36. Слово в неделю по Воздвижении 185

(Printed in the 1844 and 1848 collections) Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation; and the son of man will be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Mark 8:38. The Heavenly Father does not judge anyone, but has given all judgment to His Son. See how wondrous is His judgment. How precise and strict he is! For punishment and crime are measured by the same measure. If a person is ashamed of Christ; this is the crime: - and Christ will be ashamed of man; - that's the punishment. But how lenient this court is! How much the daring servant wants to humiliate the Lord of glory before his eyes: so much, and no more, the Lord of glory wants to humiliate the daring servant before Him: “Whoever is ashamed of Me, the Son of man will be ashamed of him.” But no matter how the Supreme Judge appears to us in this case, whether strict in order to frighten us, and with fear to save us from crime and condemnation, or lenient, in order to shame us, and with saving shame to prevent the shame of criminality, the very crime for which judgment is pronounced seems to be able to arouse in us all the horror of disgust, and all the attention of caution. How? Will there be people who will think that the Son of Man and His words, that is, Christ and Christianity, make them ashamed? – Unfortunately, it is impossible to doubt this. What the Truth predicts will happen. The omniscient Judge would not have pronounced punishment if he had not foreseen the crime. So that one day our Lord will not be ashamed of us, Christians, we need, as a precaution, to carefully consider what it means to “be ashamed of the Son of Man and His words,” and how one can fall into this crime. “Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation: and the Son of man will be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” They are usually ashamed of the unclean, the base, the despicable. How can one be ashamed of Jesus Christ, the all-pure, exalted, most glorified? What does it mean to be ashamed in this case? In order to determine the meaning of this word in the mouth of Jesus Christ, we must remember what He said before about the cross. “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and come after Me” (Mark 8:34). But what was the cross in the eyes of people, before the death on the cross and the resurrection of our Savior, presented it both in its internal sign as majestic, and through this, and in its external sign as sacred? He was an instrument of death for the condemned, and between the condemned for slaves, or for people recognized as worthy of both punishment and reproach. Therefore, it is likely that people who are accustomed to valuing things at the cost of popular opinion, having heard the teaching of the cross, immediately thought how difficult it is to follow the Teacher, who prepares and prepares his disciples for such extraordinary shame; It is likely that people of excellent education and elegant taste in their time were ashamed to even stand among the listeners of such a Teacher who taught such a strange teaching. To these thoughts and feelings, the Teacher who searches the hearts responds: “Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation: and the Son of man will be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” From this we can conclude that “to be ashamed of the Son of man” definitely means to be ashamed of Jesus Christ as crucified; and that to be ashamed of His “words” means to be ashamed of the teaching of the cross. A warning against this shame was obviously necessary for the times in which Judaism and paganism dominated, and in which, in order to refute the Christian faith, and to ridicule Christians as crazy, they considered it content to say that they believe in the Crucified One; - like crazy, I say; for this is exactly what the Apostle says: “the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing”; – “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks” (1 Cor. 1:18, 23); and therefore the same Apostle, instead of declaring himself to accept the teaching of Christ, to believe it, to revere it, considered it content to say that he was not ashamed of it: “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; For the power of God is for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). It should be noted that the same crime that Jesus Christ calls the shame of His name and teachings, He otherwise calls “rejecting Him,” or denying Him: “Whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:33). To be ashamed of Christ is the beginning, but to renounce Him is to commit the same crime. How “one believes in the truth with one’s heart; with the mouth one confesses for salvation” (Rom. 10:10): so in their hearts they are ashamed of Christ into condemnation, they feel the burden and difficulty of His teaching, as incongruous with the concepts of a proud mind, with the lusts of the flesh, with the customs of this age; and as a result of such internal dispositions, with their lips, deeds and whole life they deny Him to destruction. There is no doubt that every right-thinking Christian feels the importance of this crime, considered in its entire scope: and perhaps some think that the very gravity of it relieves them of the fear of not falling into it. I’m not surprised if well-intentioned people who are not experienced in Christianity think so. This is what Apostle Peter thought when, in response to Jesus Christ’s prediction that all the Apostles would be offended because of Him the next night, he said to the Lord: “Even if all are offended because of You, I will never be offended” (Matthew 26:33). And also to the prediction about his threefold renunciation of Christ: “Even if I am and die with You, I will not deny You.” This is what all the Apostles thought: “All the disciples did the same” (Matthew 26:35). But it is known what happened the next night: “then all the disciples left Him and fled” (Matthew 26:56). And Peter, who feared the fall least of all, fell more wretchedly than all the others. Why did this happen? Mostly because Peter was not afraid to fall so deeply; and I have not yet experienced how the ancient murderer closes abysses with a cane and a rake in order to point at them and throw down the unwary. If one of the obvious and strong enemies of Christ had attacked Peter, he would have seen the danger and armed himself with courage. If they had directly told him: renounce Christ, he would have been horrified by this crime, and perhaps he would have truly decided at that very moment to stand until death in the confession of Jesus, who was condemned to death. Instead of “only one slave come to him”: what is there to be afraid of? She says nothing, and probably understands nothing, either about faith in Christ or about confessing Him; but is only curious about who was seen with Him: “And you were with Jesus of Galilee” (Matthew 26:69). Peter thought, perhaps, that it was not worth the trouble to enter into a conversation about Christ with people who were so far from His mysteries, and that this would mean throwing pearls before swine. Apparently, he was only trying to stop speaking. “We do not know what you say” (Matthew 26:70), he said; I don’t understand you: and I didn’t know how the shame of the Son of Man, shameful for the Apostle, crept 186 into the heart of the Apostle. The attack was repeated stronger than before: for another slave pointed him out as “being there.” It was necessary to intensify the resistance: and Peter said “with an oath, because I do not know the man” (Matt. 26:71–72). Thus, avoiding talking about Jesus quietly turned into denying His presence. Another attack and evidence, and Peter “began to rebel and swear, because I do not know the man” (Matthew 26:74), that is, to deny Him with all his might. This unexpected and deep fall of Peter, bitterly mourned by him, was allowed by the Providence of God not only for his testing, but also as an instruction to all of us, Christians. He stumbled so that we could learn to tread carefully on the path of salvation. “Be careful to stand and be careful, lest you fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). If we think that we would decide to sacrifice our lives for Christ, whenever necessary, then in order not to deceive ourselves with this pleasant assurance, like Peter, we must carefully look after ourselves, as we do in those cases when for the unchanging confession of Christ it is necessary to sacrifice something much less important than life. A slave of vain decency and customs based on nothing good, called in the world education or humanity (as if without her people would not be people and would not have an image), comes up and says to a person who wants to be a follower of the crucified Jesus: Do you really want to leave the path of so many intelligent, discriminating, strong, rich, respected, amiable people, whose way of life is as pleasant to themselves as and everyone approves? Are you really going to deny yourself pleasures and certain liberties, which are considered innocent by almost everyone? Do you really decide to be strange in the eyes of the world and the talk of society? Will you really torment yourself with exploits, kill yourself with fasting, exhaust yourself with strictness, which in the most hermits is the action of excessive, perhaps not reasonable, jealousy? Who among those who want to follow the path of Christ does not receive such speeches? Who doesn’t sometimes have such thoughts? What shall we say to this, Christians? It seems that the issue here is not about renouncing Christ; They only want to shame us with suspicion, “were we not with Jesus of Galilee,” or whether, instead of a secular evening, we want to be with Him at His all-night vigil in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He Himself was in pain and sorrow with a painful, although at the same time completely free and willing donation of His will. No, others say in secret thoughts, 187 I don’t understand at all what it means to be in the Garden of Gethsemane; I know and want to know only a Christianity that consoles, and not one that teaches you to lose, suffer, and in some incomprehensible way die to yourself: “we do not know what you say.” Oh! Beware, you who want to save your soul! If you say this, then you are no longer a follower of Jesus, who raises up the fallen, but of Peter, who falls. If you have now spoken about renunciation of the world and of yourself, of participation in the sufferings of Christ and of the word of the cross: “We do not know what you say”: can we be sure that you will not soon say about Christ Himself: “I do not know man”? Let us enter one of the ordinary meetings, in a house or “in the courtyard” (Mark 14:68); let us look for Christians among the sons of this age 188; Let's listen to the conversations. We will immediately hear caresses, slander, the voice of vanity, self-interest, the laughter of frivolity, cries of impatience, judgments about everything that they know and do not understand. But will we soon find a conversation, and in the conversation of a person who would freely pronounce the word, dissolved in the salt of the wisdom of the Gospel, reason with the children of the flesh about the soul, and remind the sons of this age about eternity? Why do Christians so rarely speak Christian language? - They are afraid that they will not be recognized as Christians, and for this the sons of this age will not mock them; so that they would not be told: “Your conversation actually does you” (Matthew 26:73). And so they hide and remain silent; - and they do not notice that they are ashamed of the Son of Man, and that their silence sometimes quite clearly tells the world about Jesus: “I do not know man”! Using these examples, everyone can point out to themselves many cases in life in which we are more or less approaching the danger of being ashamed of the Son of Man, or completely renouncing Him. Be careful, Christian, try to notice in good time where the enemy of your salvation puts fetters on you on the path of following Jesus Christ, so that you can either carefully avoid them or courageously destroy them. Or let Peter not enter the courtyard of the Bishops in such imminent danger; or, having entered, he would no longer retreat so far back from the One Whom he wanted to follow so closely. And you, Christian, either do not approach, if possible, people who have the shamelessness to shame you with what constitutes your glory: or, if it is necessary to approach them, “verb about the testimonies” of Christ before anyone, “and do not be ashamed” (Ps. 119:46). Do not show your work of piety, do not proclaim your word about salvation, when no duty calls you to this, and the glory of your Savior does not call you to do so, so that you do not fall into hypocrisy or vanity: but do not abandon a God-pleasing work because it seems strange to the world; and when they want to excommunicate you from participating in the sorrows, sufferings and reproaches of the crucified Jesus, say with noble firmness: “I know a man,” and I want to live and die with Him, so that even after death I can live with Him as my Savior and God 189 . Do not be ashamed when “an adulterous and sinful generation” wants to shame you with the cross of Christ, may you not be ashamed “before the Holy Angels, before the Son of man in His glory, and before His heavenly Father,” but may you enter into the glory of Him to whom glory belongs forever. Amen. According to the Jewish collection, this word is said to have been spoken in the Chudov Monastery on the week of the cross, March 9. According to Jew. collection: how shameful for the Apostle is the shame of the Son of Man, who stole... According to Jew. collection: with a painful refraction of His will. No, many say in this case... According to the Hebrew collection: let us enter one of the usual meetings in today’s so-called world, in a house or “in the courtyard”; Let us sit, Christians, among the sons of this age... According to Jew. collection these words do not exist. You might be interested in: