Scriptures; their maintenance is not ensured in any way: on the contrary, they are commanded to be non-covetous, and instead of cash means for maintenance, a promise is given that by the Providence of God they will be provided with everything they need for temporary life. Such a spectacle, inexplicable by human reason, is contemplated in the very establishment of Christianity; then a new, equally wonderful spectacle is presented by the events that immediately followed the establishment. Events began in Jerusalem and quickly spread throughout the universe. The God-man was crucified on the tree of the cross. The death penalty on the cross in those days was equivalent to the current execution on the gallows. Those criminals whom they want to dishonor by the very manner of death are put to death on the gallows. Hanging on the cross, naked, showered with insults, the God-man began the conquest of people predicted by Him: “if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to Himself” (John 12:32). While He was hanging on the cross, the thief crucified like Him confessed Him as Lord, and the centurion who was guarding Him confessed Him to be the Son of God. Ten days after the Lord’s ascension into heaven, the descent of the Holy Spirit took place on the apostles: they were filled with manifold wisdom; those who did not know their language correctly, illiterate, spoke all the languages ​​of the world, began to perform amazing miracles, began to explain Scripture, which they had never read. Thousands of Jews converted to Christianity. Confused by the successes of the apostles, the Sanhedrin, consisting of high priests and other most honorable and learned persons of the Jewish people, calls before itself the non-literate apostles, interrogates, hears answers and teachings, to which it has no objection. Not finding words to contrast with the words that expressed the truth, the Sanhedrin resorts to threats, beatings, torment in prison, to stoning, thereby exposing its own weakness and the power of its opponents. Following the Sanhedrin, Herod rises up against the apostles and, to the greatest consolation of the Sanhedrin (Acts 12:3), cuts off the head of one of the apostles. Persecution in Jerusalem forces many of Christ's disciples to leave it. They scattered throughout the universe and sowed Christianity everywhere, watering the seeds with their blood. Within twenty years Christianity had embraced the universe. Fifty years after the resurrection of Christ, Christians were so numerous that in one eastern army of the Roman emperor Trajan there were eleven thousand Christians. He sentenced them all, without exception, to death, 100 to the surprise of sensible people, who recognized the extermination of their own army as the greatest folly. Romil, the leader of the Christian detachment, was first brutally beaten, then his head was cut off. Ten thousand were crucified on crosses in the desert near Ararat; others were killed in various ways. Trajan's act later had imitators. The Roman emperors, rulers of the universe, armed themselves with irreconcilable hatred and tyranny against Christianity. Neither the Celts, nor the Marcomanni, nor Attila, nor Genseric exterminated as much of the population in the Roman Empire as their emperors, the persecutors of Christianity, exterminated. The bloody struggle between wolves and lambs continued for three centuries. Some acted with sword, fire, beasts, stuffy prison, hunger and thirst, all means of torture and murder; others fought with the strength of spirit, the power of faith, the power of God, enduring the most terrible tortures, generously dying for their faith. Victory crowned the three-century struggle, and at the beginning of the fourth century the Christian faith became dominant in the world. Both the strong and the wise of the earth bowed before the teachings of the unlearned fishermen; all nations bowed before him. The cross, hitherto a sign of blasphemous execution, has become a sign of the highest honor: kings and bishops wear it on their heads and chests; he crowns the churches of the true God; it serves as a sign of every Orthodox Christian, a sign of his faith, his hope, his love. Who does not recognize in the establishment of Christianity God’s will, God’s power, God’s action, which transcend human reason and strength? The impossible, the supernatural, was accomplished, the undertaking and work of God was accomplished. This is how Christianity appears when viewed from a general perspective. A more detailed study of Christianity leads to a more definite conviction of its Divinity. The strongest conviction comes from living according to the Gospel commandments, just as the prophet said: “I understood from Your commandments” (Ps. 119:104). The conviction of fulfilling the commandments is a conviction that acts in the very soul of a person: it is stronger than any conviction from the outside. The Gospel commandments calm, enliven, and strengthen the soul. He who has felt their effect in himself acquires a living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and it expresses before the Lord a heartfelt pledge with a definite and decisive confession: “the words of the eternal life are imashi, and we by faith and by knowledge, for You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (John 6:68-69). “Bring your finger to this,” says the Savior to the disciple wavering in faith, the disciple struck with bewilderment before the greatness of God’s works, “bring your hand,... and be not unfaithful, but faithful” (John 20:27). “Handle me and you will see” (Luke 24:39); begin to act according to the instructions of My commandments, touch Me with life according to My will and see Me, invisible, see with the spiritual sensation of your soul; everyone who touches Me in this way will be convinced of Me and, in delight at finding Me, will exclaim with My beloved apostle: “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). Amen. The suffering of the martyr Romil. Chetii-Minei, September 6 The population of the Roman Empire at the time of Augustus numbered up to one hundred million; by the time of Constantine the Great, three hundred years later, it had descended to sixty million. The borders of the empire remained unchanged You might be interested in: