St. Philaret of New York: Sermon on Great Friday

 

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Gospel tells us that when the Lord Jesus Christ appeared on the banks of the Jordan, St. John the Baptist, pointing to Him said, “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes upon Himself the sins of the world.” and on the next day repeated this again. The Lamb of God: in ancient times, a lamb was a redemptive sacrifice for sins and this is what the Baptist was speaking of, that the One Whom he indicated is that Redemptive Sacrifice for the sins of mankind.

It is easy to say and one may write that one took some sort of sins upon oneself, but the Lord Jesus Christ, God-man, Son of God Who became incar­nate yet remaining God as God Omnipotent and at the same time joining His nature with human nature, He took upon Himself the sins of the en­tire world not in a way that we may say, but took them in essence, actually. Metropolitan Anthony loved to clarify that the Mystery of Redemption is an abyss of the Supreme Wisdom and Goodness of God and at the same time a terrible mystery. Vladika Anthony said that if a person could only see and learn what the Lord Jesus Christ under­went in this feat of His Redemption then, as Vla­dika Anthony said, a person would burn up, not being able to endure this. This is why for us it remains a mystery, a frightful and immeasurable depth of suffering which we cannot even imagine.

It becomes truly terrifying when one merely thinks what the Lord had endured then. For He, I re­peat, essentially took upon Himself the sins of the entire world. We cannot take the sins of others upon ourselves. They remain with each person in­dividually, but God Almighty has nothing that is impossible for Him and by this dreadful action of His Omnipotence, in a way which is inscrutable and incomprehensible for us, He accomplished indeed that which only faith can accept and not human reasoning. He took our human sins upon Himself, making them His own, personal sins and this is why He suffered and sorrowed so greatly.

We know how He said to His disciples prior to embarking on this path of horrible sufferings, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” and right away, purely in a human manner which is understandable for us, He asks His disciples, “stay with Me here and watch with Me.” Yes, they did stay with Him, but they were not able to stay awake and during those moments when He prayed His terrible, supernatural (as the Church calls it) prayer in Gethsemane, during that time they slept and slumbered. While the Lord was pronouncing His prayer, he turned to them for their support in friendship, support in love, He sees that they sleep. He only said to Peter, “Si­mon, could not have at least you tarried a little” for it was Peter, as we know, who swore and made an oath that he would go with Him even to death, but now he had fallen asleep at a time when it was so difficult for Him.

But remember, beloved, when you and I con­template what it is that the Lord did for us, one must never forget that it was precisely because of our sins that He ended up on the Cross and in the tomb. We nailed Him by our obstinate, unrepented sins to the Cross and because of our sins He now lies a voiceless and invisible corpse in the tomb. And when you bow down in wor­ship before Him, venerating His wounds, do this as one inexcusably guilty on account of whom He is covered in wounds, on account of whom He died in torture, rejected, covered with shame and now lies in the grave. Remember that we did this, including me and every other person by our stub­born sins and our incorrigibility. It is not in vain that the Lord Himself at one point when He par­ticularly strongly sensed the unfaithfulness of the human race and even exclaimed, as is recorded in the Gospel, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you, how long will I suf­fer you?” This is how difficult in general it was for Him to be with us, and then, I repeat, we nailed Him to the cross and put Him in the grave by our sins.

Remember this, Christian soul, when you come to bow down before the Divine dead body lying in the Shroud, when you venerate His wounds, do this as one who is undeniably guilty, because no one besides us is guilty of this, for the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Apostle said, instead of the Glory befitting Him, He endured shame and dis­grace, the terrible, shameful and degrading death on the Cross. You and I know that now, after His death the Cross has become for us sacred and a treasure, but He was nailed to the Cross, I re­peat not by the soldiers, but by us because if our sins did not exist, He would not have had to take them upon Himself and none of this would have happened. But He accepted this dreadful super-human feat.

Remember how it says in the Gospel that He struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane to the point of bloody sweat during this dreadful prayer. Why was he covered with this terrible bloody sweat? The holy hierarch Dimitry of Rostov once said in his inspired sermon, as if addressing the Savior: “Lord, why are You covered in blood? Who wounded you so severely? There has not yet been the Cross or the scourging, why are you cov­ered in blood?” And he answers it himself: “Love wounded me,” for the God-man knew that if He Who so loved sinners did not carry out this dread­ful feat, then our lot for all ages would be fiery Gehenna in frightful, never-ending most horri­fying sufferings which we cannot even imagine. And it was He Who took upon Himself this en­tire horrifying weight, the heavy burden of sin and thanks to His holy and great podvig we now have an opportunity to hope that we will receive for­giveness of our sins and that they will be washed away, and then can we hope that He will receive us into the Heavenly Kingdom as He received the wise thief. Amen.

 

Source: Living Orthodoxy, Vol. XXXV, No. 2; Mar - Apr 2015, #206, pp. 4-6.