Поучение на страсти Господа нашего Иисуса Христа («Все проходящие путем, взгляните и посмотрите, есть ли болезнь, как моя болезнь» (Плач. 1:12))

Let every person who goes through the path of this painful life stop here, and look and see if there is a disease similar to the disease of our Lord Jesus Christ, who bears our diseases, about whom the prophet says: “He Himself bore our sins in His Body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24). Every merchant who has happened to pass through dangerous roads, to see a lot of evil and to be caught by robbers, stop and see if there is such a fierce barbarian, such an merciless robber, as here, where the servant of the Master, the creature of the Creator, the man of God, so binds, dishonors, exposes, tortures and inhumanly kills: “They killed him by hanging him on a tree” (Acts. 5:30). Everyone who, through many sorrows, in a narrow and sorrowful way, tries to enter heaven, stop here, look and see if there is such sorrow as the sorrow of Him who says: “My soul is grieved unto death” (Matthew 26:38; Mark 14:34). O you who pass along the path! Turn around and look at the One who has “neither form nor majesty” (Isa. 53:2), consider “how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him up to be condemned to death and crucified Him” (Luke 24:20)! Turn around and look! I will say in the new words of Augustus: “The Son of God is led to the Cross, the one who came to destroy the thorns of sinners is crowned with thorns, the one who looses the bound is knitted on the tree of the bound, the one who raises up the downtrodden is hanged, the Source of life is watered with vinegar, the One who once determined, for the sin of a mother committed in paradise, to give birth to children in illness, He Himself now, like a mother, suffers, giving birth to us with blood and water: “My children, for whom I again in the pangs of birth, until Christ is formed in you!” (Gal. 4:19). In sadness, in illness and torment, she gives birth to us: “When a pregnant woman is about to give birth, she screams in pain” (Is. 26:17), and from that unbearable and serious illness she cries out: “O you who pass along the way, turn and see!” As if from the long-suffering, Job says: “Have mercy on Me, have mercy on Me, O friends!” (Job 19:21), - that is, sympathize, have compassion for Me, have pity on Me, all who look at Me! But alas! “I looked for someone who sympathized with Me, but there was none, and someone who comforted me, but I did not find it” (Ps. 68:21). “My confidants abhor Me, and those whom I loved have turned against Me” (Job 19:19). “And Job’s three friends heard about all these misfortunes that had befallen him, and they each went from their own country to lament with him and console him. And when they saw him from afar, they did not recognize him; and they cried out and wept; and they tore their outer garments and sprinkled earth on their heads. And they sat with him seven days and seven nights; and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw his plagues, cruel and great” (Job 2:11–13). We see “cruel and great ulcers” from head to toe and in our mental Job - Christ the Savior. You! Whoever is a true friend, let him hasten to come to the One who calls us true friends: “You are My friends,” lest He say: “My friends and My neighbors have stood far from Me” (Ps. 37:12–13)! Whoever is His friend, let him sit next to Him in devout meditation on His passion, not delaying seven days and seven nights, like Job’s friends, but at this very present hour, lest He say to us, like Peter: “You could not watch with Me for one hour” (Matthew 26:40)! Whoever truly loves Him, tear apart not your garments, but your heart for Him who gave His heart for your sake to be wounded. Shed tear drops for the sake of the One who shed His Blood for you! Now, in this great misfortune and illness of His, show yourself to be His friend, so that in your misfortune He too may turn out to be a Benefactor! So, beginning to narrate the passion of Christ for the benefit of the soul, with His help I will speak from the Garden of Gethsemane, in which He was taken, until His very death. I ask your love to listen carefully and incline your ear to the words of my mouth, about which, together with Saint Job, I will say: “My words are cruel” (Job 6:3). The Lord Himself calls us to this listening in the Lamentations of the prophet Jeremiah: “Listen, all nations, and look at My illness; My sickness is stronger than all sicknesses, and My heart is sorrowful” (Lamentations 1:18, 22). So, incline your ear, approach with pious thought, break the hard heart, lift up your mental eyes. Look, I will say with Blessed Augustine, at the wounds of the Hanging One, at the Blood of the Dying, at the price of the Redeemer, have compassion and sympathize with Him for his heart disease. Christ the Savior! I know that not so much in word as in deed, not so much in deeds as in speech itself, not so much in speech as in abundant tears, one must show Your most pure passion and tell about it. I know that no one can worthily praise Your passion if, first of all, having hated and rejected what You suffered for, he does not take up his cross. But our nature is passionate, and our strength is weak, so at least give me the strength to present Your passion to the mental eyes of my listeners. You, Who did not give Pilate and Herod an answer about Yourself, allow me to proclaim about You and Your illnesses, just as you once opened hearing and tongue to the deaf and dumb, so now grant us hearing and tongue: to the listeners - hearing to hear Your passions, but to me - tongue to speak. In this, Christ, is Your help, and I ask your love for patient listening. Part One (“All you who pass by, look and see if there is any sickness like My sickness” (Lam. 1:12)) The Creator was once sick at heart, looking at human evil, pious listeners! “And God saw how the wickedness of men increased on earth, and the thoughts of everyone’s hearts were evil continually; and the Lord repented that he had made man on the earth” (Gen. 6:5–6). God was grieved by the sickness within His heart. If, seeing our atrocities, God was grieved by illness in His heart, then tell me, what kind of illness does He feel in Himself now, when He not only looks at our atrocities, but also took them upon Himself - all the sins, all the iniquities, all the crimes of the whole world, He took upon Himself: He “takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29)? Not only inside, but also outside, an unbearable and intolerable disease endures and suffers. He complains in the Psalmist: “My life is exhausted in illness” (Ps. 30:11). He is sick in all the members of His Body, because we have turned all our members to sin. He has a headache because “our iniquities have gone beyond our heads” (Ps. 37:5). It hurts the eyes, because we “have fixed our eyes to the ground” (Ps. 16:11). It is sick with the lips and tongue, because “our mouth multiplies slander, and our tongue weaves flattery” (Ps. 49:19). It hurts our hands because our hands dared to pick the forbidden fruit. It hurts the heart, because from our hearts “evil thoughts come” (Matthew 15:19). The womb is sick because “the curse entered like water into the womb” (Ps. 109:18). It hurts our legs, because our legs have gone astray from the right path. Everyone is sick, for each of us is obsessed with countless passions and reclines on the bed of evil. The bed of our evils laid Him on the painful bed of the cross (Damascene). It was we who turned His entire bed into His sickness, it was we who “conceived sickness and gave birth to iniquity” (Ps. 7:15). Our festering sinful wounds have created painful wounds for Christ our Savior. You suffer, Lord, says Saint Ambrose, and you suffer not from Your wounds, but from my wounds, you suffer not from Your death, but from my weakness. In the face of every sinner, David complained: “Mortal diseases have seized me, the snares of death have met me” (Ps. 114:3, 17:6). Delivering us from this hellish disease and the snares of mortals, Christ the Savior Himself took upon Himself the diseases and snares. So the Jewish congregation, like hell, opened its jaws against Him: “They opened their mouth against Me,” says the Lord, “like a lion that steals its prey and roars” (Ps. 21:14). So Judas, even during the meal, at the Supper, laid mortal nets against Him, planning to betray Him. “The table was a net for him”, and: “the sinner was stuck in his net” Judas (Ps. 68:23, 9:16). “Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed” (Matthew 26:24)! The Lord begins His illness at night, as if saying together with Job: “Nights of illness were given to Me” (Job 7:3). Even at the Supper, Jesus was indignant in spirit, saying: “One of you will betray Me,” and after the Supper he said: “Rise, let us go: behold, he who betrayed Me has drawn near” (Matthew 26:21, 46). Where are you hurrying at night, Lord? Not long ago You taught Your disciples to walk by day and not by night: “He who walks by day does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world; but whoever walks at night stumbles, because there is no light with him” (John 11:9–10). I am afraid that some kind of stumbling block might happen to You, that You might fall: “Not when You stumble over a stone with Your foot” (Ps. 90:12). “You spread darkness, and night comes” (Ps. 103:20). I think with horror lest You, Lamb of God, fall among the fierce beasts, for “in it (in the night) all the beasts of the forest walk, young lions roaring for prey” (Ps. 103:21). I am afraid lest You fall into some kind of weakness, into some kind of illness and then say: “You have acquired sorrow and illness” (Ps. 114:3). Villains and robbers walk about at night, and I am so horrified, Lord, lest you too be considered a villain and say: “If He had not been a villain, we would not have handed Him over to you” (John 18:30), so that you too would not be mistaken for a robber and placed between two thieves. But “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew 21:7) And I accompany you on the road with the greeting with which the Angel once admonished Gideon: “The Lord is with you, strong man!” Go with this thy strength and save Israel” (Judges 6:12, 14). “Jesus went out with His disciples beyond the brook Kidron” (John 18:1). “And the word of the Lord came to Elijah: Go from here to the east and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is opposite the Jordan; You will drink from this stream” (1 Kings 17:2–5). After the bread at the Supper, Christ our Savior hurries to the water, to the stream: “He will drink from the stream along the way” (Ps. 109:7). Church teachers, explaining David’s words: “Our soul has passed over the stream” (Ps. 123:4), call it a stream of persecution, sorrow and misfortune. This is the stream our Lord goes through - through persecution, through sorrow: “He began to grieve and yearn” (Matthew 26:37), - through troubles. This is the stream from which he will drink along the way, therefore he will lift up his head (Ps. 109:7) when he is lifted up to the Cross. He goes through the stream of sorrows so that we can leave Our traces in it. “Paths in deep waters” (Ps. 77:20) - in many sorrows, so that we, through many sorrows, would follow Him to the kingdom of heaven, so that our soul would pass through the stream of troubles, that is, “rushing water” (Ps. 123:5) persecutions, persecutions, attacks from the world, the flesh and the devil. David flees from his son Absalom “across the stream” (2 Sam. 15:23) with weeping, with sorrow: here too the evil Absalom pursues, but the sinner his Father, Who gave birth to him by water and the Spirit. The Lord also walks through the same stream with sorrow, saying: “Mortal diseases have seized me, and the streams of iniquity have troubled me” (Ps. 17:5), - for because of the streams of our iniquities He crosses the stream of passions. Solomon, calling Shimei, said to him: “Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there, and do not go anywhere from there; and know that on the day that you go out and cross the brook Kidron, you will certainly die” (1 Kings 2:36–37). It happened that Shimei, having forgotten the royal covenant, went after the servants who had fled from him, and he was killed for crossing the Kidron stream. The sinner withdrew from his Master: “He went to a far side” (Luke 15:13), and now, when You, Lord, are looking for him, when, in Your mercy, you are following him beyond the brook Kidron, I am afraid that You will not be put to death. For the wicked tormentors are already preparing their weapons for You, Lord, death is already sharpening its scythe against You, Christ, and Jewish malice wants to show its ferocity over You. The elders gather, the people flock, the creature rises up against its Creator. “The princes are gathered together against the Lord and against His Anointed” (Ps. 2:2). "Jesus went beyond the stream". “A man went out to his work and to his work until the evening” (Ps. 103:23), - not to idleness, not to laziness, not to lie down, not to sleep, not to rest, but to work, to work, to work, to the established work. Every person, as Job says, is born into the world to work (see Job 5:7). Saint Paul forbids those who do nothing to eat bread: “If anyone does not want to work, let him not eat” (2 Thess. 3:10). And the one who does not work has nothing: “The lazy,” says Solomon, “is always in poverty” (Prov. 11:16). Therefore, every person goes out to his work from the very morning, “from the morning watch until the night” (Ps. 129:7), and “to his work until the evening” (Ps. 103:23). But does any person have such hard work, such sorrowful work, such a difficult task as that of the One who became Man for the sake of love for mankind, Who “appeared on earth and lived with men” (Dogmatist, 8th tone), Whom Pilate shows the people with the words: “Behold, Man” (John 19:5), - the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, “for our sake, O man, and for our salvation, who came down from heaven and became incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became human; crucified for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried,” Who says: “My Father works until now, and I work” (John 5:17)? What is this? Oh, what a difficult task, what a great work, what a hard work, in which the Worker is drenched in tears, bloody sweat, and the Blood itself! Jesus enters the Garden of Gethsemane to work in order to pull out, uproot, and clean out the sinful thorns in it, which the first man planted and sowed in the first Garden of Eden. Once upon a time, King Ekvir, bored at a feast, went out into the garden to dispel his boredom there by looking at the beautiful alleys, rich vineyards and fragrant gardens. Christ the Savior also arose from the supper, at which he had just presented His most precious Body and Blood to His disciples. He arose with spiritual sorrow: “Jesus was troubled in spirit” (John 13:21), and entered the garden. But He finds no joy in it either; instead of consolation, he experiences even greater sorrow: “I began to grieve and yearn” (Matthew 26:37). Sirach warns: “Comfort your heart and drive sadness away from you: sadness has killed many, there is no benefit in it” (Sirach 30:24–25). He says: “My soul is grieved unto death” (Matthew 26:38). The source of all consolation is sorrowful to the point of death, but not without benefit, for He endures sorrow, preparing for us eternal joy. Everywhere green gardens serve as a place of consolation and joy, this same, I don’t know, some kind of wonderful garden, for in it there are thorns instead of roses, rods instead of shoots, vinegar instead of grapes, and the Cross of Christ the Savior instead of trees. Instead of water sources, bloody streams flow, instead of a quiet breath of wind, heavy sighs are heard from the chest of Christ. He says: “My soul is sorrowful,” for he expects suffering and reproach. The bride calls her Groom: “Let my brother come into his garden and eat the fruit” (Song. 5:1). But what kind of fruit does the Beloved eat? The one that Adam tasted in paradise and which was followed by nudity, exile and death. For here, too, our mental Adam underwent stripping: “They took off his scarlet robe” (Matthew 27:31), and expulsion: “They brought him out of the vineyard” (Matthew 21:39) - and death is already coming. Adam ate an apple in paradise, and now he experiences the sourness and bitterness of that apple; he tastes not sweet, but bitter fruits, saying: “The Most High has filled me with sorrows” (Job 9:18). Our Savior is filled with sorrow in that helicopter city, looking at the apples of Sodom, at the grapes of Gomorrah: “Their grapes are from the grapes of Sodom, and their vines are from Gomorrah; their clusters are clusters of gall, grapes of sorrow” (Deut. 32:32). The industrious Worker labors a lot in that garden, for all the thorns of sin, having gathered all the burdens of our iniquities in one place, puts them on His shoulders to carry them out, and the one weighed down by them complains: “The iniquities (of man) have gone beyond My head, like a heavy burden weighed me down” (Ps. 37:5), and so weighed them down that I must already fall on the earth from this gravity. “He fell to the ground” (Mark 14:35). He fell on his knees, he fell on His face. Oh, how great is the weight of sin, if the One who supports the sky and holds up the earth falls under our sin! The firmament of heaven and the very thickness of the earth could not contain the sin of pride in Dennitsa, and he (the devil) only stopped at the very bottom of hell. And if the countless multitude of our sins gathered together, “they multiplied and became more than the sand of the sea, more than the hairs of the head” (Ps. 68:5), then how could the Son of God not fall under such a weight? He falls before Whom the “twenty-four elders” fall (Rev. 4:10). Earth, earth! Hear the word: The Word of the Lord falls. Good seed falls on the ground, good rain falls, so that “our land may yield its fruit” (Ps. 67:7). He once cursed the earth: “Cursed is the earth for your deeds” (Gen. 3:17), and now he blesses it, laying His outstretched hands on it, falling under the Cross. Moses was not vouchsafed to look at God face to face; now the earth is vouchsafed to have the face of God upon itself. He fell on His face to renew the old face of the earth, as the Psalmist says: “You will renew the face of the earth” (Ps. 103:30). Departing from the world, it was as if he said to the earth: “My peace I give to you, My peace I leave with you, and on earth peace” (John 14:27; Luke 2:14). He falls to the ground, saying on behalf of all sinners: “I am not worthy to look upon the heights of heaven” (2 Chronicles 36). He is ashamed of our sins: “All day long is My shame before Me” (Ps. 43:16). The prophet Zechariah proclaims: “Jesus is clothed in abominable garments” (Zechariah 3:3). What are these vile vestments? Nothing other than our abominations, our sinful abominations, the vileness of self-praisers, fornicators, drunkards, robbers. Thus, a vile garment covered His face: “The shame of My face covered Me” (Ps. 43:16). Ashamed of this, he falls to the ground. And just as someone who is ashamed of something usually turns red in the face, so Christ, not only with his face, but with his whole body, turns scarlet when he is bathed in bloody sweat. “His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Now look, bride, at your beloved Groom! Behold, your “brother” is white and “red” (Song. 1:15). White, because he turned pale from fear and fear. Red because he was stained with bloody sweat. Who, O Lord, without a wound, struck and wounded You so much that You were covered in Blood? This is love that surpasses death in strength: “Strong as death is love” (Song 8:6). O flaming love, which not only a lot of water, but even blood itself cannot extinguish! Two forces, fighting in Christ the Savior, caused Him to sweat blood - fear and love. Fear strikes His heart with anxiety, oppression and forces Him to ask the Father to remove the cup, which the Angel who appeared to Him shows: “My Father! Let this cup pass from Me” (Matthew 26:39). Love produces a desire in the heart, commands you to immediately accept this cup with your hand, to fulfill the will of the Father: “If this cup cannot pass from Me, lest I drink it, Thy will be done” (Matthew 26:42). So these two passions, warring in Him, stained Him with Blood, and He bled bloody sweat. This is the second Adam, “in the sweat of his brow” eating “bread” (Gen. 3:19): “My tears were bread to me day and night” (Ps. 41:4). Pliny tells us that in Africa there is a snake that, when it bites a person, sucks and pours out the blood from his entire body. Christ the Savior! Our poisonous sin so struck You that You drank and poured out all Your Blood, shed Your Blood “like water around Jerusalem” (Ps. 78:3). Job said: “I saw them plowing, and sowing malice, and reaping sorrow” (Job 4:8). Why do You, Lord, meek and gentle, reap sorrow if you did not sow malice? And why are the words true: “One sows, and another reaps” (John 4:37)? We have sown sin, and You are reaping disease! In Egypt, when the waters were turned into blood, the death of the firstborn occurred. And when You, Lord, bleed Blood, then this already presages Your death, the Firstborn of God and the Father and the Most Pure Mother of God! Bloody sweat falls to the ground... Oh, the wonderful blood of innocent Abel! How different is Your voice from the voice of the blood of Abel (see Gen. 4:10)! That one is about vengeance, and You cry out to God for forgiveness. Likewise, for us, the perpetrators of the shedding of Your Blood, You intercede for the remission of our sins! Susanna once washed herself in her secluded garden, filled with the fear of God and praiseworthy virtues. And so she is attacked by two robbers, two elders of Israel. They make a frantic cry, take the innocent woman, and lead her to death, full of lawless thoughts about Susanna in order to kill her. The One with “innocent hands and a pure heart” (Ps. 23:4) the Bridegroom in the garden is washed with His tears, with His Blood. And so Judas and the Jewish synagogue, hardened in anger, with a multitude of armed people suddenly attack Him, like wolves attacking a lamb, make a frantic cry, drive the disciples away: “Leaving Him, they fled” (Matthew 26:56); and the One who does not flee is seized with a flattering kiss, with a sacrilegious hand, like some kind of prey, they are tied up, they are brought to death, full of the lawless intention of killing Him. “They took Jesus and bound Him” (John 18:12). Alas! The Ark of the Lord is in captivity and in captivity! And who will not say with Phinehas’ wife: “The glory departed from Israel with the taking of the Ark of God” (1 Sam. 4:21)? The glory of Israel is gone, for the Ark of God is taken away. Why, O Father God, do you not punish these robbers with various diseases, as you once did the foreigners who only took the Ark of the Lord to themselves with honor? Why don’t you punish them with contrition like the god Dagon, before whom the Ark of the Lord stood (see 1 Samuel 5); pestilence like the Bethshemites who just looked into the Ark of the Lord (see 1 Samuel 6:13); sudden death like Uzzah, who just touched the Ark of the Lord (see 2 Samuel 6:6)? They touch this mental Icon so boldly that He even begins to complain: “Man has trampled Me, My enemies have trampled Me” (Ps. 55:2-3). He once asked: “Someone touched Me, for I felt the power that came out of Me” (Luke 8:46). Here the bloodsuckers touch Him so much that His strength is completely weakened, for He says: “My strength has forsaken Me” (Ps. 37:11). Some are tormented by the hair, others are beaten with fists, others are hit with weapons and sticks. They not only deprive Him of bodily strength, but also prepare the way for His imminent death. He laments in Job: “My bones ache at night, but My veins have no rest; You attack Me without mercy, you fight against Me with a strong hand” (Job 30:17, 21). Dalida once tied up Sampson and shouted loudly to him: “The foreigners are coming at you, Sampson!” (Judges 16:19-20) - and the bonds on him fell apart, as if fire had burned them out. Cunning Delilah, Jewish malice, has bound You, Almighty Sampson, Christ the Savior! Why don’t you break the bonds and overthrow their yoke? Where is Your strength, O mighty Lord in battle? And You say to them: “Or do you think that I cannot now ask My Father, and He will present Me with more than twelve legions of Angels?” (Matthew 26:53). They bind the one who binds the cloudy water, they bind the One who gives freedom to the bound, who brought Lazarus out of his death prison and commanded to untie him. “He whose hands are innocent” now allows Himself to be bound. Stop it, carnivores! “The Word of God does not fit”! Stop, barbarians! These are the hands that the flame fears and loses its power. These are the hands that death fears: “Taking him by the hand, he says: “I tell you, get up” (Mark 5:41). These are the hands that heal the withered and make the blind see. They knit their hands so that He does not free them and satisfy them, they knit them so that He does not bless them. They knit freedom in order to become eternal slaves of the devil themselves. They bind him so that He will tell them in due time: “Having tied his hands and feet, take him and throw him into outer darkness” (Matthew 22:13). Just as once Jeremiah, being captured, said to the people: “Behold, I am in your hands; do to me whatever seems good and just in your eyes; just know for sure that if you kill me, you will lay innocent blood on yourself and on this city and its inhabitants; for truly the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words to you” (Jer. 26:14–15), - just as Christ, who was captured, could have said the same thing. What do they answer to this? “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25). So, having taken Him as a villain, they bring Him to the place in triumph, place Him before the bishops, scribes and elders of men, inquire about the teaching and about the disciples, and look for false witnesses. “They looked for false testimony against Jesus, but found none” (Matthew 26:59–60). Jesus did not respond to these false testimonies. And so, when He did not open His mouth out of fear, “one of the servants struck Jesus on the cheek, saying: “Is this what you answer to the high priest?” (John 18:22). Job calls out: “The wicked man has stretched out his hand against God Almighty!” (Job 15:25). “Be terrified, be afraid, O heaven, and let the foundations of the earth move!” (Irmos 6th tone). In ancient times there was a custom: when a slave was freed, they hit him on the cheek. The Lord endures strangulation in order to make us free from the slavery of sin (for “he who commits sin is a slave of sin” - John 8:34), in order to free us from the bonds of hell. That is why Damascene in Octoechos says: “With my hand I struck You on the cheek, I gained freedom” (Tone 2 at Matins, Canto 4). “King Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar” towards the prophet, “and said: “Take him.” And his hand withered, which he had stretched out against him” (1 Kings 13:4). Why did not the hand of that wicked man dry up, stretched out not against the prophet, but against Him about whom the prophets foretold? “He who created man is strangled with a mortal hand” (stichera on Good Friday). He says: “I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to those who smite” (Is. 50:6), - those cheeks that shone like the sun on Tabor; those cheeks of which the bride speaks: “His cheeks are like a fragrant flower bed, giving birth to incense” (Song. 5:13); those cheeks, that face that David is looking for: “My face has sought you - I will seek your face, O Lord” (Ps. 27:8). Strangled so mercilessly with an iron hand. How did the colossus of the world endure the dishonor of Its Creator?! How many thousands of people did the earth swallow up for Moses’ dishonor?! How many dozens of men were burned by fire with Elijah’s word, and what army went blind from Elisha’s wrath?! Now, when the Lord suffers such cruel dishonor, all the elements have fallen silent! The angel calls to Abraham: “Do not raise your hand against your servant Isaac” (Gen. 22:12). Why does he raise his hand against the innocent Isaac, the Son of God? Woe to you! “The Lord is the God of vengeance” (Ps. 93:1). Who are you touching? To the Tabernacle of the Holy of Holies. Can't you see the silent innocence? But these wounds and strangulations do not offend the Lord as much as Petrov’s words: “I do not know this Man” (Matthew 26:72). Saint Peter! How did you forget your Benefactor, looking at Whom you were consoled, whose face you saw on Tabor brighter than the sun? How do you say: “I don’t know a man,” about the One whom you recently confessed as God (Matthew 16:16)? This is the Man who healed your mother-in-law, who was burning with fever (Matthew 8:14). This is the Man about whom Saint John testified: “I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals” (Mark 1:7). This is the Man, falling at whose feet you cried out: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). This is the God and Man from whom you asked to allow you to walk on the waters and who saved you when you were drowning (Matthew 14:29–31). While the Master was looking at you, you said: “I will never be shaken” (Ps. 29:7), but as soon as He turned away His eyes, you already denied: “He turned away His face, and I was embarrassed” (Ps. 29:8). Jesus Sirach says: “There is a friend for a season, and there is a friend at the table, and he will not be with you in time of trouble” (Sir. 6:8, 10). As long as Saint Peter was at the table of joyful thought, a fellow participant in the meal, until then he showed friendliness. Now, when sorrow has come for Christ the Savior, he already renounces Him: “He will not remain during the time of sorrow.” You are standing by the fire, Peter, but the Lord is not in the fire, that fire will not warm you when you extinguished the flame of love, jealousy and courage that you had for your Master. There was noise and controversy in the yard, but that was not the Lord’s point. Here is the “voice of subtle coldness” (See 1 Kings 19:11–12), the glance of the Lord at you: the Lord is here! Julius, the Roman Caesar, when he was stabbed with swords in the Senate, falling, saw Brutus, his faithful senator and friend, and said to him: “And you, Brutus, rebel against me!” In the same way, the Lord, when the whole multitude rose up against Him, looked at Peter: “Jesus looked at Peter” (Luke 22:61) and, if not with his lips, then with his heart and his very sad gaze, he said to him: “And you, Peter, rose up against Me!” “If an enemy reviled Me, I would endure; and if he who hated Me slandered Me, I would hide from him" (Ps. 54:13)." Peter! This is the Man to whom you said: “Even if everyone is offended, I will never be offended” (Matthew 26:33). The Lord looked at Peter, and “Peter remembered the word of the Lord, and went out and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:61–62). Weep bitterly with Peter and you, a sinful man, rejecting the Lord with your daily sins, together with the disciple who rejected Christ, saying: “I do not know Man,” living not like a human being, but like a beast, “has become equal to the foolish beasts and become like them” (Ps. 49:13). Weep bitterly and compare the illnesses of your Lord with your suffering heart, “for what illness is there like His illness” (Lamentations 1:12). Watch with your mental eyes what happens next to Him. “Then they spat in His face” (Matthew 26:67). O “most beautiful of all the sons of men” (Ps. 44:3)! The beauty of Your face has been darkened! You say: “You did not turn away My face for shame when it was spat on” (Isa. 50:6). A polite person chooses a place, some corner, to spit, so as not to commit an abomination in the eyes of people and not to commit an abomination for himself. Was there really no more vile place than Your most beautiful face, Lord, if these discourteous and vile self-willed people spit on it? O brightest Sun! How dark clouds covered You, spittle obscured Your radiance! Here Your words are fulfilled, which You spoke: “What comes from the mouth - comes from the heart - this defiles a person” (Matthew 25:18). And behold, the abominations emanating from these hellish jaws defile You, Righteous God-man! Isaiah proclaims: “I saw Him, and there was no form or greatness in Him; but His appearance is dishonorable, it is made low among men” (Isaiah 53:2–3). But why do we just denounce them? Let's turn to ourselves. How many times do we spit on His holy face, which “the ranks of angels dare not look upon” (Irmos, canto 9), how many times do we utter vile, shameless, demonic words to tempt others! From our lips come nasty spittle on the face of Christ, when slander, curses, slander and curses come from them. The Lord complains: “The shame of My face covered Me from the voice of the offender and slanderer” (Ps. 43:16-17) - for we spit on the face of Christ when we revile our neighbor, mock him, out of hatred and anger of the devil and according to our evil habit, we dishonor him before others and thereby bring him a lot of harm. “Jesus made clay and anointed the eyes of the blind man” (John 9:8–11), and for this the ungrateful Jewish race spit in His eyes. He says: “They repaid Me with evil for good and hatred for My love” (Ps. 109:5). And they spat on and desecrated the most beautiful face of the Lord so much that even the shameless carnivores themselves, not being able to bear the complete vileness of the spitting, took some kind of rags and laid them on His eyes and face: “They covered His face” (Mark 14:65; Luke 22:64). David prayed: “Show Your face, and we will be saved” (Ps. 79:4, 8, 20). Show us, Lord, Your face, and we will have hope of salvation! These thieves do not expect deliverance and therefore do not want to see the face of God, which is the only consolation, the only joy of the saints of God. But how do the sons of perdition strive for salvation? They close Him, as if considering Him unworthy of human eyes. “Does not he who made the eye see” (Ps. 93:9)? When they wanted to stone the innocent Susanna, they covered her face. They also cover the face of Christ, beating Him with something heavier than stones, with stinging words: “They took up stones to throw at Him” (John 8:59): dishonorable curses, cruel blows, blows and false testimony. He, together with Susanna, cries out: “Eternal God, Knower of the unseen! You know that they bore false witness against Me, and now I am dying, having done nothing” (Dan. 13:42–43). It was commanded in the Old Testament to close the Ark so that the wicked could not see it. And here, too, the face of Christ is covered so that the wicked will never see Him in heaven. The wicked will not see Your glory, O Christ God! The Seraphim hide their faces, unable to look at the glory of the face of the Lord. Here the face of the Lord is covered with a foul veil, like the sun with a dark cloud, so that their prayer would not reach Him, as Jeremiah says: “You covered yourself with a cloud, so that our prayer would not reach You” (Lamentations 3:44). They close off God in order to live godlessly: “The Lord will not see, God will not recognize Jacob!” (Ps. 93:7). They do not know that “the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun and look at all human ways and penetrate into hidden places” (Sir. 23:27–28). Moses put a veil over his face. But You, Lord, do not hide Your tender face from me: “Do not turn Your face away from Your servant” (Ps. 68:18)), so that I can look at him, throwing off from my heart the veil of spiritual blindness, about which Paul says: “Until now the veil lies on their heart” (2 Cor. 3:15). Godless people spend this night, waiting for the day, and as they wish, they abuse the gentle Lamb, who is “led like a sheep to the slaughter” (Is. 53:7). Come closer, pious listener, with your thoughts to the spat upon, ridiculed and grievously tormented Christ the Savior. Look with sorrowful eyes. Look at the bruises of His Body from blows and many beatings, the almost broken heart of His heart disease, listening to church songs about His passion. I will leave my word for a while and, having rested a little, I will prepare for the further narration of His passion and for the end of my sermon. Part Two (“All you who pass by, look and see if there is a sickness like my sickness” (Lam. 1:12)) For the sake of great love for us, Christ the Savior suffers great illness in all members of the Body, beloved listeners! And this is in order to attract us to His love, in order to contain in all our members great love for Himself. He endures illness in the heart so that a person loves Him with all his heart; illness in the head, so that a person loves Him with all his thoughts; sickness in the bones that strengthen and strengthen the whole body, so that a person loves Him with all his strength; illness in the hands, so that a person always turns his hands to the beloved country of heaven: “How beloved are Thy villages, O Lord of Hosts!” (Ps. 83:2); illness in the legs, so that a person, inflamed with love, would strive for Him “as a deer strives for sources of water” (Ps. 42:2); illness in the whole Body, so that we “glorify God both in our bodies and in our souls, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:20). My real conversation will be about these and even greater illnesses of Him. Dishonored, ridiculed, spat upon, tormented, barely alive, our Lord, as soon as day comes, is led with great noise from the people, dragged from courtyard to courtyard, from street to street, through markets, through hotels, dragged to great disgrace, ridicule and reproach, forgetting the admonitions of Sirach: “Do not scold a man when there is grief in his soul” (Sir. 7:11), “eye, whoever scolds a father, the ravens of the valley will peck them out, and let the eagle's chicks eat them up" (Proverbs 30:17). He complains together with the prophet: “I have become a laughing stock for all people, their daily song has filled Me with sorrows” (Lamentations 3:14–15). “Thieves have risen up against Me; now I am a harp to them, and they revile Me” (Job 30:5, 9). “My enemies reviled Me all day long; became a reproach to our neighbors, a laughing stock and a reproach to those around us” (Ps. 101:9, 79:4). But the hour will come when “He who dwells in heaven will laugh at them, and the Lord will humiliate them” (Ps. 2:4). Then, exhausted, at the command of Pilate and at the request of the Jews, they are escorted to the praetorium, so that there they can inflict their tormenting ferocity on Him: they expose the Body of the One Who “clothes the sky with clouds.” There is nothing heavier for a reasonable and respectable person than shame, so even in the most intimate, mysterious confession, we justify our actions with words and, as it were, shroud them in some shrouds. That is why human nature itself is so afraid of shame that, trying to close itself off from any shaming words of people, it takes blood from the heart and covers the face with it, like a veil, as if saying: let the heart melt and die without blood, so long as the person is not ashamed. The greatest shame is experienced from nudity and bodily nudity. When Adam saw in paradise that sin had taken off the robe of innocence from him, he was so ashamed of the only person, and that of his wife, that he began to run away, hide from her and look for fig leaves to cover himself. And since then it has happened that every modest and God-fearing person, even when he is alone, with himself in a special place, remembering the all-seeing eyes of God and the presence of his Guardian Angel, observes all modesty while taking off his clothes. The father, seeing the prodigal son returning to him, says to the servants: “Bring the best robe and dress him” (Luke 15:22), cover his nakedness, let him not stand naked before me. The Prophet Isaiah, foretelling in spirit the passion of the Son of God, when he began to speak about the nakedness of Christ, he exclaimed in amazement: “Who believed what was heard from us and Your arm was revealed to whom” (Isaiah 53:1)? Who believed what we heard from You, O my God, and what You commanded us to preach? And who will believe it if the muscles, i.e. will he see God's shoulders naked? But look here, prophet, with your eye, and you will see that not only with his shoulders, but with his whole body, the Son of God stands naked in the praetorium of Jerusalem. Here He is revealed who gives clothing to everyone, Who even gives such beauty to wildflowers that “not even Solomon in all his glory was dressed like any of these” (Luke 12:27). The One who gives incorruptible clothing for forty years to the people of Israel is naked. Why do you hesitate, Seraphim, and do not cover your Lord with your wings? Why do You, Father God, who did not spare clothing for the prodigal son, do not cover Your Son, pure in heart? Why do You not cover “He who covers His heights with waters” (Ps. 103:3)? For the Holy of Holies You commanded to make a curtain of scarlet, scarlet and fine linen with images of Cherubim woven on it. Why do You not have a veil for the Most Holy of Holies, and He is covered, as it were, with a veil, worn out by unbearable shame in the eyes of those who laugh at Him? He is exposed like the second Joseph, so that we do not sin; stripped of our clothes so that we would not be clothed with flesh. For our sake, Christ is naked, so that we, “having put off the old man, put on the new” (Col. 3:9-10). Here He is, like Noah, standing naked before the eyes of shameless boors. O Son of God! You are now more humiliated than the youths of Babylon. Their clothes were not touched, the fire did not damage them, and this is so that, as Saint Chrysostom says, so that the greedy and shameless eye would not see the nakedness of their pure bodies. Your most pure Sovereign Body, naked before the eyes of all people, is only covered by Its innocence. Imagine to your pious thoughts, man, what torment the Most Pure One endured, conceived and born from the most pure blood of the Most Pure Mother of God, when he stood thus in dishonor before the eyes of a criminal people, and understand that just as in the garden he sweated blood, so here, out of shame, he doused and clothed Himself with the Blood itself. So they tie a naked man to a pillar, they tie the One who spoke to people in a pillar of cloud (see Exodus 19), standing at the pillar as a pillar of fire and cloud, guiding Israel (see Exodus 40; Ps. 77:14)! This is how they pay You, Christ the Savior, for Your good deeds at the pillar of stone, and this for filling them with honey from the stone (see Deut. 32:13)! They used to cry: “Come, King of Israel!” Now, instead of tribute, they give their King incurable wounds, so that He complains in the Psalmist: “Sinners have labored on My back, increasing their iniquity” (Ps. 129:3), while the inhuman tormentors take turns hitting Him with rods. It was once said to Abraham: “Look up to heaven and count the stars, if you can number them” (Gen. 15:5). Look, listener, with your mind at the sky, from where bloody rain is pouring on the Body of Christ, pouring on the One who “counts the multitude of stars and names them all” (Ps. 147:4). Count, if you can count, the stars, that is, His wounds, which covered His entire Body from head to toe, and as if they constituted a continuous wound. “There is no healing in My flesh” (Ps. 37:4): the skin is torn off, the body has fallen off, almost only bones remain! O disgrace, never seen, unheard of, nowhere sufficiently mourned! The Father “disciplines whomever he loves” (Heb. 12:6). God the Father! You punish Your Son so much that from head to toe there is no place undamaged for Him. Is it in this, O merciful God, that You show Your mercy towards Your only begotten and beloved Son, that You have placed Him between fierce dogs and fierce lions! Is it Your good pleasure, Father, that man should abuse Your Son! Is this really Your will, that Your Eternal Word should be tied to the pillar! Now You, Bound Word, have no other refuge than a pillar. O Son of God, tied, beaten, wounded! The Word of God is broken, spat upon, tormented! The Heavenly Seed has been trampled underfoot, destroyed by the hands of merciless barbarians! Christ called Himself the “Bread of Life” (John 6:35), and this Bread went to the hungry dogs. He says: “Many dogs surrounded Me, a crowd of evil ones surrounded Me” (Ps. 21:17). They tear this Bread with the teeth of their ferocity, cut, striking with their hands, with whips, rods, break, striking with their feet and hands: “They spat in His face and strangled Him” (Matthew 26:67). Blood flows in streams from the Source of life, the Body falls away in pieces from His holy bones. Splashes of His holy Blood fly throughout the praetorium, and He falls to the ground near the pillar, unable to stand from his wounds. Even here they deal cruel blows from above, inflict wound after wound, trample underfoot, torment by the hair, try to show their ferocity as much as possible, replacing one another. Where are Your legions of Angels, the Creative Angels (see Matthew 26:53)? Where are Your fiery Seraphim, our God, “a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29)? Where is Your strength, Sampson of Heaven? Everyone abhorred You: the apostles abandoned you, the angels retreated, God the Father gave you up to death. You have no help from anyone, no protection from anyone. You have no one who would have mercy on You, who would stand up for You in court and prove Your innocence. Where are you all, the dead, the lame, the blind, the lepers, the sick, who received life and healing from Christ the Giver of Life? Why don't you protect your Benefactor? Why don't you stand up for your Healer? Why don't you experience His strength and strength? Or have you forgotten how many benefits He has given you? Listeners, Christ voluntarily deigned to endure all this suffering for our sake. In the Old Testament, forty wounds were established for each person who was guilty of anything. Here, in relation to You, the Lawgiver Christ, this law is not kept, although You have not sinned in anything and have not committed sin: not forty, but countless wounds are caused. You say: “They who inflicted wounds gathered against Me, and I was tortured all the day long” (Ps. 35:15, 72:14); “And the soreness of My wounds increased” (Ps. 69:27). Where is the fulfillment of your words, Psalmist: “No evil will approach You, and no wound will come near Your Body” (Ps. 90:10)? No! Here are the most numerous to the Sinless One. You were surprised, Habakkuk, seeing God among the animals (see Hab. 3:2); look at Him here between so many lions and be horrified. You asked, Holy Job: “Who is the Father of the rain?” (Job 38:28). I ask: how long will this bloody rain and rivers of the innocent Blood of our Savior continue to flow? He is already weakening, already silently shedding tears, already wanting to bow his head, but He who, by His omnipotence, “is everywhere and does everything,” has no place. “The servant who knew the will of his master, and was not ready, and did not do according to his will, will be beaten many times; but he who did not know, and did something worthy of punishment, will receive less punishment” (Luke 12:47–48). You Yourself, Christ the Savior, said this, did His will in everything, was obedient to Him in everything: “You humbled yourself, becoming obedient even to death” (Phil. 2:8); You have not created anything worthy of wounds, yet you suffer unbearable and innumerable wounds. Why is this? You endure wounds so that our sinful wounds may be healed, you endure all this for our sins: “You suffered for our sins” (1 Pet. 3:18). It is we, Christ, who are worthy of those countless wounds that You are now patiently enduring! We have sinned, and You suffer punishment for these sins! Oh, how great is Your love, O Lover of mankind! The inhuman tormentors were not satisfied with the shedding of His Blood, they were not satisfied with His such severe torment, but they extend their malice even further, inflicting on Him even more cruel torment. After the fierce beating, they invent another torment: a sharp crown of thorns is pierced into His head. “And having woven a crown of thorns, they placed it on His head” (Matthew 27:29). Behold, Christ the Savior, the cursed earth has brought forth thorns on Your head: “It will bring forth thorns and thistles for you” (Gen. 3:18). Now the seed of heaven fell among the thorns, “and the thorns grew up and choked it” (Matthew 13:7). Behold our king, crowned with thorns! Come out, daughters of Jerusalem, pious souls, inhabitants of heavenly Jerusalem, and look at your King in the crown of thorns with which the ungrateful Jewish people crowned Him! Behold lilies among thorns, a scarlet rose, stained with blood, in a crown of thorns! The one whom the twenty-four elders crown, laying their crowns and saying: “The Lamb is worthy to receive honor and glory” (Rev. 5:12), the Jews crown with thorns, firmly establishing him on His head, in order to show His kingdom unshakable. Thorn means sinners, as the Scripture says: “But the wicked will be like thorns that are thrown away, which no one takes by hand” (2 Samuel 23:6). The Lord takes the thorns onto His head, that is, He lifted our sins onto His Body, so that man would bear fruits worthy of repentance. Now let everyone know that the path that leads to life and the kingdom is sad, for it is thorny. Christ the Savior, Who says: “I am the way and the truth” (John 14:6), came to us to lead us into His kingdom along a thorny road. Then Pilate brings Him out to the People: “Jesus came out wearing a crown of thorns and a scarlet robe” (John 19:5). Although He does not say anything with His beaten, wounded and blood-caked lips, but with His wounds, gaping all over His Body, as if with open lips, He proclaims to the hearts of us all: “Look around and see if there is still a disease like My disease” (Lamentations 1:12). Is there anyone who would suffer as much for Me as I did for him? Is there anyone who would love Me so much, who would die for the world for My sake, as I did for it, who would lay down His soul for My salvation, as I gave My soul to die for Him? “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). O friends! In the last hour, console him in this heart disease with pious condolences, sighing, shedding tears, a humble beating of the heart, touched by inner compassion, sincere contrition for sins and feasible conviction to holy repentance. Thus, exhausted, bleeding, wounded to the very bones with deep wounds, having “neither form nor beauty” from inhuman torment (Is. 53:2), Pilate shows the people some kind of miracle, unprecedented, with the words: “Behold, a Man!” (John 19:5). The Romans had a holiday on which they displayed portraits of their ancestors and, bringing their children to them, showed them, saying: this is your ancestor, who is still remembered by people as glorious in his virtues; this is your great-grandfather, wise, prudent in words, graceful in deeds; this is your friend, worthy of memory and praise from his students. The Roman Pilate does the same thing in Jerusalem, when he shows the people from a high place, as if a portrait drawn in blood, of the wounded Christ the Savior, saying: “Behold, the Man!” Here is your King! Do not envy Him in the kingdom, for instead of royal palaces there is a coffin prepared for Him, and instead of royal insignia, funeral signs. Here is your Ancestor, listener, so famous! Be jealous of Him and follow His good deeds. “He has left us an example, that we should follow in His steps” (1 Pet. 2:21). When the clothes of the Roman Caesar Gallius, bloodied and pierced with swords, were shown in the Roman square, there was great weeping, screaming and sobbing throughout Rome. Here is a Man with a Body like a net, riddled with wounds and swimming in blood! Why has your heart turned to stone, man? Why don’t you regret and cry, looking at such a pitiful sight? "Behold, Man!" Here He is, the joy of the Angels, the amazement of the Cherubim, the terrible vision of the Seraphim, who became an instrument of terrible disgrace! "Behold, Man!" God the Father! “You taught man with reproofs for his iniquities, and crushed his soul like a web” (Ps. 39:12). "Behold, Man!" “How long will you press on a man, all of you killing him, like a leaning wall and a fallen fence?” (Ps. 61:4). “Behold the Man!” Man was born in Him, and the Most High Himself founded it” (Ps. 86:5). “Behold the Man,” Who, while correcting the human image, destroyed His own. "Behold the Man!" You prayed, O man: “I have no man to lower me into the pool when the waters are troubled” (John 5:7). Here you have God and Man, Healing us in the font of His Blood. “Behold the Man!” Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). “Behold a man,” and a good man, as the apostle says, “He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10:38). And He Himself proclaimed: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!” (Luke 10:23); Abraham would have been glad if he had seen My day. And the damned crowd cries out: we cannot see Him: “Take, take, crucify Him!” (John 19:15). "Behold the Man!" “A worm, not a man; reproach among men and humiliation among the people” (Ps. 21:7). He prays with Job: “Have mercy on Me, have mercy on Me, O friends! The hand of the Lord touched Me if those whom I love rebelled against Me” (Job 19:21, 19). Yes, Jews! He is flesh of flesh and bone of your bones, and yet you cry: “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25)! Pilate's demonstration did not help: instead of having mercy, taking pity on Him, seeing Him so beaten, so wounded and tormented, they, seeing the Blood, like dogs who do not know enough, howled even more strongly: “Crucify, crucify Him” (Luke 23:21). Seeing the innocence of Christ, Pilate “washed his hands” (Matthew 27:24), as if following the Old Testament custom given by God, according to which, if the body of a murdered person was found in a city or in a field, and the murderers were not found, the elders in the city were to wash their hands in the blood of a heifer, whose veins were cut in the thigh, and declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, and our eyes have not seen her” (Deut. 21:7). The lawless Pilate washes his hands not in water, but in the true Blood of the gentle Lamb. This atheist should have heard that. that God says through the prophet Jeremiah: “Wash your heart from wickedness, and you will be saved” (Jer. 4:14). He washes his hands, but with a heart full of uncleanness, deceit and malice, condemns the innocent to death! Why don’t you exclaim, O Christ, true innocence, along with the Psalmist: “Judge Me, O God, and judge My litigation; Deliver Me from an unkind people and from an unrighteous man!” (Ps. 42:1). Although Pilate says: “I find no guilt in this Man” (Luke 23:4), he nevertheless betrays Him to death. The Jewish synagogue stands for His crucification, crying: “Crucify, crucify Him” (Luke 23:21). “For truly in this city Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together against Your Holy Son Jesus, whom You anointed” (Acts 4:27). O my condemned Judge! Do not condemn me to utter darkness! The condemned man, doomed to the death of the Lord, having laid the Cross, is taken out of the city: “Carrying His Cross, He went out” (John 19:17). Oh, what a pitiful and sad procession! “There followed Him a great multitude of people and women, who wept and lamented for Him” (Luke 23:27). Bloody procession! For that Blood, which He did not shed at the pillar, which remained in Him after those brutal instruments of torment, is now shed on the road, crushed by the oppression of the Cross; the rest of it wasted on the Cross to the last drop. He pours out Blood on the way, “so that His foot may be dipped in blood” (Ps. 67:24). The road to heaven is red, stained with the Blood of Christ! “Those who sow with tears will reap with joy” (Ps. 125:5). Christ the Savior sows His Blood so that we may reap eternal joy in heaven. Previously He sent servants “along the roads and hedges” to persuade the poor and needy to enter His house (Luke 14:21, 23), but now He Himself goes out into the squares and crossroads to invite us, the poor and needy, to the heavenly feast. Previously he poured a flood on the earth, now he pours blood in order to drown and wash away our sinful abominations. O gloomy procession or, better to say, exile, in which the Son of David suffers reproach from many new Shimei: “Go away,” they say, “bloodsucker and lawless one” (2 Sam. 16:7)! Oh, how hard it was for Him who says: “The path flowed without iniquity” (Ps. 58:5). The scribes and Pharisees cry out: go away, go away, you wicked man, “who loves to eat and drink, a friend of tax collectors and sinners,” son of Beelzebub, destroyer of our law (Matt. 11:19; see Matt. 12:27)! Until recently, babies exclaimed to those entering the city: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew 21:9). Now the parents of those babies, taking them out of the city, curse Him: “Cursed is he who hangs on the tree” (Gal. 3:13)! Who wouldn’t be moved by looking at the Wanderer returning so poorly to His home! He was our guest, we gave Him the first overnight stay in a stall among the animals, then we took Him out to Egypt to an idolatrous people. With us He had no place to lay His head. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him” (John 1:11). Now they sent Him on the road with a heavy cross: they laid the heavy burden of our sins on His shoulders. “Carrying His cross, He went out, upholding all things by the word of His power” (Matthew 8:20; John 19:17; Heb. 1:3). The true Isaac carries the Cross - the tree on which he will be sacrificed. Heavy Cross! Under the weight of the Cross, “the strong one in armor, who showed the strength of His arm” falls on the road (cf. Luke 1:51). Many cried, but Christ says: “Do not weep for Me” (Luke 23:28): this Cross on the shoulder is power, this is the key with which I will unlock and lead Adam out of the imprisoned hellish doors, “do not cry. Issachar desired good, lying in the middle of the borders; and he saw that the rest was good, and that the earth was pleasant: and he bowed his shoulders to bear the burden, and began to work as a farmer” (Gen. 49:14–15). “And a man will go out to his work” (Ps. 103:23). The Bishop carries His throne in order to bless from it with outstretched hands all parts of the world. Esau goes out into the field, taking a bow and arrows to “catch prey” for his father (Gen. 27:5). Christ the Savior comes out, taking the Cross instead of a bow, in order to “catch prey” in order to draw us all to Himself. “When I am exalted, I will draw everyone to Me” (John 12:32). The mental Moses comes out, takes the rod, His Cross, stretches out his hands, divides the Red Sea of ​​passions, transfers us from death to life, and drowns the devil, like Pharaoh, in the abyss of hell. They take the Lord out of the city, or, better said, expel him from the city as a villain, condemn him along with the villains: “He is counted among the villains” (Mark 15:28). Here is Lazarus, suffering at the door of the rich world, crying out: “He suffered and humbled himself to the end” (Ps. 37:7). He ascends Mount Golgotha ​​so that the whole world can look at His shameful and cruel death. On Mount Sinai he gave the law, and on this mountain he signs the law with His Blood. There the voice of trumpets and thunder was heard, here the voice of ridicule, reproach and reproach was heard. Instead of thunder, one hears nailing to the Cross, when, stretched out on the Cross, sharp nails are driven into His most holy hands and feet. “They crucified Him” (Luke 24:20). Just as nature brings us naked into the world, so He ascends naked to the Cross, crying out with Job: “Naked came from my mother’s womb, naked I go away” (Job 1:21). He stretched out His hands to the east, “so that from the east of the sun to the west the name of the Lord may be praised” (Ps. 112:3). He stretched out his right and left hands, “love the righteous and have mercy on the sinners.” He stretches out his left and right hands to distribute to us everything that they contain: “Longness of years is in His right hand, but in His left hand are riches and glory” (Proverbs 3:16). He stretches out his arms, ready to embrace and caress the sinner and the prodigal son turning to Him. Although we constantly crucify Him with our sins, however, when He dies, He does not turn His face away from us, but, bowing His head, forgives us and calls us to Himself. In the Old Testament, the bride asked: “Where do you rest at noon” (Song. 1:6)? Here He is, nailed at the sixth hour, dwelling on the Cross! At Tabor he spoke about the exodus, and now at Golgotha ​​this exodus ends. Like a heavenly rainbow, spread out on the Cross. Look at the rainbow and bless the One who created it. There are different colors on that rainbow: blue - from blows, and red - from the shedding of Blood. Truly, with its sins the world deserved an even greater flood than the first descendants of Adam, but here is a sign of reconciliation - a rainbow stretched out on the cloud of the cross. Strained like a bow from which the mighty man’s sharp arrows are shot into the hearts (see Ps. 63:4–5). The centurion was wounded by an arrow, the robber was wounded by an arrow, and He Himself was, as it were, a target set for shooting with various arrows: “Set Me as a target for shooting” (Lam. 3:12). As many arrows were pierced into Him as there were ridicules uttered. “Eh! Destroying the church" (Mark 15:29). And He Himself says: “All who saw Me mocked Me, spoke with their lips, nodded their heads” (Ps. 21:8). “And they despised Him as a desirable land; they did not believe His words” (Ps. 106:24). “All those who pass along the way nod their heads” (Lam. 2:15). Exhausted in bloody torture, Christ the Lord says: “I thirst” (John 19:28). Once upon a time, Sampson, having defeated his enemies, and being inflamed with great thirst, turned to God: “You have wrought this great salvation by the hand of Your servant, but now I am dying of thirst” (Judges 15:18). You also thirst, Jesus, You, the Source of living water: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me” (John 7:37). You said to the Samaritan woman: “If you knew the gift of God and Who says to you: “Give Me a drink,” then you yourself would ask Him, and He would give you living water” (John 4:10). Previously You prayed that this cup might pass from You (Matthew 26:39), but now You thirst more for the Cross and reproach, You thirst for our salvation, so that we would thirst for You, the Source of life. “God opened a hole in the jaw, and water poured out from it, and they drank” (Judges 15:19). The mental Sampson, who filled the desert with honey from a stone - alas - is given vinegar and gall to drink: “In My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink” (Ps. 68:22). With this bitter drink He feeds His most loving Mother, standing at the Cross. For when She fulfills Her sorrows from the bitter cup of Her passions, She says together with the unfortunate bride Naomi: “Do not call me Naomi,” that is, beautiful, “but bitter, since the Almighty has sent me great sorrow” (Ruth. 1:20). “His Mother stood by the Cross of Jesus” (John 19:25). Solomon says: “Who can find a virtuous wife?” (Prov. 31:10). But the Blessed Virgin stands courageously at the Cross and suffers so unbearably that the words of Simeon come to Her mind: “And a weapon will pierce your own soul” (Luke 2:35). At the time when our Sun - Christ - sets, the Most Pure Virgin stands at the Cross, chosen as the sun, beautiful as the moon, exalted as the morning dawn. While the darkness of the whole world has opened, She, like a burning candle, glows with love. O Blessed Virgin! Who will I liken You to, with what will I compare Your present illness, when Your sorrows are as great as the sea! Christ, stretched out on the Cross, like a string on a harp, oh, how sweetly he sings sweetly! Here He is praying for those who are killing Him: “Father! Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Here he makes a thief saved: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). Here Her Mother entrusts John and cries out to God the Father: “He cried out with a loud voice” (Matthew 27:50). And from this sweet singing the earth trembled: “The earth shook” (Matthew 27:51); stones, hills, mountains fell down, the dead rose from their graves: “Many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Matthew 27:52); The gates of hell were opened. But the playing is already over when the strings break, when the soul is separated from the body. End of bloody work when night falls. The end of disease comes when healing comes through death. The end of suffering when He says, “It is finished!” (John 19:30), as if addressing God the Father: “I have finished the work that You gave Me to do” (John 17:4). No one will now say: “This man began to build and could not finish” (Luke 14:30). “It is finished!” The One who bowed His head to the Forerunner is already bowing his head, and with this inclination, as it were, he thanks God the Father for the cup of passion. He bows his head, pointing to his heart that it too will be tormented after His death, and as if saying to the Jews: There is no longer One at whom you could mock and laugh, for I have given My spirit into the hands of My Father. And so I bequeath to you for tyranny, for amusement, My heart, which does not die immediately, just as the first one receives life. Show him also and end your cruel tyranny: pierce him with a spear so that Blood and water will come out of him as true evidence that I am the Son of God. “And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). God the Father gave everything into the hands of the Son, but now the Son gives His spirit into the hands of the Father: “A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit” (Ps. 50:19). It is He who sacrifices His spirit for us: “Into Your hands I commend My spirit” (Luke 23:46). After many sufferings, our Lord closes His eyes, dies on the bed of the cross, wishes us peace, as if saying: “Good night!” And truly, it was as if night had fallen: “Darkness was over all the earth” (Matthew 27:45). Together with Him, the sky closes its bright eyes: “The sun will turn into darkness, and the moon into blood” (Acts 2:20). When the Sun of Truth sets, the day fades, the whole world wants to collapse, seeing the injustice committed against its Creator. The whole world mourns when the Lord of the whole world dies. The bride of Christ, the church, is crying, tearing her clothes: “The veil in the church was torn in two” (Matthew 27:51). Tear also you, pious listener, not your vestments, but your heart! Break the petrified stronghold of your heart for mercy towards the poor! Bring the sinful dead man out of the grave of your conscience with holy confession! Close the shining eyes of luxury and carnality, shake the earth of your body with spiritual deeds, and thus have compassion for Christ the Savior, who suffered for us: “Just as Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourself with the same thought” (1 Pet. 4:1). The Word of God fell silent on the pulpit... I will finish my conversation, and I ask for your love in the evening (if God wants and we are alive) to listen, with God’s help, to my feeble-minded conversation about the inhealable wounds of Christ. Now, spending this day piously in fasting, prayers and tears, contemplate with your mental eyes the Lord crucified for us; remember the torment He suffered at the hands of sinners. “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), who may remain in your mind and heart always, now and forever. Amen.