О смерти. (Отрывок из проповеди на Крестном Ходе 1 августа)

God did not create death, and therefore He is not the cause of those sorrows and troubles that were a consequence of death. So, where do diseases and other troubles that have appeared since death come to us? From our original disobedience to God and from our original sin in paradise. The weaknesses and burdens of temptation in our lives come from sin. Because of sin, we put on leather garments, that is, in a sick, mortal and vulnerable body, and for the same reason we moved into this temporary and perishable world, and the last stop on this path will be death. Immediately, as soon as God created and revived man, He gave him the commandment leading to immortality. God clearly declared that breaking this commandment would result in death. Moreover, death is not only physical, but also mental: “For in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:18). Please note: God does not say in an imperative mood, “die on the day you taste the fruit of disobedience,” but predicts that death will take possession of a person as a result of his violation of the Divine commandment. After all, by freely accepting obedience and avoiding disobedience, a person could avoid death. By giving the commandment then, God did not mean bodily death, but the death of the soul. This becomes clear from the fact that the primordial people did not die a physical death on the day they transgressed the Divine commandment. However, we must also examine the question of bodily death to find out where it comes from. As with mental death, it is not God’s fault. He did not create death and did not desire it. So, if God did not plan death, if He is not the cause of bodily infirmities, then where do illnesses and infirmities come to us? Where does the death of our body come to us from? The mental serpent, the devil, having initially abandoned virtue and hastened to evil, lost his true life. Insatiably striving for evil and not being satisfied with this striving, through wickedness he made man involved in his own death. Having agreed with Satan, our forefathers put off their bright clothes and Divine glory and became spiritually dead, like him. Subsequently, this deadness was transferred to their bodies. So, bodily death does not come from God, it is the result of sin. However, God is strong, out of love for us, to transform any evil into good. Human falls that occur from our free deviation towards evil, He forgives and corrects. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18), He says. That is, all that power that He always had from eternity as God, He accepts Divine power and glory now as a Man. And He Himself tells us this: “I have risen from the dead in My human body, and death no longer reigns in the flesh, since its mortality is swallowed up in Me by life. I have risen and from now on the end and completion of a person’s life is no longer death. Through Me man has inherited immortal life, and through Me all who believe will pass with Me after death into eternal life. Death will no longer have dominion over the bodies of those who died in earthly life. I will reign My earthly Body over the heavenly ones, I will reign with My Body in Heaven, and I will return to judge the whole earth again. I will take with Me to Heaven with their bodies all those who believed in Me and will give them My eternal Kingdom.” So, now we, contemplating the spectacle of death through our faith in Christ, can come to repentance and reflection on what awaits us after death. Although death awaits each of us, now it is the last pain of every person.