Protopriest Leonid Kolchev

Sermon on the 5th Week of Great Lent
The Gospel reading from Mark, pericope 47 (10:32-35)

Jesus Christ came to earth in order to deliver us from sin, damnation and death. For this purpose, He brought from heaven the ideal law, at the foundation of which lay love, and showed through His own example how one is to fulfill it. Now He was faced with the sufferings of the crucifixion, death, ascension to heaven and the coming down upon the faithful of the Holy Spirit. No mortal understood these Divine plans of creation. The Jews thought the Messiah would be a political activist, Who would first of all overthrow the hated Roman yoke, would conquer the world and would reestablish the glorious kingdom of Israel, and that the foremost positions would be given to them, the descendants of Abraham, the chosen people of God. No doubt such preconceived notions infected the disciples of Christ. The very thought of the violent death of Christ horrified them, and they uttered outright: "Lord: this shall not be unto thee" (Matthew 16:22). For this reason it was necessary to prepare them, so that they would not look upon the death of Christ as an accident and would not despair. "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem," said Christ to His disciples, as you heard in today’s Gospel reading, "and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles; and they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him; and the third day he shall rise again." Something important was to happen soon--apparently they understood Christ’s words this way--and then the expected glorious kingdom would arrive, and so some of them approached Christ to reserve special places for them in advance. "Ye know not what ye ask," said the Lord, and using the symbols of the chalice and the baptism, He indicated to them their sufferings in this world. As for places in the kingdom of heaven, that depended not upon Him, because this is not mercy or the "granting of a wish," as St. Basil the Great explains, but the reward for struggle on earth.

Our present situation to some extent reminds us of how the Jews were during the earthly life of Jesus Christ. Some of us Russians are there in the homeland under the bloody yoke of militant atheism, others are in exile in foreign lands. Both, even at the height of spiritual concentration we dream of the glorious, the great Russian land, of her resurrection, so that all would live there freely, as they will. All of this is good and legitimate, of course, but no matter how dear the earthly city is for us, the heavenly Jerusalem must always be immeasurably dearer. Too often have we attached ourselves to the earth, and we live not according to the Divine truth so much as that of mankind. For it is not by accident, and not for no reason that such sorrows befell us. "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you," said the Lord (Matthew 6:33). Who can say that we do not do the opposite? This is the result. Maybe the Lord, in these tribulations, as in a forge, purifies the gold of the hearts of the Russian people, called to preserve the Orthodox faith. Christ Himself walked to Golgotha, and left that legacy for us as well. "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven" (Matthew 5:10-12). Amen.