250. Беседа об освящении дня Господня

(Printed in the Works of the Holy Fathers in 1849 and in the collection in 1861) And Jesus answered a speech to the lawyers and the Pharisees, saying: Is it worthy to heal on the Sabbath? (Luke 14:3). Once upon a time the Lord Jesus, looking with the eye of His omniscience at the innermost thoughts of the lawyers and Pharisees, called them out with the question: “Is it worthy to heal on the Sabbath?” Is it permissible to heal the sick on a day dedicated to God? – When asked about the law, the lawyers did not have an answer. “They kept silent.” This silence contained a strict opinion that one should not heal on the Sabbath, and a desire to accuse Jesus of breaking the law for His healings on the Sabbath: but the strict judges did not dare open their mouths, because the people were in awe of Jesus and his healings. Therefore, the Lord of the Sabbath Himself resolved His question: and - how easy and indisputable even for those who oppose Him! He immediately healed a man who was suffering from water sickness before His eyes. “Receive him, heal him, and release him” (Luke 14:4). Obviously, the healing was miraculous. A miraculous work is the work of God. The work of God cannot be contrary to the law of God. Consequently, healing the sick on a day dedicated to God is not contrary to God’s law. “It is worthy to heal on Saturday.” You know that Sunday is the same thing in the Christian Church as the Sabbath was in the Church of the Old Testament. Question: is it permissible to heal the sick on Sunday? I would not, I think, make it difficult for either the learned or the unscientific among us. Who wouldn't send for a doctor on Sunday? What doctor does not go to the sick on Sunday? Why this difference in opinions? Is it because we understand the law of the day of the Lord better than the Jews? - Well, if so. Or, perhaps, is it because we are less attentive to the law of the day of the Lord than the Jews? “You can imagine how humiliating this would be for Christians.” So, we need, Christian brothers, to think and take care that we understand and fulfill the law of the day of the Lord, not only not worse than the ancient Jews, but also more perfectly; since Christianity is, without a doubt, higher and more perfect than Judaism. Let us take the Law and Sacred History as our guide. What does the root law of the Sabbath, that is, the day of pious rest, or the Lord's day, say? - “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: on the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Lord your God. Thou shalt not do any work in it” (Ex. 20:8, 10). Take note. The day is entirely dedicated to the Lord; no share of it is allocated for a person and for his affairs. It is not useless to note that the day is measured here by the same measure with which it was originally measured at the creation of the world, according to the legend of Moses: “there was evening and there was morning, one day” (Gen. 1:5). Therefore, both once in the Jewish and now in the Christian Orthodox Church, always faithful to the ancient sacred traditions, the holiday began and begins in the evening of the pre-holiday day, and ends in the evening of the holiday day, as you see in the order of worship. Perhaps it will be objected that it is impossible to devote a whole day to God, because a person needs some time during the day for himself, for example, time to get dressed, time to eat, time to nourish the body with the necessary sleep. This objection is resolved, firstly, by the fact that a person can use the feat of denying himself other needs, so as not to steal time devoted to God; secondly, by the fact that even ordinary things can be done for God, and thereby sanctify them, and agree with the law of the Holy Day. You can, for example, dress on the Lord’s Day with a pious thought, so that with clean clothes you can honor the purity and holiness of the day and the church of God, which is mostly visited on this day: and this is the correct beginning of festive clothing, which the custom, corrupted over time, turns into idolatry, vanity and vanity. You can “on the holy day,” as Ezra put it, “eat fat and drink sweet” (Neh. 8:10), but “eat and drink to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31), with a joyful and grateful thought about God: and this is the beginning of festive feasts, which in ancient times were in some way added to sacrifice and worship. The thought that the night of a holiday is a portion of the holy day can and should motivate a person to sanctify this portion of time as much as possible with godly deeds, to succumb as little as possible to the inaction of sleep: and here is the beginning of the festive all-night vigils, which partly need, partly weakness, and partly arbitrariness often shortens to the point that the name of the all-night service becomes a denunciation of weakened zeal for prayer feats. What further does the additional and protective ancient law of the Sabbath say? - “Keep the Sabbath, for this is holy to the Lord and to you: whoever defiles it shall die: whoever does a work on it, that soul will be required from among his people” (Ex. 31:14). What else does Sacred History say about this subject? – One day, while wandering in the desert, the Israelites “found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day” (Numbers 15:32). I don’t know if we would have found it difficult to determine the extent of this crime: and the whole crowd at that time, not excluding Moses and Aaron, were perplexed as to what to do with the culprit. “I didn’t consult what they would do to him.” But the matter ended with the fact that “he stoned the whole host outside the regiment, as the Lord said to Moses” (Num. 15:32–36). In the book of the Prophet Jeremiah we read a grave threat from God for crimes against the holiday, apparently not too grave. “If you do not listen to Me, keep the Sabbath day holy, and do not bear burdens, and enter through the gates of Jerusalem with burdens on the Sabbath day: then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it will devour the houses of Jerusalem, and it will not be quenched” (Jer. 17:27). It is known with what terrible precision this threat was fulfilled through the Babylonians. It is impossible not to mention another example of voluntary strictness in keeping the Sabbath, which is represented by the times of the Maccabees. Due to the persecution of Antiochus, who forced the Jews into paganism, many of them withdrew into the desert. The pagans guessed that it would be advantageous to attack them on Saturday, on which, by law, they keep peace. Then the zealots of piety were suddenly presented with a hitherto unconsidered question: “Is it worthy to fight on the Sabbath?” So what? “We will all die in our simplicity” (1 Mac. 2:37), they said, and about a thousand people allowed themselves to be killed without doing anything to protect themselves. This incident already taught the Maccabees that in this way the pagans would completely destroy piety; and therefore it is accepted as a rule to fight attacking enemies on Saturday. After what has been said so far, let anyone who wants to be amazed at the severity of the ancient law regarding the Day of the Lord: for me, its importance and power are more remarkable. Let others condemn the suspiciousness of some of the performers of the law: but isn’t their reverence for the law, their self-sacrifice to the law more worthy of respect? Boast, if you like, a higher understanding of the law than the ancients, as it should be in Christianity: but take care also about the evidence of this boasting. True evidence of the highest understanding of the spiritual law is the highest feats and virtues. Or do you think, on the contrary, that the higher understanding of the law about the Day of the Lord requires less from you, and allows you more, in accordance with the freedom of the new grace, contrary to the slavery of the Old Testament? – To resolve this, let’s take the Gospel as a guide. What does the Gospel say to alleviate the severity of the law of the Sabbath, or the Lord's Day? “Who is there of you who has one sheep, and if he falls into a pit on the Sabbath, does he not have it and lose it? Why is it better to have a human sheep? Therefore it is worthy to do good on the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:11–12). “The Sabbath is for man’s sake, and not for man’s sake. Likewise, the Lord is the Son of man on the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27–28). From these sayings two rules can be extracted. First, works of unavoidable need are permissible on the day of the Lord. Second: good and philanthropic deeds are worthy of the day of the Lord. But from this it must necessarily be concluded that things in which there is neither an inevitable need, nor moral dignity and beneficence, are left prohibited by the Gospel, just like the ancient law, on the day of the Lord. As for the majestic saying of the Lord: “The Lord is the Son of man and the Sabbath”: when you hear this, do not think that the Lord, who created the Sabbath, Himself destroyed it and allowed it to be trampled under foot. He said that he did not come to “destroy” the law, but to “fulfill” it (Matthew 5:17). And having called Himself “Lord of the Sabbath,” He reveals His Divinity and power to interpret the law of the Sabbath (for who better can interpret the law than the Lawgiver Himself?), to fulfill it and renew it. He especially demonstrated this power in the fact that, having preserved the essence of the original law - to dedicate the seventh day to God, He sanctified a new day for this by His glorious resurrection. The ancient Sabbath day, celebrated in memory of the creation of the world, not entirely joyful from the time that what was created was damaged by sin, in justice had to give up its glory to the new Sunday day, in memory of the new creation, by which we were “created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Eph. 2:10), “born into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3). You see how the Lord of the Sabbath did not destroy her, but still exalted her. And therefore, if the ancient day of the Lord, the day of “Sabbath”, that is, rest, in memory of the first temporal creation, was holy and reverently venerated, then should we not be even more holy and reverently venerate the new day of the Lord, the resurrection day, the day of joy of the new creation, which endures forever? Brethren! The question of the Lord: “Is it worthy to heal on the Sabbath?” remaining unanswered by those questioned shows you that the truth instructs not only with reasoning and answers, but sometimes with questions to which the inevitable answer is in the conscience of those questioned. Let us also follow in the footsteps of the Heavenly Teacher, and propose to our conscience some questions, the solution of which, it seems, is quite prepared by the information and reflections now offered. Is it worthy for Christians, children of grace-filled freedom, to be less concerned as slaves of the Law about preserving the day of the Lord, just because now there is no threat of stoning for this? Is it worthy on the morning of Sunday, during a holy day, especially a holy day, to go not to the church of God, but to the marketplace, to fill it to the point of crowding, instead of prayer and rest, to fuss among rumors, buying and selling? The civil law leniently allows on Sunday to sell and buy what is necessary for the day: let them only use this leniency; however, the less the better. Is it worthy to sell and buy on Sunday, which could be postponed until the working day, to sell only because self-interest wants it, to buy because it is leisurely on a holiday? – Isn’t six days of the week enough for these sales and purchases? Is it necessary to invade with them on the seventh day, so as to put a seal of sin against the commandment that sanctified the seventh day on both what was bought and the price of what was sold? At the eve of the Lord's Day, at the hours, as explained above, which actually belong to the composition of the holy day, in which the Church already begins solemn doxologies, in which our pious ancestors usually partook of spiritual joy at the evening or all-night service, is it worthy for their descendants to rush to places of worldly joy, to spectacles that, even at not such an important time, would have little right to attention? Christian, as adopted from the pagans, and hardly ever rising above the pagan ideas of vanity, passions and vices? On a day dedicated to the glory of Christ the Savior and the joy of salvation, is it worthy, under the guise of joy, to indulge in deeds that not only do not glorify God, but also humiliate a person and harm his salvation - deeds of carnality, intemperance, and disorderly conduct? “Have ears to hear, let him hear.” That is, he who has an unsuppressed conscience, let him listen to its answers to the questions now proposed. Let the commandment, the Church, and conscience guide your actions, as always, and especially on the holy day of the Lord! Believe your festive freedom in not servile to passions, vain customs and condemnable examples. Amen. You might be interested in: