The Work of Christ

A Sermon on the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mk 10:45)

The memorable days of the world-saving sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ will soon be upon us, and on this Sunday the Church has appointed the reading of the Gospel in which the Lord foretold His coming sufferings as though they were present. Precisely, He said: Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will hand Him over to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and beat Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him; and on the third day He will rise again[1]. Thus the Lord knew in advance everything that would happen to Him in Jerusalem—every detail of His humiliation, of His sufferings and His death—and He did not turn away from them, but went resolutely and joyfully to drink the bitter cup of sufferings for the world, and for the very Jews who were thankless and crucified Him, so as to serve the salvation of all. O boundless love! O boundless condescension! O wondrous long-suffering!

The whole life of Jesus Christ—from His infancy to His death on the cross and His resurrection—is His wondrous, most loving service for the salvation of the human race. But even after His ascension into the heavens, when He sat down at the right hand of God the Father, the Lord, who has now become King over all nations, has served the salvation of the human race to this very day—especially that of the Christian race—as He Himself said: I am with you every day, even to the end of the age[2], or, in the Gospel being read today: The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many[3]. To this day He cleanses, regenerates, and renews us in holy Baptism; He sanctifies and confirms us in chrismation with the grace of the Holy Spirit; He officiates at the Liturgy as the eternal High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, and bestows His most pure Body and Blood under the form of bread and wine; in repentance He Himself heeds our repentance and absolves the sins of those who repent sincerely; in the priesthood, in the hierarchy, or in the pastorate, He Himself enlightens, shepherds, guides, judges, and spiritually chastens His rational sheep; in marriage He blesses the marital union of husband and wife for the blessed birth and upbringing of children; in Unction, as the Physician of souls and bodies, He heals spiritual and bodily infirmities. At every service He is present with us invisibly, according to His own promise: wherever two or three are gathered in My name, there I am among them[4], and He receives our service, while He Himself wonderfully, effectually, and perceptibly serves our salvation, producing in us wondrous divine powers that shatter the iron bonds and fetters of sin and spiritual death, healing infirmities, daily redeeming us, through repentance and faith, from immeasurable transgressions, and sweetly giving life to souls surfeited with the bitterness of sin.

We are now in Great Lent, which lasts forty days. What is this Great Lent? It is a precious gift to us from our Savior, Who Himself fasted forty days and nights, eating and drinking nothing—a gift truly precious for all who seek salvation, as a slayer of the passions of the soul. By His word and His example the Lord made it law for His followers. And with what love, with what divine powers of grace the Lord serves all who truly fast! He enlightens them, cleanses them, renews them, strengthens them in the struggle against the passions and against the unseen enemies—against the principalities and powers and world-rulers of the darkness of this age[5]; He teaches them every virtue and leads them up to perfection, to incorruption and to the blessedness on high. All who truly fast have proved this and are proving it in themselves. Fasting with prayer is a faithful weapon against the devil and the passion-laden flesh. Let no one play the wise man and say that fasting is unnecessary. — But now the days of the sufferings, the passion of the Lord, are approaching? — This is the last, all-accomplishing sacrifice of our Savior for the sins of the world, completed by His death on the cross, before which He cried out: It is finished![6] This is His last, final service on earth for our salvation, so that through His sufferings and death we might be delivered from the righteous, everlasting torment for our sins—so that He might give us as food and drink His all-pure, much-suffering body and His all-pure blood, poured out for us—for our cleansing, sanctification, quickening, and renewal—so that He might clothe us in His righteousness, in His merits, and divinize us and make us blessed forever. O, if only it were so! If only we always looked upon His sufferings in this way and so made them our own by faith and love! If only we were crucified together with Him, crucifying ourselves to the world and to the passions! — Or again: the Liturgy is celebrated almost all year round. What is the Liturgy? It is the daily service of the Lord for our salvation and for the salvation of the world—for all and on behalf of all. He Himself serves for us and with us in the Liturgy, performing the Mystery of His body and blood. To this day He is slaughtered for us, while He Himself remains unslaughtered in His incorruptible, divinized flesh; He pours out His blood, breaks His body, and gives them to us for the remission of sins, for sanctification, and for life everlasting; to this day His living and life-giving blood still steams upon the altars of Orthodox Christian temples! O, the wondrous divine gift of love! O, the blessedness of true Christians! Thus the Lord to this day serves your salvation in manifold and life-giving ways.

But He left us a pattern, an example, so that we also might serve one another with love. He said: whoever would be great among you shall be your servant; and whoever would be first among you shall be your slave[7]. So each of us, my brothers, must serve the others with his talents, abilities, strengths, his official position, his property, his education—and not seek to please himself alone. Thus the tsar and the government serve the people, caring for their enlightenment, for the direction of their moral and physical powers, for their agricultural and economic life. Pastors serve their flocks, or ought to serve them, by a good example of Christian virtues, by the word of teaching and edification, by the reverent celebration of the Mysteries—by the saving guidance of their flocks toward a virtuous life and toward salvation in God; educated people, superiors and instructors, authors, writers, and the press in general—must serve the glory of God and the good of the people, or of those entrusted to their guidance, by their enlightening influence, on the foundations of the Christian Orthodox Church. The rich must serve the poor—not, of course, the idle, who do not want to work but want to eat bread for free, for if anyone does not want to work, neither shall he eat[8], says the Apostle—but those poor who would gladly work yet cannot, or whose work goes nowhere at all, labor that is exhausting and thankless, or—those who can find work nowhere.

We are all members of one another in Christ, and by faith, and by duty, and by the conviction of mind and heart we ought to serve one another with whatever each of us can;—yes, brethren, to serve our neighbors, and not to live for ourselves alone, not for our own pleasures alone—not to gather riches for ourselves alone, not to pass our time in idleness and laziness, not to regard life as a toy, or merely as a chain of games and amusements. That would be not Christianity, but paganism. We who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor, for what is good, for his upbuilding[9]. Service to our neighbors, of course, cannot be without self-denial and a cross; and sometimes the greater and loftier the good we render to our neighbor, the harder the cross often is—for example, the cross of ingratitude and malice from those who have received our kindness. Such is the cross of our good and beloved Sovereign. But we must not lose heart over this, must not grieve beyond measure, and must not abandon the work of service. For whose cross was ever heavier than the cross of Christ, endured for our sake? Let the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, who emptied Himself terribly for us, serve as a strong incentive to us not to fear self-denial and not to flee from it, for the sake of the common good. And this self-denial, and this good, are so needed especially now, in view of the many and great hardships and misfortunes of our people—a people believing and good indeed, but uneducated, at times superstitious, dissolute, careless, often short-sighted—a people free, but not yet having learned to understand and treasure the gift of true freedom. But in order to serve our neighbors sincerely, one must absolutely cease to serve one’s own passions; self-denial is needed, for the passions do not allow us to serve our neighbors sincerely and fervently, but teach us to please only ourselves. Amen.