11. Слово в великий пяток

(Said in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra; published separately and in collections of 1820, 1821, 1844 and 1848) So God love the world. John 3:16. Nowadays, perhaps some people will say about love? Is it now, when the fruit of enmity has ripened in the Beloved’s helicopter city; when the earth trembles with horror, and the hearts of stones are torn, and the eye of heaven is darkened with indignation? Is it now about love for the world, when the Son of God, suffering in the world, is left without consolation, and His prayerful cry: “My God, my God, you have forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46) - without the answer of the Father? True, Christians! This is the day of hostility and horror, the day of wrath and vengeance. But if so, then what will happen to us when the earth is not solid under us and the sky above us is not calm? Where to escape from the shaking earth? Where to escape from under the threatening sky? Look more diligently at Golgotha: and where you see the focus of all troubles, you will open a refuge. Then, how “the earth was trembling and the foundations of the mountains were trembling and moving, as if God was angry with him” (Psalm 17:8), don’t you see how unshakably the unrooted tree of the Cross stands there? Then, just as the dead do not rest in their tombs, don’t you see how peacefully the Crucified One rests on His cross, no matter how hard they tried to embrace Him with the very glory of the Savior: “He who has saved another, cannot save himself” (Matthew 27:42); the very dignity of the Son of God: “if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matthew 27:40); the very good of faith in Him: “let him now come down from the cross, and we believe in Him” (Matthew 27:42)? So, let us confirm in our hearts this strange and terrible truth for the world, but joyful for believers: that in the whole world there is nothing stronger than the Cross and safer than the Crucified One. The horrors of Golgotha ​​are scattered throughout the world so that we, not seeing safety anywhere, would run straight to Golgotha, and throw ourselves at the feet, and hide in the wounds and immerse ourselves in the suffering of the Crucified Savior. O sun! Why would you hide your face from Him at noon, when the great work of darkness, even in your light, has already reached its midnight, and when “the eyes of the All-Seeing, the brighter in darkness” (Sir.23:27) of your light, and in the darkness they just as clearly see the shame of Deicide? - So! in your indignation our admonition was impressed; you hastened to accomplish the visible day of hostility and anger in order to conduct us to the contemplated day of love and mercy, illuminated by the unsetting light of the trisolar Deity. Christian! Let “darkness cover the earth!” Let "darkness fall on tongues"! Rise from fear and bewilderment! “Shine” with faith and hope! Through the darkness “your light comes” (Isaiah 60:1–2). Follow the path that the torn veil of mysteries reveals to you; enter into the inner Sanctuary of the sufferings of Jesus, leaving behind you the outer courtyard, given over to tongues to be trampled under foot. What's there? - Nothing but the holy and blessed love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit for the sinful and damned human race. The Father's love is crucifying. The love of the Son is crucified. The love of the Spirit is triumphant through the power of the cross. About this love, Christians, let it be allowed to speak a little before you, since it is not even possible to express it, so that the Word of God itself, in order to completely depict it, fell silent on the cross. May this Word and this love grant us both to be silent and to heed the silence, just as the children of one mother are mutually silent in their hearts and in her words and understand the silence. So, who crucifies the Son of God? Warriors? “They are almost as much a tool of suffering as a cross and a nail.” Pilate? - He seems to have exhausted all his efforts in defending the Righteous One and solemnly expressed his disagreement with the shedding of His blood: “Let us take the water and wash our hands before the people, saying: I am innocent from the blood of this Righteous One” (Matthew 27:24). People? - How could he seek the death of the One Who was trying to reign? High priests? Elders? Pharisees? – They admit that they have no power over anyone’s life: “it is not worthy for us to kill anyone” (John 18:31). Traitor? He had already testified in the church that he “gave up innocent blood” (Matthew 27:4). Prince of Darkness? – He could not touch Job’s life: now he himself is condemned and expelled. But who better than the Crucified One can know the crucifiers? And what does He say? – “They do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Caiaphas touched upon the true reason for this matter, saying that “one man should die for the people”: however, “he did not speak of this about himself, but the Bishop of that year” (John 11:50–51); he sounded like a cymbal on which the gospel was to be preached to the church that day, but he himself did not understand his gospel. Thus, what they did not want, could not, did not know, was accomplished in front of the whole world by those very people who did not want, could not, did not know. However, this does not mean that there were no perpetrators of the murder of the Innocent! No! Who could not, if only he wanted, understand what even the desperate Judas understood and preached? But “even if they understood the Lord, they did not crucify the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8). We must notice here what an insignificant web was the entire interweaving of visible causes that produced the great Golgotha ​​event. How is it that this web in its first threads was not torn apart either by the breath of God’s wrath, or even by the wind of human vanity? Who bound the lion from Judah with it? How did something happen that they didn’t want, couldn’t, didn’t know, and that was so convenient to both understand and avert? No! “The blasphemers of Calvary also do not know what they are saying, just as the crucifiers do not know what they are doing; in fact” 109 it is not people here who swear at God’s majesty: God’s Providence laughs at human violence, “without violating freedom” 110, forcing him to serve His highest Wisdom. It is not the wicked servants who outwit the Lord: the All-Good Father does not spare the Son, so as not to destroy the wicked servants. It is not earthly enmity that wounds heavenly love; heavenly love hides itself in earthly enmity, so that by the death of love it may kill enmity and spread the light and life of love through darkness and the shadow of death. “God loved the world and gave His only begotten Son to eat, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). It seems that we, both delving into the mystery of the crucifixion and seeing the will of His Father in the suffering of the Son of God, feel more the horror of His justice than the sweetness of His love. But this should assure us not of the absence of love itself, but only of our lack of readiness to accept its suggestions. “Be afraid lest you be perfect in love” (1 John 4:18), says the disciple of love. Let us cleanse and expand our eye with love, and where it was closed by the fear of God’s judgment, let us enjoy the sight of God’s love. “The God of love is” (1 John 4:16), says the same contemplator of love. God is love in essence and the very being of love. All His attributes are vestments of love; all actions are expressions of love. In it dwells His omnipotence in all its fullness; it is His truth when the beloved exists; she is His wisdom when she establishes what exists or has existence, according to the law of truth; she is His goodness when she wisely distributes her true gifts; finally, she is His justice, when she measures the degrees and types of her gifts sent down or withheld by wisdom and goodness, for the sake of the highest good of all her creatures. Come closer and look at the formidable face of God’s justice, and you will definitely recognize in it the meek gaze of God’s love. Man, by his sin, blocked from himself the “ever-present” 111 source of God’s love: and this love is armed with righteousness and judgment - for what? - in order to destroy this stronghold of division. But just as the insignificant being of a sinner, under the blows of cleansing Justice, would be irrevocably crushed, like a meager vessel: then the incomprehensible Lover of Souls sends His consubstantial Love, that is, His only begotten Son, so that He, “who bears all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3), has been taken upon Himself by our flesh, except for sin, He bore both the weight of our infirmities and the weight of the justice that came upon us: and He alone, having exhausted the arrows of wrath aimed at all mankind, in the wounds of the cross would open unstoppable sources of mercy and love, which should intoxicate the entire once-cursed earth with blessings, life and bliss. “So God love the world.” But if the heavenly Father, out of love for the world, betrays His only begotten Son; then the Son, out of love for the world, betrays Himself: and as love crucifies, so love is crucified. For although “the Son cannot do anything for Himself” (John 5:19), He also cannot do anything in spite of Himself. “He does not seek His own will” (John 5:31), but because He is the eternal heir and possessor of His Father’s will. “Abides in His love,” but in it He himself receives into His love everything dear to the Father, as he says: “The Father loved Me, and I loved you” (John 15:9-10). And thus the love of the heavenly Father, through the Son, extends to the world: the love of the consubstantial Son of God both ascends to the heavenly Father and descends to the world. Here, let him who has eyes see the deepest foundation and the original internal composition of the cross, out of the love of the Son of God for His all-holy Father, and love for sinned humanity, cutting off one another, and holding on to one another, apparently dividing the one, but truly uniting the divided. Love for God is jealous of God; love for man has mercy on man. Love for God requires that the law of God's truth be observed; love for man does not leave the violator of the law to perish in his unrighteousness. Love for God strives to defeat the enemy of God 112 - love for man humanizes the Divinity, in order to deify humanity through love for God, and, while love for God “lifts up the Son of man from the earth” (John 12:32, 34), love for man opens the embrace of the Son of God to earth-born, these opposite aspirations of love touch, co-dissolve, balance and form themselves that wondrous center of cross in which forgiving “mercy and judging truth meet, the truth” of the Divinity “and the world” of humanity “kiss”, through which heavenly “truth shines from the earth, and truth” no longer with a menacing eye “penetrates from heaven; The Lord gives goodness to the earth,” and “the earth gives its fruit” to the sky (Ps. 84:11–13). The Cross of Jesus, made up of the enmity of the Jews and the riot of the pagans, is already an earthly image and shadow of this heavenly Cross of love. Without this, could he not only hold on himself, even to death, the One who holds the life of all living things in his hand, but even touch the shoulder of the One for whose deliverance more than twelve legions of Angels were waiting only for a wave. In vain the gloomy horde raises arms to take Him captive, and prepares bonds for Him: illuminating its path with the fire of malice, it does not see that He is already captured and bound by His own “strong love like death” (Song. 8:6). The lawless assembly cries in vain: “We are the law of Imams, and according to our law we must die” (John 19:7), - He will die no other way than according to this law of His: “Greater love has no one to sow, but whoever lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). The detractors repeat in vain: “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matthew 28:40), - the Son of God makes Himself known in this way, that He will not come down from the cross until He exhausts Himself entirely in the intense desire of love for His Father, to whom He finally betrays His spirit, and for people, for whom He exudes the water of purification and the blood of life. “For this knowledge is love, because He laid down His life for us” (1 John 3:16). Delve deeper, Christians, into this great knowledge, not with word and tongue alone, or with idle hearing, but with spirit and truth: and you will finally come to that, so to speak, community of the cross that you will not find the sweetest pleasure, how to cry out in the spirit of contemplation with the God-bearing husband: “My love has been crucified!” (Ignat. Bogonos.). The love of God, directly acting in the cross of Jesus, without a doubt should have imparted Divine power to him. And how quickly, how abundantly, how immeasurably far this victorious power flows from him! “Even if a grain of wheat,” as Jesus Christ said about Himself, “though a grain of wheat falls on the earth, does not die, it remains alone; if it dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12:24). Oh, how quickly this grain of the Divine seed, dying on the cross, gives rise to branches of new life around itself! See how, even before the death of Jesus, on the tree of curse, in the mouth of the thief, the prayer flourishes: “Remember me, Lord, in Your Kingdom!” (Luke 23:42), and this truly heavenly color is carried into the paradise of God on the same day. See how, together with the shaken earth and the cracked stones, the hitherto stony heart of the pagan is crushed and immediately bears out the ripe fruit of the lips confessing to the Savior: “Truly this is the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54). With what irresistible attraction those who left Jesus 113 alive gather around His cross and tomb! Most importantly, the victory of the cross appeared in Joseph of Arimathea. While he knew Jesus as a prophet and wonderworker, he did not have the courage to reveal himself as His disciple: “hidden fear for the sake of the Jews” (John 19:38). But when he learned that Jesus had died the death of a condemned man 114, the One Ascended from the Earth drew him to Himself with such force that he did not heed either honor or fear of man, and did not hesitate to reveal even before the government his participation in the Crucified One: “Boldly going in to Pilate, and asking for the body of Jesus” (Mark 15:43). Was it not by this same power that the grains that had long since rotted in the city of death showed extraordinary fruit - “and many bodies of the departed saints rose up”? (Matthew 27:53). The further the power of the Cross extends, the more solemn its actions will be. She will concentrate in one Jesus crucified all power in heaven and on earth; will make those in spiritual prison feel the power of His gracious dominion; exalt Him above all the heavens; He will bring down to them the Comforter, who would not have come if Jesus had not walked the path of the Cross and made it a truly royal path. Then the “love of God” will be poured out without hindrance and abundantly into the thirsty “hearts” of believers “by the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5:5), and, despite any obstacles, the redeemed world will lead the redeemed world through the deeds of the cross to the universal triumph of sanctification and glorification. Let the enemies of the cross of Christ build a new cross for His Church: they are thus preparing for her a new victory and new glory. Let the wise men of this age pronounce “the word of the cross as foolishness”: it will be foolishness only for “those who are perishing” (1 Cor. 1:18). Let the “Jews” - ancient or new - “ask for a sign”, not noticing the signs happening before their eyes, and the “Greeks seek” their own “wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:22) words where they should actively believe in the Wisdom of God: the true Church will always “preach Christ crucified; For the Jews it is a stumbling block, but for the Greeks it is foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:23), and He will always be, for those “called” by God 115, “Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). May those cruel times finally come when people “will not listen to sound teaching, but according to their own lusts they will choose for themselves teachers with their ears scratched, and will turn away their ears from the truth and turn aside to fables” 116 (2 Tim. 4:3-4); after false teaching they will bring apostasy from God, and they will dry up love itself by the increase of iniquity: in the course of these events, the power of the cross, as in the second crucifixion of the Lord, will penetrate with new abundance all of humanity and all of nature, will shake the whole earth, destroy in it what was solid, will bring down what was exalted, will eclipse what was shining, not so much in vengeance on the enemies of God, who usually prepare their own destruction, but in order to accelerate and complete the attraction of everything to the Ascended One from the earth. In the same way, love, like the oil of wise virgins prepared in advance, will be observed unnoticed by holy fools until the longed-for Bridegroom appears, and it will flare up with a sevenfold flame on the day of the lamb’s marriage; - and until heaven and earth, and faith and hope, “and all God will be in everyone” (1 Cor. 15:28), since in all God-bearing hearts there will be “love poured out” in them “by the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 5:5) through the wounds of the cross. Behold, Christians, the beginning, the middle, and the end of the cross of Christ are all one love of God! Just as in this sensory world, wherever we turn our gaze to the East or West, to the South or North, vision everywhere falls into the immeasurability of the sky: so in the spiritual realm of the mysteries, along all dimensions of the cross of Christ, contemplation is lost in the immensity of God’s love. Let us stop our daring silence about this. The more the word of the cross is spoken, the more the tongue of the flesh becomes numb, and the eye of the earthly mind becomes blind from the excess of the heavenly light of the cross. The eternal Artist of the cross himself, “The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, grant that according to the riches of his glory you may be strengthened with power by his spirit in the inner man; May Christ dwell by faith in your hearts: rooted and founded in love, so that you may be able to understand with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and understand in this incomprehensible many-crosses the one love of Christ that transcends understanding, so that you may be filled to all the fulfillment of God” (Eph. 3:14-19). However, let us remember that if we are not only Christians in name, but either we are, or although we desire to be, true followers of Jesus Christ, then we also have our own cross, according to his commandment: “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and come after Me” (Matthew 16:24). Since our cross should be like the Cross of Christ, is it not gratifying to now think that our cross should consist of one love? So, Christians, this cross, from which peace lovers flee as if from a tormentor 117, and from which the crusaders themselves often groan, but mostly because the good and light burden of Christ, out of ignorance, cowardice, inexperience, increases with their own burdens - this terrible cross is all out of love - what could be more comforting? - everything must consist of love. But let each of us now bring his own small cross and apply it to the great Cross of Christ, in order to see whether it is consistent with its prototype: for we must know that any cross that is not like the Cross of Christ will not lift us up from the earth, but will fall with us and will be consumed under us into firewood by the fire of Gehenna. So, let us look again at the Cross of the Lord. Behold, the love of the heavenly Father crucifies His only begotten Son for us—how is our love consistent with this? Do we do the work of Abraham (Gen. 22), offering up on the altar of God’s love everything that is dear to us, without hesitation, without the remainder of property, rather than trust? Behold, the love of the Son of God itself gives itself up for crucifixion not only to the Holy hand of His Father, but also to the hands of sinners: has love also taught us this unlimited devotion to the destinies of God, with which we, like Isaac, would always be ready to be a sacrifice - whether for the glory of God, for the purification of our own, or for the good of our neighbors? Behold, the love of God, poured out by the Holy Spirit, fills the high and the low, embraces time and eternity, so that what has been hardened and deadened by enmity against God can be dissolved into life-giving and blissful love: does our love also know how to overcome evil with good, bless those who scold, pray for those who crucify and not know a single enemy in the whole world, even if he did not give us a single friend? - Let’s not multiply these questions. Here the conversation must continue - the conscience of everyone, which will tell us, now or someday, without fail, either the grief that awaits the enemies of the cross, or the victory, peace and glory of its lovers, according to the judgment of the Lamb of God slain on the cross, to Him from every creation “blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever” (Rev. 5:13). Amen. In the department ed. and in collection 1820 and 1821 these words do not exist. In the department ed. these words do not exist. In the department ed. and in collection 1820 and 1821: “ever flowing.” In the department ed. and in collection 1820 and 1821 it follows: “love for a person wants to die in his place. Finally..." those who left Jesus - In the department. ed. and in collection 1820 and 1821: “those who abandoned and denied Jesus.” death of the condemned - In the department. ed. and in collection 1820 and 1821: “death of a criminal.” By God - In the department. ed.: “from God.” and they will turn aside to fables - In the department. ed. these words do not exist. In the department ed. and in collection 1820 and 1821 then follows: “and murderers.” You might be interested in: