A Homily for the Fourth Sunday of the Great Fast

“The Son of Man came notto be served, butto serve and to give His soulas a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45)

Soon the memorable days of the world-saving sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ will arrive, and on this present Sunday the Church has appointed to read the Gospel in which the Lord foretold His coming sufferings as though they were already present. Namely, He said: “behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and hand Him over to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and beat Him, and spit upon Him, and kill Him; and on the third day He will rise again” (Mk 10:33-34) Thus the Lord knew beforehand all that would happen to Him in Jerusalem, every detail of His humiliation, His sufferings, and His death, and He did not turn away from them, but went cheerfully and gladly to drink the bitter cup of sufferings for the world—and even for the ungrateful Jews who crucified Him—in order to serve the salvation common to all. O boundless love! O boundless condescension! O wondrous longsuffering!

The whole life of Jesus Christ, from infancy to His death on the cross and His resurrection, is His wondrous and most love-filled service to the salvation of the human race. But even from His ascension into the heavens, when He sat down at the right hand of God the Father, until now, the Lord who reigns over all nations serves the salvation of the human race, and especially of the Christian race, as He Himself said: “behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age” (Mt 28:20), or, in the Gospel read today: “the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His soul as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45). To this day He cleanses, regenerates, and renews us in holy Baptism; He sanctifies and confirms us by the grace of the Holy Spirit in Chrismation; He performs the sacred rite in the Liturgy, as the eternal High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, and gives us 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, the hierarchy, or the pastorate, He Himself enlightens, shepherds, guides, judges, and disciplines His rational sheep spiritually; in marriage He blesses the wedded union of husband and wife for the blessed bearing and rearing of children; in the Anointing of the Sick, as the Physician of souls and bodies, He heals infirmities both spiritual and bodily. At every service He is present with us invisibly, according to His own promise: “where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in their midst” (Mt 18:20), and He accepts our service, and He Himself, wondrously, effectually, and perceptibly, serves our salvation, working within us marvelous, divine powers that shatter the iron bonds and fetters of sin and of spiritual death, healing infirmities, redeeming us every day, in return for repentance and faith, from measureless transgressions, and sweetly quickening souls that have been sated with the bitterness of sin. We now have the Great Fast, which lasts forty days. What is this Great Fast? It is a precious gift to us from our Savior, who Himself fasted forty days and forty nights, neither eating nor drinking—a gift truly precious for all who seek salvation, as the slayer of the soul’s passions. By His word and His example the Lord established it as a law for His followers. And with what love, with what divine and grace-filled powers the Lord serves all who truly fast! He enlightens them, cleanses them, renews them, and strengthens them in the struggle with the passions and with the invisible enemies, with “the principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this age” (Eph 6:12); He teaches them every virtue and raises them to perfection, to incorruption, and to the blessedness on high. All who truly fast have experienced this, and experience it still, in themselves. Fasting with prayer is a sure weapon against the devil and the passion-filled flesh. So let no one argue cleverly that fasting is unnecessary. But now the days of the sufferings of our most sweet Savior are drawing near. What are the sufferings, the Passion, of the Lord? This is the last, consummating sacrifice of our Savior for the sins of the world, brought to completion by His death on the cross, before which He cried out: “it is finished” (Jn 19:30)! This is His last, final service on earth to our salvation, that through His sufferings and death we might be delivered from the righteous, eternal torment due for our sins, that He might give us as food and drink His most pure, much-suffering Body and His most pure Blood, poured out for us—for our cleansing, sanctification, quickening, and renewal—so as to clothe us in His righteousness, in His merits, and to deify us and make us blessed forever. Oh, if only it were so! If only everyone always looked upon His sufferings in this way and made them their own by faith and love! If only they were crucified together with Him, crucifying themselves to the world and to the passions! Or again—the Liturgy is celebrated nearly the whole year round. What is the Liturgy? It is the daily service of the Lord to our salvation and to the salvation of the world—on behalf of all and for all. He Himself serves for us and with us in the Liturgy, celebrating the Mystery of His Body and Blood. To this day He is slain for us, while Himself remaining unslain in His incorrupt, deified flesh; He pours out His Blood, breaks His Body, and gives them to us for the remission of sins, for sanctification, and for eternal life; to this day His living and life-giving Blood steams upon the altars of Orthodox Christian churches! O wondrous, divine gift of love! O blessedness of true Christians! Thus the Lord to this day serves our salvation in manifold and life-giving ways.

But He left us an image, an example, that we too might serve one another with love. He said: “whoever wants to be great among you, let him be your servant; and whoever wants to be first among you, let him be your slave” (Mk 10:43-44). So each of us, my brothers, must serve one another with his talents, his abilities, his powers, his official position, his property, his education, and not 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, and 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, and by the saving guidance of the flock toward a virtuous life and toward salvation in God; educated people, officials and instructors, authors, writers, and the press in general ought to serve for the glory of God and for the good of the people, or of those entrusted to their guidance, by their enlightening influence grounded on the principles of the Orthodox Christian Church. The rich ought to serve the poor—not, of course, the idlers who do not want to work but want to eat bread for nothing; for, “if anyone does not want to work, neither let him eat” (2Thes 3:10), says the Apostle, but rather those poor who would gladly work but cannot, or whose labor gives no results at all, being exhausting and thankless, or those who can find work nowhere. In Christ we are all members of one another, and by faith, by duty, and by the conviction of mind and heart we must serve one another with whatever each is able; yes, brothers, to serve our neighbors, and not to live for ourselves alone, not for our own pleasures alone, not to gather for ourselves alone, not to pass our time in idleness and sloth, not to regard life as a plaything, or merely as a chain of games and enjoyments. That would be not Christianity, but paganism. We “who are strong must bear the infirmities of the weak, and not please ourselves. Each of us must please his neighbor for his good, unto edification” (Rom 15:1-2). Service to our neighbors, of course, cannot be without self-denial and a cross, and sometimes the greater and higher the good we bring to our neighbors, the harder the cross often is—for example, the cross of ingratitude and malice from those we have benefited. Such is the cross borne by our good and beloved Sovereign. But because of this one must not despair, grieve beyond measure, and abandon the work of service. For whose cross was heavier than the cross of Christ, endured for us? May the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, who emptied Himself so terribly for us, serve us as a strong incentive not to fear and not to flee self-denial for the common good. And this self-denial, and this good, is so needed especially now, in view of the many and great hardships and misfortunes of our people—a people believing and good, yet uneducated, at times superstitious, dissolute, careless, often shortsighted, free, yet not yet having learned to understand and value the gift of true freedom. But in order to serve our neighbors sincerely, one must without fail cease serving one’s own passions; self-denial is needed; for the passions do not allow us to serve our neighbors sincerely and zealously, but teach us to please ourselves alone. Amen.