Поучения в неделю о расслабленном. О наказаниях Божиих

“Behold, you were healthy: let no one sin, lest any worse befall him” (John 5:14). The Lord gave such a testament to the paralytic whom He healed, as we heard today in the Gospel. Beloved brothers! This testament of the Lord is of the greatest importance to us. It announces to us that we are subject to illness and other disasters of earthly life for our sins. When God delivers us from illness or disaster, and we again begin to lead a sinful life, we are again subjected to disasters that are more severe than the first punishments and admonitions sent to us from God. Sin is the cause of all human sorrows both in time and in eternity. Sorrows constitute, as it were, a natural consequence, a natural attribute of sin, just as suffering caused by bodily ailments constitutes an inevitable attribute of these ailments, an inherent effect. Sin in the broad sense of the word, otherwise the fall of humanity, or its eternal death, embraces all people without exception; some sins constitute the sad heritage of entire human societies; finally, each person has his own separate passions, his own special sins, which belong exclusively to him. Sin, in all these different forms, serves as the beginning of all sorrows and disasters to which humanity in general is subjected, human societies are subjected, and each person in particular is subjected. The state of fall, the state of eternal death, with which all humanity is infected, defeated, killed, is the source of all other human sins - both public and private. Disturbed by the poison of sin, our nature has acquired the ability to sin, acquired an attraction to sin, submitted to the violence of sin, cannot help but produce sin from itself, cannot do without it in any form of its activity. No one who has not been renewed can help but sin, even if he does not want to sin (Rom. 7:14–23). Three plagues are determined by God's justice for all mankind for the sins of all mankind. Two of them have already happened, one is about to happen. The first execution was eternal death, which all humanity suffered at its roots, in its forefathers, for disobedience to God in paradise. The second execution was the global flood for the predominance of the flesh over the spirit allowed by humanity, for the reduction of humanity to the life and dignity of the dumb. The last execution should be the destruction and death of this visible world for the retreat from the Redeemer, for the final deviation of people into communion with the rejected angels. Often a special type of sin embraces entire human societies and brings upon them the execution of God. So the Sodomites were burned by fire that fell from heaven for the criminal gratification of the flesh; Thus, the Israelites were more than once betrayed to foreigners for deviating into idolatry; so stone upon stone did not remain in magnificent Jerusalem, built of wonderful stones, and its inhabitants died from the sword of the Romans for rejecting the Savior and committing deicide. Sin is contagious: it is difficult for a private person to resist a sin that is carried away by an entire society. An example of execution for sin, done by a person separately, punished by the justice of God also separately, we see in the long illness of the paralytic healed by the Lord. Having said as much as is necessary to know and as much as could now be said about the sinfulness of the entire human race and the sinfulness of human societies, let us pay special attention to the private sinfulness that each person has. This consideration is essential for us and significantly useful. It can have a saving influence on our activities, turning them away from the path of lawlessness, directing them according to the will of God. Enlightened by the law of God, we will learn that God, with unlimited mercy, is completely just, that He will certainly reward a sinful life with appropriate punishment. Such a conviction will inspire us to use every effort to free ourselves from passions and the vicious customs of society, to deliver ourselves from the temporary and eternal punishments of God. The Holy Fathers 104 affirm that before redemption, all people were possessed by sin, did the will of sin and against their will. After the redemption of the human race by the God-man, those who believe in Christ and are renewed by holy Baptism are no longer violated by sin, but have freedom: the freedom to either resist sin or follow its suggestions. Those who voluntarily submit to sin again lose their freedom and fall under the violent dominance of sin (Matthew 12:43–45). Those who, under the guidance of the Word of God, wage war against sin, resist it, and in due time achieve complete victory over sinfulness. Victory over one's own sinfulness is also victory over eternal death. He who has mastered it can conveniently evade public sinful infatuation. We see this in the holy martyrs: having conquered sin within themselves, they resisted popular error, exposed it, and did not stop to seal the holy testimony with blood. Carried away and blinded by his own sin, he cannot help but be carried away by the social sinful mood: he will not see it with clarity, will not understand it as he should, will not renounce it with selflessness, belonging to it in his heart. The essence of the struggle against sin, the struggle that every Christian is obliged to strive for, lies in the struggle against sin, in breaking off friendship with it, in defeating it in the soul itself, in the mind and heart, with which the body cannot help but sympathize. “Eternal death,” says St. Macarius the Great, “is hidden within the heart: by it a person is dead, although outwardly he is alive. Whoever in the secret of the heart has passed from death to life will live forever and will never die. Although the bodies of such are separated from their souls for some time, they are sanctified and will rise with glory. For this reason we call the death of saints a sleep” 105. The saints, all without exception, despite the fact that they overcame eternal death and revealed eternal life within themselves even during this temporary life, were subjected to many and severe sorrows and temptations (Heb. 12:8). Why is this? It is common for sinners to attract God's punishment upon themselves; For what reason does the rod of God not pass by God’s chosen ones, striking them with blows? This question is resolved, according to the instructions of the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, as follows. Although sinfulness is defeated in righteous people, although eternal death is destroyed by the presence of the Holy Spirit in them, they are not given unchangeability in goodness throughout their earthly journey: freedom in choosing good and evil is not taken away from them 106. Immutability in goodness is a property of the future century. Earthly life until its last hour is a field of voluntary and involuntary exploits. “I mortify my body and bring it into subjection,” says the great Paul, “so that by preaching to others, I myself will not be enslaved” (1 Cor. 9:27). The Apostle says this about that body, salted and sanctified by Divine grace, to which the most evil poison of the viper did no harm, whose clothes produced healing. And such a body needed enslavement and mortification, so that its mortified passions would not revive and eternal death would not be resurrected! As long as a Christian, even if he were a vessel of the Holy Spirit, wanders on earth, eternal death can rise in him, sinfulness can again embrace both body and soul. But even one’s own feat is not enough for God’s servants to tame the fall that nests in nature, constantly striving to restore their dominion: they need help from God. God will help them with His grace and the rod of paternal punishment in proportion to the grace of each. To the great Paul, “let him play dirty tricks on me,” he testifies, “and let me not be arrogant” (2 Cor. 12:7) about the most sublime spiritual success, about the many Divine revelations that he received, about the many spiritual gifts that he had, about the many miracles that he performed. Our nature is so damaged by sinful poison that the very abundance of God’s grace in a person can serve as a cause of pride and destruction for a person. It was not honors, not glory, not unquestioning obedience that greeted Paul when he preached Christ to the universe, proving the truth of the preaching with signs: the angel of Satan was everywhere preparing intrigues for him, resistance, humiliation, persecution, adversity, death. Having learned that this is being done by God’s permission, Paul exclaims: “I take pleasure in weaknesses, in annoyances, in troubles, in exiles, in troubles, according to Christ” (2 Cor. 12:10). Paul found it necessary to mortify his body so that carnal passions would not arise from weakening the body: the eye of God's Providence saw that there was an urgent need to protect Paul's soul from pride through sorrows. The purest human nature has something proud in itself, notes the Monk Macarius the Great 107. This is the reason why God’s servants expose themselves to arbitrary hardships and sorrows - at the same time they are subjected to various sorrows and temptations by the allowance of God’s Providence, which through sorrows helps the exploits of God’s servants, and protects their achievements through sorrows from the corruption of sin. The path of earthly life for all the saints was a difficult, thorny path, full of hardships, surrounded by countless misfortunes. “Some of them,” says the apostle, “were beaten, while others were tempted by abuse and wounds, and also by chains and prison, by stone, by stoning, by temptation, by temptation, by murder with the sword; world, wandering in deserts and in mountains and in dens and in the pits of the earth” (Heb. 11:35-38). Blessed Simeon Metaphrastus notes in the biography of the Great Martyr Eustathius: “It is not pleasing to God that His servants, for whom He has prepared eternal, unchanging honor and glory in heaven, should be revered and glorified by vain and temporary veneration in this perverse and fickle world” 108 . Why is this so? Because there is no person who could remain at the height of earthly greatness and prosperity without harm to his soul. If anyone were equal to the angels in morality, even he would hesitate 109. In us, in our souls, the ability to change was implanted by our fall 110. We cannot but correspond and conform the disposition of our spirit to our external circumstances and material situation. “My soul clings to the earth!” (Ps. 119:25; cf.: Ps. 137:7) - the prophet confesses to God on behalf of every fallen person: he lifts me from the earth, tears me away from it, brings me into salvation “thy right hand”, Your all-holy Word and Your all-holy Providence, dissolving my temporary well-being with sorrows and together comforting me with grace-filled spiritual consolation, breathing a desire for heaven into my heart. Without this help from God, due to my unfortunate inclination, which I cannot resist with my own strength alone, I would become attached with my mind and heart exclusively to one material thing and would terribly, disastrously deceive myself, forgetting about eternity, about the blessings prepared for me in it, and would lose them irrevocably.” With submission to God, with thanksgiving and glorification of God, the true servants of God accepted the sorrows allowed to them by the Providence of God. They “rejoiced,” as the holy Apostle Paul put it, about their sorrows; found them useful, necessary, necessary for themselves; their permission was recognized as correct and beneficial. They connected the striving of their will to the action of God’s will: in the precise sense, they favored the punishments and admonitions sent down from God. From such a heartfelt pledge, from such a way of thinking, the saints looked at the misfortunes that befell them. Spiritual consolation and joy, renewal of the soul with the sensations of the future century were the consequence of the mood inspired by humility. What will we, sinners, say about the sorrows we encounter? What, firstly, is the initial reason for them? The initial cause of human suffering, as we have seen, is sin, and every sinner will act very correctly if, when the sorrows befall him, he immediately turns his mental gaze to his sins, confesses his sins, blames his sins, blames himself for his sins, recognizes sorrow as God’s righteous punishment. There is another reason for sorrow: this is God’s mercy for weak humanity. Allowing sinners to grieve, God awakens them to come to their senses, to stop in the midst of their uncontrollable passion, to remember eternity, their relationship to it, to remember God, and their responsibilities to Him. The sorrows allowed to sinners serve as a sign that these sinners have not yet been forgotten, not rejected by God, that the ability to repentance, correction and salvation is seen in them. Sinners punished by God, take heart: “Whom the Lord loves, He punishes; he beats every son whom he receives” (Heb. 12:6). The Holy Scripture proclaims this to us, admonishing, comforting, and strengthening us. “Receive punishment, lest the Lord be angry, and perish from the righteous path” (Ps. 2:12); accept punishment with the consciousness that you are worthy of punishment; accept punishment with praise for punishment, with praise for the just and in your justice the merciful God; accept punishment by impartially examining your past life, confessing your sins, washing away your sins with tears of repentance, and correcting your behavior. It often requires little external correction, but needs a lot of secret correction: correction of the way of thinking, direction, motives, intentions. You have been led astray from the righteous path by your sins: do not completely lose it through grumbling, unscrupulous justification of yourself before yourself and people, hopelessness, despair, blasphemy against God. Do not turn the means of help given to you to raise you onto the path of piety, used by the Lord Himself, into a means of decisive frustration, into a means of self-destruction. Otherwise the Lord will be angry with you. He will turn His face away from you as strangers to Him; He will not send you sorrows as forgotten and rejected (Heb. 12:8); will allow you to waste your earthly life according to the lusts of your sin-loving heart and will command death to reap you suddenly, like tares that have become of your own free will and choice to belong to the fire of Gehenna. Those who endure the temptations duly allowed by God draw closer to God, acquire boldness towards Him, and are assimilated to Him, as the Apostle testifies: “If you endure punishment, God will be found to you as sons” (Heb. 12:7). God fills with spiritual blessings those who suffer grief in humility of spirit, listens to his tender prayer, and often turns away the scourge and rod of punishment if it is not needed for greater spiritual success. This happened over the healed paralytic, who had been lying for thirty-eight years in Solomon’s porch among many other sick people who, like the paralytic, were waiting for the healing disturbance of the water by the hand of an angel. What a painful situation, forced by illness and poverty! Obviously, those affected by the disease had no other means of healing and therefore decided to wait for a long time for a miracle that occurred once a year, providing a sure and complete cure for any disease, but only for one patient. The sickness of the paralytic was a punishment for his sins, which is clear from the instructions given by the Lord to the healed man: “Behold, thou art in health; let him not sin, lest it be worse.” The Lord, who gave a testament to the healed paralytic, so that he would not again fall into those sins for which he was punished by illness, gave the same testament to a sinner, whom He forgave her sins. “Go,” said the Savior of the world to those condemned by the earthly righteous to be stoned, “and from now on do not sin to anyone” (John 8:11). Healing of the soul and healing of the body are given by the merciful Lord under the same conditions. The wife's sin was a mortal sin; It is obvious that the sin of the paralytic belongs to the category of mortal sins. It is these sins that most call for the execution of God. For those mired in the abyss of mortal sins, God’s special help is needed, and this help appears explicitly in punishment, secretly in a call to repentance. A person is called to repentance either by illness sent to him, as happened with the paralytic, or by persecution from men, which befell David, or in some other way. In whatever form God’s punishment appears, we must accept it with humility and immediately strive to satisfy the Divine purpose for which the punishment is sent: resort to the medicine of repentance, making a covenant in our souls to abstain from the sin for which the hand of the Lord punishes us. This sin will be faithfully shown to us by our conscience. Forgiveness of sin and deliverance from sorrow, with which we are punished for sin, are granted to us by God only on the condition of abandoning sin, which is harmful to us, abominable before God. A return to sin, which brought upon us the wrath of God, healed and forgiven by God, is the cause of the greatest disasters, mainly eternal disasters beyond the grave. For thirty-eight years the paralytic languished in illness for his sin. The punishment is significant! But the Lord announces an even greater punishment for returning to sin. What kind of punishment is this, more severe than the disease that kept the patient on his bed for his entire life, amid all the hardships? Nothing less than eternal torment in hell awaiting all unrepentant and incorrigible sinners. Amen. Venerable Dorotheos. Lesson 1 Venerable Macarius the Great. Conversation 7, ch. 4. Saint Isaac of Syria. Word 1st Saint Isaac of Syria. Word 1st You might be interested in: