Homily for the twentieth week after Pentecost (October 23)

The current reading of the Gospel presents us with one of the most striking proofs of divine power, who hid the glory and power of his deity under the humble image of the Son of Man. In view of the multitude of people, with one touch to the tomb and a word to the deceased, He brings the young man mourned by his mother back to life (Luke 7:11 et seq.). This was the first example of resurrection revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ, which justified His word: just as the Father raises the dead and lives, so the Son also lives what He wills (John 5:21). The people greeted this miracle with surprise and horror. Voices were heard everywhere: the great prophet has risen in us! (Luke 7:16) But it seems to me that we will not sin if, realizing the full importance of this event, which manifests in the Great Wonderworker the Lord of life and death, - according to the guidance of another reading offered to us by the church - we dwell more on another event that took place in the sight of Damascus. In this event, the divine power of the Redeemer of the World and His providential goodness were expressed even more clearly than in the resurrection of the youth of Nain. Young Saul was torn out from the midst of dead Judaism in order to become a living organ of Christ’s grace for the whole World, to console not just the mother of the deceased, like the youth of Nain, but to console the entire church by calling the pagan peoples to life. Saul's conversion becomes a worldwide event, one of those deeds about which the Lord himself said: He will show him greater deeds, so that you may wonder (John 5:20). The bitter persecutor becomes not only a zealous confessor of the name of Christ, but also in the very face of the apostle - its most active member; Having not personally heard the preaching of Christ, he understood it more deeply than others and with tireless zeal, against his own and against strangers, he defends its broad, worldwide significance, proclaiming evangelical freedom to the new church. What a comparison! There a crying mother is consoled, here the whole Ecumenical Church rejoices; there are residents of a small town - here all the peoples are pagan; there is an unknown youth, here is Saul, converted to Paul, possessing nothing but containing everything (2 Cor. 6:10). And yet, here and here the same power of the persecuted Jesus is at work. So, for the glory of Him, for Whom it was just as easy to crush the stubbornness of his persecutor as to break the bonds of death, Whose word is also effective when he says to the dead: young man, I say to you, arise, as when addressed to a blinded zealot: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Let us dwell on the words of the Apostle, in which he will tell us what happened to him on the great day of his deliverance, and what he himself did? When God was pleased, who chose me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him to the nations, except those who were not united to flesh and blood (Gal. 1:15,16). In these words, the Apostle speaks of his election to the apostolic ministry as a special act of God the Father’s favor towards him. He was destined for this service by the providence of God from infancy; in due time he was called, and this calling was fulfilled by the revelation of Jesus Christ in him. The call to apostolic service is, without a doubt, a sign of God's great favor. The entire work of Jesus Christ rests on the Apostles; on them is built the Church of God, which is the cornerstone of Jesus Christ himself (Eph. 2:20). But in order to be able to appreciate this favor, you need not a general, worldly view of the matter. What were the Apostles like in a world hostile to them? The Lord said to them: Behold, I am sending you like sheep among wolves (Matthew 10:16). What did they experience? As the world has been cut off, all hitherto have been trampled underfoot (1 Cor. 4:13). Forever we live, we are given over to death for Jesus' sake (2 Cor. 4:11). Listen to what someone who has been honored with high chosenness has to say about himself: in prisons you are abundant, in deaths you are abundant. The Jews gave me forty blows five times, minus one: three times they beat me with sticks; once stoned (2 Cor. 11:23–25). Will everyone agree in this form, under such conditions, to accept God’s favor? But this is where the truly apostolic character of Pavlov’s ministry was revealed, that he lifted all this burden on his shoulders and saw nothing in it except the true and extreme favor of God. “The signs of the Apostleship were revealed in me,” he writes to the Corinthians. What did they open up to? First of all, in patience, then in signs, wonders and powers (2 Cor. 12:12). So, all the multitude of sufferings and sorrows does not frighten him. He goes to Jerusalem: by the revelations of the Spirit, he knows that bonds and sorrows await him there. But he says: I do not consider anything, and do not value my life, if only I could finish my race and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus with joy (Acts 20:24). So he valued his calling, so highly he placed the favor of God revealed in this calling. Hear, the title of holy communicant! Is this how we look at our ministry? We dare to boast that we are called to participate in the verbal service of the Church of God, just like the disciples of Christ. But is it so, do we look with apostolic eyes at the inconveniences, deprivations, and sorrows associated with our high ministry? What would happen to us if we had to bear even a small part of Paul’s apostolic labors and illnesses? Wouldn't we give up our high lot? We need special rights and advantages, we need complete security in everything, we need protection from all unpleasant conflicts in order to hold on to our post to any extent. Otherwise, we might soon have renounced our chosenness! Whenever God was pleased, who chose me from my mother’s womb... From the height of his ministry, the Apostle looks at the entire time of his life preceding this ministry and sees in him, from the first days of his life, a special preparation for this great work. “He who chose me,” he says, “from my mother’s womb...” “He who chose,” it would be more accurate to say: “he who excommunicated,” “who separated”... And perhaps in this there is a hint of Paul’s belonging in Judaism to the society of the Pharisee, whose name indicates excommunication, separation from others for the sake of the strictest piety. In any case, the Apostle Paul did not consider it unimportant in his family that he was a Jew of the Jews, according to the law a Pharisee (Phil. 3:5). I did not consider it superfluous to point out that he studied in Jerusalem at the feet of the famous teacher of the Pharisees, Gamaliel, and that he was a zealot (ςηλωτὴς - Greek) of God (Acts 22:3). Despite the fact that the zeal of the Pharisees carried him away for some time to the open persecution of Christianity, the Apostle does not hesitate to say about himself that from his mother’s womb he was destined for the apostolic ministry. How so? Without a doubt, because he saw the need for this zeal for the law, and in this acquaintance with the teachings of the zealots of the law, and in this, we dare say, unreasonable perseverance, so that after that it would be all the more certain to become a true zealot of the Gospel. He, the future opponent of justification from the law, needed to find out from his own experience that there is no power in the law to justify a person before God. He needed to be educated by the best of the teachers of Israel in order to assure himself and others that he understood the law, knew the traditions of the elder well, and then voluntarily recognize all this as skills, so that he might gain Christ (Phil. 3:8). So, although he grieved that he persecuted the Church of God beyond abundance, he has no doubt to say that from the very beginning he was led by the circumstances of his life to that high goal that was destined for him in Christianity. His upbringing, his education, his practical acquaintance with the rules of sincere piety, albeit in the form of Pharisaism, all this was as useful for him as it should have remained useless under his old faith. Chosen me from my mother's womb... The Apostle traces his destiny from infancy. We are now talking about the calling to serve the altar, they are talking about the need to choose this title only at a mature age. See where you can start your calling. As a child, Saul was not aware of his apostolic appointment, but he already carried this calling within himself and, by the providence of God, was ready for it. Let us also pay attention to the following circumstance. Probably, Saul was finishing his course of teaching with Gamaliel in Jerusalem at the time when Christ the Savior visited this city to offer his lessons. And yet the Lord did not call him then to be one of his disciples, although, of course, he did not know whom the Father was preparing for Him to be a zealous servant of His work (John 5:20). Just as a skillful builder of musical harmony uses every instrument in its place, introducing certain sounds according to the requirements of the general structure, so the Lord calls upon His workers and introduces each one at his own time. And Saul says about himself that he previously knew Christ, but only according to the flesh; and now he no longer knows Him according to the flesh (2 Cor. 5:16). This knowledge of Christ only according to the flesh, or the carnal understanding of His work, alienated Saul from Christ, Who came not for the flesh; and it was necessary for the carnal understanding, taken to its extreme, to expose its own inconsistency. How desirable it would be, friends and brethren, for us to look more closely at the paths that the Lord leads us from the womb. Do not think that the lot of such an industry is left only to the chosen few. The all-good, all-knowing and all-wise Lord provides for everyone as if he were his own in Jesus Christ. His fatherly love is wide, his means are inexhaustible, his omnipotence does not tire, his ways of action are varied. But let's turn again to Saul. The future Paul grew up as a disciple of Gamaliel, not knowing what the Lord was preparing him for. After leaving school, he entered public life and went completely different from the path that was assigned for him. But it was then, in the midst of his anti-Christian zeal, that the blow struck him, which was to transform everything in him. Let us not dwell on the history of his conversion, which was all a work of grace. Let us pay attention to the significant words that explain to us the change that happened to him. Deign to reveal Your Son in me. It would seem that it would be more correct to say: “show me.” For, according to Paul’s own account in the book of Acts, the Lord actually appeared to him outside of himself with an accusatory voice. No, the Apostle is not content with pointing to this one external phenomenon, he says: deign to reveal Him or what, also reveal Him in me. The meaning is this: the Lord Jesus Christ did not only appear to him for a moment, not only in an external way, but left His image in him forever, or better to say, did not leave His image, but revealed Himself in the spirit of Paul in the form He was with the Father and as He should have been preached to the pagans. His earthly appearance as a messenger to the lost sheep of the house of Israel was over. His glorious appearing is now to the church - both Jews and Gentiles. And the future Apostle of tongues was to know Him from this side primarily. The ray of divine light that shone upon him before Damascus illuminated the entire chaos of his troubled soul and, in everything he heard about Christ, Whom he persecuted among His followers, showed him the light where he saw only darkness. Just as it was not flesh and blood that once revealed to Peter the saving truth that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God, but the Father Himself (Matthew 16:16,17): so now He revealed His Son to Peter’s future co-worker, revealed the greatness of His Divinity, revealed His universal purpose, revealed Him as the only Savior, besides the law. The light of the Holy Spirit lit up in the soul of the new convert and quickly changed everything. Historical facts, prophecies, Gamaliel's lessons, life practices - everything took on a different meaning. And Paul appears instead of Saul, confessing himself instead of the righteous - the first of sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ, just as He revealed Himself to the other Apostles during his three-year stay with them, so He revealed Himself to Paul in himself, not through another, Ananias, Peter, James or anyone else, but by the Spirit of His grace. This revelation began from the day of His glorious appearance before Damascus, and was subsequently enriched with many new revelations. This revelation is the good news or Gospel, which the Apostle repeatedly points to in his epistles (for example, Gal. 1:11; 2:1). Abiye did not belong to flesh and blood. This gives us an idea of ​​the completeness of the revelation given to Paul. From the very beginning it was already so convincing, convincing, and comprehensive that there was no need to turn to anyone for additions or advice. Having Christ in us as a teacher, there was no need to look for another teacher. Not out of enmity towards the teachers who preceded Paul, but out of distrust of the way of their teaching, not out of desire to become the head of the new society, he does not turn to the Church of Jerusalem, where the other Apostles were then located, but because the voice of the One who called and taught the other Apostles was strong enough in him. Isn’t this a lesson for us, brethren, to surrender ourselves wholeheartedly and inseparably to the Word of God, which we are called to proclaim to the people of God? Well, you say, shouldn’t we leave all other sciences and devote ourselves exclusively to the science of Divine Revelation? I would not hesitate to answer this in the affirmative if revelation were available to us directly, and to the same extent as to the Apostle. But since we must only assimilate to ourselves the Revelation that was communicated to Paul and other inspired preachers, each to the extent accessible to him; since we are shown not the path of inspiration, but of work and science; then we must collect light from everywhere in order to understand the Revelation handed down to us. If only our forces would not be scattered across many objects, but would all concentrate on one thing, which we all need. The Old Testament tabernacle, built by Moses in the image shown on the mountain, was built, like any tabernacle, without windows. The light in it was only from the fire taken from the altar, but which fell from the light during the consecration of this dwelling of God on earth. What does this mean if not that the people of God, like the sanctuary of God, are separated from the whole world? Jehovah is for his people, and the people of Israel are for Jehovah. One thing was gratifying, at least for the future, that the tabernacle was turned to the East, as if in anticipation of complete illumination from the coming Sun of truth. The Christian church not only has not extinguished the light within itself, but also receives light in broad streams from the outside. He not only kept the seven-candlestick of the Word of God, but also multiplied his light by lighting lamps before many human figures who, with the help of God’s grace, worked on earth to enlighten their neighbors. But this is not enough. A Christian church, which does not close its doors to those far or near, and is always ready to open for its services, enjoys the full illumination of the heavenly body, on an equal basis with the whole world. The symbol is clear to those who have eyes to see. The treasure of God's truth in the Church of Christ has become the property of everyone. And no priest will dare to put his mark on it, as if on his own invention. Servants of the Christian church, we do not shun the light that comes to us from outside. On the contrary, this is only what we wish and ask: do not block the entrance to us of the light of God, spilled in the World. Let the heavens with their stars, both falling and rising, tell us the glory of God; and the abyss, over which the Spirit of God still floats, building and transforming everything, let it no longer say to us, as it said to the ancient seeker of wisdom, let it not say: there is nothing in me. Light from Light and let it lead to Light. But note: the priest of the altar will never perform his sacred rite even at noon in daylight alone. He will light a sacred, albeit small, candle before the throne of the Almighty and with it he will perform his work. Thus, the minister of the Word of God will never replace the light of Revelation with the light of science and will not refuse to prefer some darkness of faith to the imaginary enlightenment of one self-proclaimed enlightener of mankind. Amen.