The Week of the Blind is the sixth Sunday after Easter. At the Liturgy, the Gospel of John is read about the miracle of Jesus Christ’s healing of a man born blind, whose eyes the Savior anointed with clay from His spitting, and then sent the blind man to wash in the pool of Siloam, after which the man blind from birth, to everyone’s surprise, became sighted.
Healing by Jesus Christ of a man born blind. Story
Seeing a man blind from birth begging for alms, the disciples asked the Lord: “Teacher, who sinned, he or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered: “Neither he nor his parents sinned, but this was so that the works of God might be revealed in him.” Christ, spitting on the ground, made clay, anointed the eyes of the blind man with this clay and said to him: “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” This spring was located at the foot of Mount Zion. The blind man washed himself in it and received his sight. This miracle left everyone in amazement. Some did not believe that this was the same man who was blind from birth, others said that it was him. They began to ask the man born blind how he regained his sight. He answered: “The man whose name is Jesus made clay, anointed my eyes and ordered me to wash in the pool of Siloam; I washed my face, and now I see.” They took him to the Pharisees - and this miracle was performed on the Sabbath day. The man who had regained his sight again answered the questions of the Pharisees with a story about a miraculous healing. Then there was a dispute between the Pharisees about Jesus. Some said: “This Man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath; others objected: “Can a sinful man perform such miracles?” They asked the healed man: “What do you think about Him?” “I think He is a prophet,” he replied. But the Pharisees were still not convinced by such clear evidence of the power of God. They doubted whether the man was really blind, and called his parents, asking them if this was really their son and why, being blind from birth, he received his sight? The parents of the man born blind knew that the Pharisees hated Jesus and had already decided among themselves to excommunicate from the synagogue anyone who recognized Him as the Messiah. In their cowardice, they were afraid to incur the wrath of the Pharisees by giving due honor to the One who healed their son, and therefore they only answered: “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. How he received his sight and who healed him, we do not know; he is an adult himself; let him tell you himself.” Then the Pharisees said to the man born blind: “Give thanks to God; We know that He who healed you is a sinner.” “I don’t know whether He is a sinner, but I only know that I was blind, but now I see,” answered the one who received his sight. Again the Pharisees began to ask how he received his sight. “I already told you, why are you asking again? Do you also want to become His disciples? The Pharisees were angry. “You are His disciple,” they said, “and we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses, but about this Man we do not know where He comes from.” “It’s amazing that you don’t know where He comes from,” the man answered, “but He opened my eyes. Has anyone ever heard of anyone opening the eyes of a man born blind? We all know that God does not listen to sinners, but listens to those who honor God and do His will. If this Man were not from God, he could not have done such a miracle.” The Pharisees became even more angry and kicked out the blind man who had received his sight. The Lord Jesus Christ found out about this and, meeting him, asked: “Do you believe in the Son of God?” “Who is He, Lord, that I should believe in Him?” asked the one who had received his sight. “You have seen Him, and He speaks to you,” said the Lord. “I believe, Lord!” - the young man then exclaimed and bowed to Jesus to the ground (John 9: 2-38).
A man blind from birth, as a result of a miracle performed by Jesus Christ, gained not only physical, but also spiritual sight - he believed that Christ is the Son of God. But the Pharisees, physically sighted from birth, became blind with their spiritual eyes from their malice. They continued to slander Christ, not believing in the greatest miracle of healing a man born blind and being indignant that Jesus performed a miracle on the Sabbath.
"Those who do not see will be blind"
Having learned about the trial of the blind man by the Pharisees, and that they had driven him away, Christ found the healed man and told him that He had come to give sight to the blind. But then comes an interesting phrase: “those who see will become blind . What does it mean? Does this mean that Christ’s goal is to blind sighted people?!
Of course not. Like everything in the Gospel text, this phrase has a figurative meaning. She says that sinners blind themselves, not wanting to see the Divine Light, persisting in their passions and unbelief. They themselves drive away Divine Grace from themselves with their sins. And this is spiritual blindness.
Hearing this phrase, the Pharisees, not without mockery, asked: are we really blind? To this Christ answered them seriously that if they had a physical defect, like this blind man, then they would not have been guilty. But, since they persist and do not believe in Christ, they make themselves spiritually blind. Their sin remains on their souls.
This is the worst thing that can happen: Christ turns away from the Pharisees, tired of waiting for repentance and conversion from them, and attributes them to the category of spiritual blindness, ossified in sins.
Sermon by Patriarch Kirill on the 6th Sunday after Easter, about the blind man
Week about the blind. Divine service
The Week of the Blind is the last one before the holiday of Easter, when divine services are performed according to a special Easter rite. From this day on, at Matins they begin to sing the chaos of the Ascension of the Lord. According to the Colored Triodion, the hymns of the Week about the Blind are indicated for three days, until the Wednesday of Easter. The canon and stichera dedicated to the miracle of the blind man's sight speak of the healing of both physical and mental blindness, when we pray to the Lord and for ourselves in order to be worthy of receiving true spiritual insight.
Troparion:
The initial word is nts7u and 3 d¦ov, є4zhe t dv7y born for our salvation. Let us sing the faithful and 3 worship, ћkw blgotіya ascended to the crt, and 3 endure death, and 3 resurrect the dead, in our glorious resurrection.
Kontakion:
Dsh7evnya nchi1ma is blinded, I come to you2, who was born blind, until we call you, you2 є3сi2 who live in darkness, the bright light.
Library of the Russian Faith Canon for the Week about the Blind →
Read online
Sermon on the Healing of the Blind Man of Jericho
Looking at the example of the blind man from today’s Gospel passage, we should not lose hope for the healing of our blind soul, but, on the contrary, imitating him in patience, strongly cry out to Christ in prayer.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Hearing from year to year about the many Gospel miracles of the Savior, in which He healed people from illness or some ailment, cast out demons or raised them from the dead, we often remain unaware of how this or that miraculous event can relate to ourselves. Why do we need to hear about the same event, such as in today's Sunday Gospel reading about the healing of the blind man, every year? Well, Christ healed this blind man, we learned about this a long time ago. So what's next? We already believe in Christ as God made man. Will our faith become even stronger if we listen to this story a hundred more times? Doubtful. So why does the Church offer us the same Gospel episodes year after year?
Of course, not so that we learn them by heart, and not so that we see in these events only the fact of healing or explore its historical objectivity, as Protestants do when doing excavations. The Gospel for us is not only history, but, above all, the mystery of our salvation, the mystery of the unity of our soul with God. And this blind man, healed by the Savior, although he is a specific historical figure for us, at the same time he is you and me today. After all, the meaning of the miraculous healings that we regularly hear about in the Gospel is much deeper than our usual understanding of these events, where we, as a rule, take into account first of all the external result - the very healing by Christ of this or that bodily ailment. As a result, we soon lose interest in these Gospel events, since we do not see their connection with our spiritual life. However, under the bodily illness in the Gospel stories there may be hidden something more important for us - an illness of the human soul, which, first of all, Christ came to heal, and with it a bodily illness, if this would be useful for the salvation of a person.
Sermon by Hieromonk Ignatius on the 18th Sunday after Pentecost
We cannot withstand the intensity of spiritual struggle, we often lose faith in God’s Providence for us, we become discouraged and give up.
What spiritual meaning can be hidden in today's Gospel event from our external, or, better said, bodily understanding of it? Based on this, I would like to quote the words of St. Gregory Palamas from his conversations on Gospel themes: “Therefore, Isaiah, as if on behalf of Christ,” says the saint, “predicted that He was sent by the Father and His Spirit in order to “ preach release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind.”
”(Isa. 61:1).
Why didn’t the Prophet say that He was sent to give sight to the blind, as in reality it was, but that He was sent to preach sight to the blind? – Because the Lord came to earth primarily not to open the eyes of the body, but the eyes of the soul, which, through the Gospel preaching, acquire insight; therefore, the prophecy rightly says that the Lord preached sight to the blind. As the Lord Himself, behold, exhorts us to seek spiritual blessings: “ Do
,” he says, “
not the evil that perishes, but the evil which abides in eternal life
” (John 6:27);
He promises to add bodily benefits to us if we seek those that are beneficial to the soul: “ Seek
,” he says, “
the kingdom of God, and all these will be added to you
” (Luke 12:31); He does the same with the blind. Because, having bowed to the heavens and descended to earth out of love for mankind, so that through the Gospel preaching he could open the eyes of our souls and give us spiritual insight, He added to this the healing of sensory-blind eyes. Therefore, there is a great similarity between one and the other insight, I mean – insight into the body and the soul.”
Indeed, one can often find in the Gospel words of the Savior an analogy between man’s sensory and spiritual vision. Explaining the spiritual ability of the human mind to see things invisible, the Lord resorts to a parallel with our sensory vision. So, for example, He says the following in the Gospel: “The lamp of the body is the eye. So, if your eye is clean, then your whole body will be bright; But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be dark.”
(Matt. 6:22-23). If our sensory vision is healthy, then we will be able to take care of our body so that it is also always clean and healthy. If our vision is spoiled, then our body will not be well-groomed enough. By analogy with our soul, these words also relate to the purity and enlightenment of our mind, our spiritual eye, which was given to us by God as a lamp to keep our soul clean from demonic temptations and passions.
But in order for a person to realize that he has this spiritual eye, this lamp, which, like our sensory vision, can be in a state of damage and blindness, he also needs divine enlightenment. This is the beginning and the first stage of the spiritual life of a Christian - knowledge of oneself, one’s own damage by sin, awareness of one’s own spiritual blindness, because of which a person does not see the beam in his own eye, but from afar notices the speck in the eye of his neighbor (Matthew 7:3) .
This is the stage of recognizing one’s own blindness, which does not allow a person to see “how from the inside, from the heart.”
from him
, come evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, theft, extortion, malice, deceit, lasciviousness, an envious eye, blasphemy, pride, madness - all this evil comes from within and defiles him” (Mark 7:21-23
) .
This is the stage of recognizing one’s own blindness, which self-confidently says to Christ in the person of the Pharisees: “... are we really blind?” -
and receives an answer from Him:
“... if you were blind, you would not have sin;
but because you say what you see, the sin remains on you” (John 9:40-41).
This is the blindness of the proud human mind, damaged by sin, which says about itself that it sees, but at the same time does not see anything as it should. “Therefore I speak to them in parables,”
says the Savior
, “for seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, and they do not understand;
and the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled over them, which says: You will hear with your ears, but you will not understand, and you will look with your eyes, but you will not see, for the hearts of this people have become hardened and their ears are hard to hear, and they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears. , and they will not understand in their hearts, and let them not be converted, so that I may heal them” (Matthew 13:13-15). What other healing is the Lord talking about here, if not the healing of a person from spiritual or heart blindness, for the sake of which He first of all became incarnate.
So that we, in the bright radiance of Christ’s love, do not stumble and fall into worldly hobbies.
Today we will give something to the world, saying to God, “have me renounced,” and tomorrow, if no one and nothing binds our heart to itself, as if nothing had happened Let's pass the time with God.
Due to damage by sin in the human personality, there is a clash and contradiction of the same abilities for true knowledge of God and the world around us, common in their purpose, but separated in nature. One pair of these abilities has a material nature: these are our main sense organs - vision and hearing. Our other abilities, found under the same name in the Holy Scriptures, have a different nature - one and spiritual. The contradiction and clash of these material and spiritual abilities in man lies in the fact that, having their relationship to one and the same person, given to him for the good, for the sake of a single common goal of man’s salvation, they, nevertheless, can play different roles in our earthly life.
The main example is our sensory vision and hearing, which often serve as instruments of evil in us in the case of a paralyzed state of our spiritual, higher abilities, these connecting links between man and God, the recovery of which is possible in us only with the participation of divine grace.
Arguing on this topic, you come to the conclusion that it would not make sense for Christ to heal only the bodily eyes of our blind man, leaving his spiritual eyes sick. Otherwise, having opened his eyes to the knowledge of the world around him, he would soon, due to inner blindness that remained unhealed, desecrate his soul even more due to the reigning lust of the eyes in the world, which John the Theologian mentioned, merging in his sinful corruption with all that mass of sighted people living their earthly lives in such a way that “seeing does not see” and “hearing does not hear.”
“And Jesus said, I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”
(John 9:39).
The last words of Christ may seem cruel to us at first glance, but they become quite understandable when we remember the event of the fall of the first people. Then Adam and Eve renounced obedience to their Creator and believed the serpent’s deception and his blasphemy against God. “But God knows,”
the serpent says to Eve
, “that in the day that you eat of them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil”
(Genesis 3:5). The Lord came to earth to close these eyes, which were once opened through Satan’s deception, and in return to open others to us, renewed and transformed in His humanity, so that with His eyes we would look at the world, through the prism of His commandments, and not our mercantile aspirations and worldly judgments, which once became the fruit of man’s self-deification and his curse.
Not many people in this world have bodily blindness, but each of us suffers from spiritual blindness. And if the feat of a blind person consists, first of all, in bearing this weakness without complaint as a visible symbol of his spiritual blindness, then a sighted person, like us, needs to voluntarily become a holy fool for this world and, as it were, blind in his sinful mind and understanding, in order to correspond those commandments that the Lord spoke about in the Gospel, namely: “... do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven"
(Luke 6:37).
“Therefore, do not judge anything before the time,”
says the Apostle Paul,
“until the Lord comes, who will illuminate the hidden things in darkness and reveal the intentions of the heart, and then everyone will have praise from God”
(1 Cor. 4:5).
Many can say to this that it is impossible to live on earth and not judge. What then should we talk about with each other? What to think about? How to fill your consciousness? But if physical blindness is painful for a person and he endures it and does not complain, then why should spiritual blindness, if we recognize it in ourselves, be pleasant for us in its sensations?
Looking at the example of the blind man from today's Gospel passage, we should not lose hope for the healing of our blind soul, but on the contrary, imitating him in patience, like him those who suffer, strongly cry out in prayer to Christ, which will soon stop the disturbing crowd of thoughts in our consciousness and honor We will eventually stand before Christ, waiting, like the blind man of Jericho, for His question: “What do you want from Me?... Lord! so that I can see the light. Jesus said to him: see! your faith has saved you. And he immediately received his sight and followed Him, praising God; and all the people, seeing this, gave praise to God."
(Luke 18:41-43). Amen.
31st Sunday after Pentecost, about the blind man of Jericho.
Healing by Jesus Christ of a man born blind. Icons
The iconography of the healing of a man born blind by Jesus Christ is an image of Jesus Christ, who anoints the eyes of the blind with clay. A little behind the Savior stand his disciples.
Healing the blind. Dionysius, Ferapontov Monastery
Healing a man born blind. Fresco of the Church of the Ascension in the Ravanica Monastery, Serbia. 1380s
Healing a man born blind. Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral of the Mirozh Monastery. Pskov, approx. 1156
Healing the blind. Double-sided tablet icon. Second half of the 16th century. Novgorod State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, Novgorod
Healing the blind. K. XVI century Istoma Savin. Moscow, State Tretyakov Gallery
Holy Epiphany. Gospel of the Baptism of the Lord
(“Pravoslavie.ru”)
Publication on the Pravoslavie.ru portal dated January 18, 2011 January 18, 2014
And the glory of the Lord will appear, and all flesh will see [the salvation of God]; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it (Isa. 40:5).
In ancient times, the Lord promised to appear in great glory. People heard and forgot. But the Lord did not forget His words . For the words of the Lord are like strongholds of stone, unbreakable . The Lord promised to come; however, He came not when we needed Him least, but when we needed Him most. As long as a prophet or angel could replace the Lord, so long did the Lord send prophets and angels in His place. But when evil in the world increased so much that neither an angel could burn it with his light, nor a prophet could diminish it with his verb, then the Lord fulfilled His ancient promise and appeared on earth. But how did the Lord appear in glory? In indescribable humility and obedience. So that His angels seemed brighter than Him, and His prophets - more than Him. When the prophet and the Master stood on the Jordan, the prophet was more noticeable than the Master. John the Baptist looked more wondrous and greater than our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ hid His glory and greatness behind two heavy curtains: behind the human body and behind humility. Therefore, people did not notice or recognize Him, while the eyes of all heavenly powers were fixed on Him more than on the entire created world. Clothed in true body and true humility, the Lord Jesus Christ comes from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him.
God is marvelous in His works! Through all His deeds He teaches us humility and obedience . He hides behind His deeds, like the sun at night - behind the shining of the stars, like a nightingale in a bush - behind its song.
He lends His light to the sun, and the sun shines on them as if it were His own, while God's light remains hidden.
He gives His voice to the thunder and winds, and they are heard, but He is not.
He gives His beauty to the mountains and valleys, and the mountains and valleys shine with their beauty as if they were their own, but God’s beauty remains in secret.
He gives beauty and fragrance to the flowers of the field, and beautiful flowers smell as if they were their own fragrance, but the fragrance of God remains unnoticed.
He gives strength to every creation, and all creatures are proud of each other in their strength as if it were their own, but the immeasurable power of God does not shout or be proud.
He gives to man from His mind, and man reasons and thinks with his own mind, but the mind of God remains in silence, away from rumors, hidden from the praise of the world.
This is how the Lord teaches us humility. For everything that He does, He does as much by His very nature as for the sake of man . Let man be ashamed and let him reject his foolish pride. Let no man boast of himself, having no good deeds; but let him let his affairs go ahead, and let him himself go behind them, like God behind his works, barely audible and barely visible, like a shepherd behind a large flock.
God is wonderful when He teaches us humility. But our God is marvelous even when he teaches us obedience . Man can never be as obedient as God. A man sows a field and leaves it to God. A man sows a field in one day, and God stands over the seed for a hundred days, and stores it, and warms it, and gives life, and gradually brings it out of the ground in the form of grass, and gradually fills the grass with grain, and gradually brings it to maturity, until man again will not come to the field in order to collect grain in a day or two and put it into the granaries.
The raven hatches the chicks - and abandons them, and no longer cares about them. And God takes care of them upon Himself and obediently watches over the cubs day and night. The fish spawn and leave, but God remains to hatch the fry and take care of their food and development. Countless orphans - both human and animal - would have died if God had not cared for them. God watches day and night over all His creations, listens to their desires and satisfies their needs.
God listens to the requests and prayers of people and fulfills them; fulfills them obediently whenever these petitions and prayers are not associated with sin . Prayers with which they want to draw God into sin and make him an accomplice in human sin, God rejects and does not listen. And of all prayers, God listens with the greatest favor to the contrite prayers of the repentant, asking for forgiveness of sins . For there is nothing in the world more beneficial for a person than the remission of sins, than liberation from sin. Through this a person becomes a new creature, through this he begins a new life, the life of a son instead of the life of a slave. That is why all the prophets from time immemorial have demanded repentance from people. That is why Saint John the Baptist not only preaches repentance, but also performs the baptism of repentance, so that people would seal their repentance in a visible way. The more people repent, the more they detach themselves from the world and cleave to God; and - the more quickly God becomes obedient to the prayers of people.
And thus, man can never be as humble as God, nor as obedient as God. Through all His creations in heaven and on earth, God teaches people humility and obedience. God gives this instruction to people out of His greatest love for man and out of His ardent desire that all people be saved and no one perish.
But God taught all those lessons of humility and obedience to people indirectly, either through created nature, or through his prophets, chosen ones and angels. Only in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ does God teach this to people directly, through Himself, clothed in a body. Every moment of His earthly life, from Christmas in the den to crucifixion on the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ is a living lesson for people in humility and obedience . He revealed the same living lesson at His baptism in the Jordan.
John was the hero of the day. Nobody knew Christ. And when they recognized Him, sinful people considered John greater than Him. People come out to John from all sides, simple and learned, poor and rich. John was very striking both with his appearance and with his desert and fasting life, as well as with his wondrous verbs. People sought John not so much out of awareness of their sinfulness or out of a thirst for repentance, but rather out of curiosity to see and hear an unusual person. Idle curiosity! How much precious time it takes away from us, giving us nothing in return except transient human sweetness, which quickly turns to bitterness! How it catches us in its snare, postponing and postponing our repentance, and at the same time our salvation!
Christ does not arouse curiosity. In the crowd of people He slowly walks towards the Jordan. He does not catch people's eyes, and no one pays attention to Him. His appearance is not as unusual as that of John, and His clothing is not so amazing, and His life is not so harsh and fasting.
He mingled with the mass of people, and this mass moved with Him from Galilee to the Jordan, people ate and drank with Him and talked with Him, as with every other person from the same crowd. The great Isaiah foresaw this in advance and warned about it, proclaiming: we saw Him, and there was no appearance in Him that would attract us to Him (Is. 53:2).
However, among all those gathered at the Jordan, there was one person, the only one, who knew Him, and knew Him truly. It was John the Baptist himself. And the eyes of the strict hermit shone, and his thunderous lips fell silent for a moment, and John forgot about the rest of the mass of the people, in the water and by the water, and, pointing his finger at Jesus, he tenderly said: Behold the Lamb of God (John 1:29).
Lamb of God! In two words the Forerunner expressed the humility and obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is humble like a lamb and He is obedient like a lamb. And He is humble before God and obedient to God. That is why it is said: Lamb of God. Like a lamb, He walks meekly and humbly. And just as a lamb goes to the pasture and to the slaughter with equal devotion to his shepherd, so Christ goes where His Heavenly Father rules: to Christmas in the den, to baptism on the Jordan, to crucifixion on the cross - always with equal readiness and equal devotion.
But to the words of the Lamb of God, John also adds the following: Who takes away the sin of the world. How does Christ take away the sin of the world? By His love and His sacrifice, which are inseparable from each other; for there is neither true love without sacrifice, nor the making of true sacrifice without love . Out of His love, Christ descended into this bodily world and took on a weak human body. This world is not as pure, and beautiful, and kind as it was before Adam’s sin. Sin put on this world the dark and white fleshly image that the world now wears. The transparent world has become a world of whiteness and darkness; the pure world has become an unclean world; a beautiful world - a disgusting and ugly world; a kind world - a harsh world. The Most Transparent, the Purest, the Most Beautiful and the Most Gracious descended into this world. By this He already took upon Himself the sin of the world - by the fact that He appeared in the world in the body of the world, a coarse body that eats coarse food. So, He took upon Himself the sin of the world, firstly, by taking upon Himself the body, such as it became after original sin.
Secondly, because out of love He condescended to fulfill all the laws given to people after the Fall. Having no need for these laws himself, He condescended to fulfill them all, all of them - both the laws given to nature and the laws given to people. Therefore, He exposed Himself to hunger, and thirst, and fatigue, and various pains, like other mortal people; and therefore He had to grow slowly, like all that is born, for thirty whole years before beginning His public ministry. Finally, this is why He was circumcised; That’s why he was baptized; That’s why I went to church to pray; therefore he paid taxes to Caesar. He took upon Himself all the laws after original sin and fulfilled them. That is why it is said: he takes upon himself the sin of the world. That is, He took upon Himself the fulfillment of all the laws, and with the same measure of obedience and ease with which the measure of disobedience and difficulty people fulfilled these laws .
And, finally, thirdly, by the fact that He offered Himself as a sacrifice for the sin of the world, by His voluntary crucifixion on the cross; in that He was slain like a lamb and shed His innocent blood for the sins of many. Truly, His entire earthly life is a sacrifice, just as His entire life in general is love . Sacrifice - and the fact that He took upon Himself the body; sacrifice - and the fact that He took upon Himself the law. But on the cross He sealed His sacrifice with blood and finally tore apart the handwriting of our sins. On the cross He showed both all the horror of human sin and all the love of God, reaching the point of self-sacrifice.
Thus, Christ took upon Himself the sin of the world in three ways: first, by taking upon Himself flesh; secondly, by taking upon Himself the law; and thirdly, by accepting the sacrifice.
When the Lord, clothed in a body, came into the world and, as a body, submitted to the law, this event was accompanied by a wondrous natural phenomenon - the appearance of a star in the East; and then - and the descent of angels to earth; and the joy of the shepherds of Bethlehem; and the worship of the simple shepherds and the wise men of Him, the Infant God. But this event was followed by the murder of children by Herod and the flight of the Savior into the darkness of Egypt from an even darker darkness - Jerusalem.
When the Lord clearly and clearly submitted to human law and was baptized in the Jordan, this event was also accompanied by a wondrous natural phenomenon, as the saints of God later learned, namely: the water in the Jordan River stopped, the sea retreated back. The sea saw and ran, the Jordan returned (Ps. 114:3). Then the heavens opened, and the voice of the Heavenly Father was heard, and the Holy Spirit was seen like a dove. The human race felt and saw this through its representative, Saint John the Baptist. But this event was followed by a forty-day fast of Christ and the darkness and horror of the devil’s temptation. And then - the appearance of the angels who served Him.
And then, when the Lord captured all His sufferings in the flesh on earth with torment and blood on the cross, nature accompanied this event with terrible phenomena: the earth shook, the sun darkened, the stones disintegrated, the coffins were opened. The living and the dead felt the terrible greatness of God's sacrifice on Golgotha: robbers and pagans believed in the Son of God, and the dead appeared on the streets of Jerusalem. And this event was followed by darkness, darkness outside the tomb and darkness in the tomb; after which came the final dawn, the final victory and the final resurrection. And again - the appearance of angels!
And so these three events in the life of Christ give us the clearest and most immediate lesson of Divine humility and Divine obedience . The heavenly joy and sublimity of each of them are intertwined with the horror of human atrocity and devilish temptation. But in all three cases, Christ won a brilliant victory: over the man Herod, after His birth; over Satan, after His baptism; and over the people and Satan gathered together, after His death. Divine Matthew describes the baptism on the Jordan as follows:
Then Jesus comes from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. John restrained Him and said: I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me? John knew Christ, but did not know His plan of salvation. And now a unique scene in human history opens: God competes in humility with man! John performs a baptism of repentance over sinners. Meanwhile, the Sinless One comes to him, having nothing to repent of, and demands baptism from him. John, being spiritually stronger than all the mortal people around him, suddenly recognizes himself in Christ as the Strongest. And before seeing Him, John already knew that He had come to earth and was among people. But there is someone standing among you whom you do not know (John 1:26). However, only by standing face to face with Him did John recognize Him and point his finger to the people: behold, the Lamb of God. Having seen Him, Saint John could have thought that his role as the Forerunner was completed, and said, like the once righteous Simeon: Now you are releasing Your servant, Master, according to Your word, in peace (Luke 2:29); or as he himself will say later, in another case: He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30). But no; Instead of what John thinks about and what he expects, Christ sets before him an unexpected task. Having joined sinful people, the sinless Christ demands from John that the latter do with Him the same as with others, that is, baptize Him in the river, like the others. John's objections are completely understandable to mortal men. Oh, it’s scary, brothers, to introduce the purest water into the water! It is terrible, terrible for a creature to lay its hand on the head of the Creator. How dare man from dust and ashes lay his hand on Him for Whom the cherubim are His footstool!
But Christ quickly ends his conversation with John with a short but decisive statement: leave it now, for this is how it becomes for us to fulfill all righteousness. Then John admits Him. By this the Lord wants to say: “Now leave the words about My and your dignity and about who of the two of us is the greatest and strongest. This day is not predestined for this, but for another. The time will come when what you are talking about will appear. We cannot teach people anything that we have not done ourselves before. Otherwise, who will believe us? And how else would we differ from the lawyers and scribes of Jerusalem, who teach but do not practice? We must fulfill the entire law in order to give the entire law a higher, spiritual meaning and significance. And I must first be baptized with water, in order to then baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. The plan of salvation is revealed by its very execution. What is not clear to you now will soon become clear. The heavens will open and justify what I require of you.”
Just as John was afraid at the first moment to perform baptism over Christ, he was now just as obedient to what the Messiah had commanded. And the heavens truly hastened to justify and bless the act of the hands of the Forerunner. (“There were three reasons why the Savior received baptism from John. Firstly, so that in this way, since He was already born as a Man, He might fulfill all righteousness and humility before the law. Secondly, in order to confirm by His baptism the meaning of John’s baptism. In -third, so that, by sanctifying the water of the Jordan, to show through the descent of the dove the descent of the Holy Spirit at the moment of the baptism of the faithful." Blessed Jerome.)
Christ is immersed in water not to purify Himself, but to symbolically drown the old man . By his immersion in water, He mentally repeats the global flood during the time of Noah and the drowning of Pharaoh and his Egyptian army in the Red Sea. During the global flood, sinful humanity drowned, and Pharaoh, the enemy of the living God, drowned in the Red Sea. Christ took the sins of people upon Himself. He voluntarily agreed to drown Himself instead of sinful humanity; He voluntarily took upon Himself the fate of the drowned Pharaoh, the enemy of the living God. He immerses His body in water as if laying it in a tomb. He plunges into the water for a moment, and then rises and emerges from the water. By this He repeats the terrible lesson that God gave to people by drowning sinners in the time of Noah and drowning Pharaoh in the Red Sea. By this He visibly but silently says what He later said in words to the learned leader of the Jews, Nicodemus, namely: unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God (John 3:3). And from above, while still in this life, one can be born who will die to the old man, or, in other words, in whom the old, sinful man will die. The one who plunges into his sin and rises clean from sin. Whoever is immersed in the flesh as a natural man, and rises up in the spirit as a spiritual man. Whoever buries himself with Christ in baptism as in a tomb (Col. 2:12). Whoever drowns pride, disobedience, selfishness and all uncleanness of the old, sinful man, will erect humility and meekness, obedience and love . Whoever dies to himself will live for God. In a word: whoever buries himself as a sinner and is born again as a righteous person will follow the example that Christ set for him with His baptism in the waters of the Jordan. “Before another life begins, you must end the first,” says Basil the Great. Oh, how significant and instructive is Christ’s baptism, accomplished by immersing His holy body in water! Only the infinite wisdom of God could have arranged such a useful and edifying baptism in the Jordan for people. Only this boundless wisdom, seeing the past and future as the present, could connect the beginnings and ends of human history and reveal the connection between the flood of sinful humanity and the immersion of Christ in water. Only this unspoken wisdom can say more with one picture, one action, one sign, than all human languages on earth. For, behold, the whole image of our salvation is expressed by the action of Christ's baptism in the Jordan.
And having been baptized, Jesus immediately came out of the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and John saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and descending on Him. And behold, a voice from heaven said: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
The Spirit descended on Christ not when He was immersed in water, but when He came out of the water. Thus, the wisdom of God wants to show us that the Spirit of God does not descend on the old man, alive to sin but dead to God. And the Spirit of God descends only on a person who is born again, spiritually reborn, dead to sin and made alive to God .
The Spirit descended on Christ in the form of a dove (“A dove descended over the head of Jesus, so that no one would think that the voice of the Father was addressed to John, and not to the Lord.” Blessed Jerome), not incarnating in a dove, as Christ was incarnated in a man, but only in the form of a dove, like a dove. This means that the Spirit can appear in some other form. And, truly, He subsequently appeared to the apostles in the form of tongues of fire and a rushing strong wind (Acts 2:2). The Book of Genesis says about the Spirit: and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters (Gen. 1:2). Thus the Spirit of God appears in different forms, according to the events which He sanctifies or inspires. But every appearance of Him shows Him as Something active, moving and pure, causing with Himself warmth, movement and purity. At baptism with water in the Jordan, the Spirit appeared in the form of a meek dove; and at the baptism of the apostles with the Holy Spirit and fire on the day of Pentecost, He appeared in the form of a strong wind and flame. This shows the difference between the baptism of John and the baptism of Christ. The baptism of John, or the baptism of water, makes people meek and pure as doves, while the baptism of Christ, or the baptism of the Spirit, makes people strong and fiery (“Since man consists of two parts: soul and body, then cleansing is twofold: incorporeal for that which is incorporeal, and corporeal for the body. Water purifies the body, and the Spirit (cleanses and) seals the soul." St. Cyril of Jerusalem. Catechetical Teaching III). The descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove - as the holy fathers interpret - recalls the dove that Noah released from his ark three times in order to test with its help whether the water had subsided from the earth. And the dove returned to him with an olive leaf in its beak. The olive leaf means peace; peace between God and man. And now, after Christ emerges from the water, after the symbolic drowning of the old man in the water, the Spirit appears over the head of Christ in the form of a dove, in order to show: now the flood is over and peace has reigned between God and the new man . Why doesn’t this dove carry an olive leaf in its beak - a sign of peace? Because here, instead of an olive leaf, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the most perfect sign of peace between God and man, between heaven and earth. He is the olive leaf in the New Creation. Therefore, the dove hovering over Christ has no need to hold another sign of peace, another olive leaf. Christ is the end of the flood and the beginning of the world.
And behold, a voice from heaven speaking. The heavens are open, the Spirit is in the form of a dove, and, moreover, behold - a voice from heaven! The significance of the baptism of Christ is so great that during it it is not angels who appear, but the Holy Trinity Itself: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; The Father in the form of a voice from heaven, the Spirit in the form of a dove and the Son as a new and perfect Man, as the God-man.
This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. With these words, God the Father reveals His Son Jesus. In this voice and words is the fulfillment of the words spoken by the mighty Archangel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary: and he will be called the Son of the Most High (Luke 1:32); and also: He will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). And now God the Father truly calls Him His Son, the Beloved Son. For Christ is the only Son of God by birth and eternity, and the only Son of God by birth and time. God the Father does not call all people His sons, but only Christ. For other people can be called sons of God by adoption from God, and this - by Christ and in the name of Christ. And when Christ later tells people: you have one Father, who is in heaven (Matthew 23:9), He does not think to say anything other than that people are sons of God only by adoption. Only the great love of God can call His creations sons. But Christ is the one and true Son of God both in love and in essence.
That is why it is said: This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. These two phrases strengthen the expression of the Father's love and the Father's favor towards His Son. The eternal connection between the Father and the Son did not weaken and their mutual love did not cool due to the fact that the Son, having put on a weak human body, descended into a sinful world.
And thus, the baptism of Christ in the Jordan is associated with the revelation of the Holy Trinity to humanity . There is no greater revelation than this. For through him the mystery of the Trinity of the Divinity was revealed to us . The Savior on the Jordan also removed the seal from this secret, the greatest in heaven and on earth. We say “and on earth” because the Trinity of the Divinity also explains the deepest mystery of man himself - his trinity, as already at the very beginning of the Holy Scriptures it is said: God created man in His own image (Gen. 1:26). That is why the feast of the baptism of Christ is called the Epiphany, for God appeared on the Jordan River as He is, as far as this phenomenon is accessible to man in the body. This holiday is also called Enlightenment, for it illuminates the human spirit with the knowledge of the deepest Divine secret. It is called Enlightenment because the baptism of Christ by immersion in water enlightens our mind, purifies our heart and ennobles our soul with the knowledge of the structure of our salvation, which consists in the burial of the old man and the birth of a new one, or, in other words, in the death of all our sinners and mortals. nature and revival of the sinless and immortal.
Everything that happened at the baptism of Christ also happens at the baptism of each of us. (“The Lord, who governs our life, established for us the covenant of baptism, which has in itself the image of death and life... Water has the image of death, receiving the body for burial, and the Spirit infuses life-giving power, renewing the life of our soul from the death of sin into the original life.” St. Basil the Great. On baptism.) By immersion in water we die with Christ, by rising from water we are united with the living Christ. The gentle Spirit of God hovers over us like a dove, inspiring us with His almighty grace. And the Father adopts us through the love of Jesus Christ and testifies to this adoption with His voice. Who can know what happens in the soul of every baby at the moment of baptism? Darkened and depressed by subsequent sins, we forget the greatest heavenly mystery revealed to us at baptism. For by baptism we are cleansed from all sin, but after our baptism come temptations of the devil, to which Christ did not fall, but we fall. However, those of us who are zealous for our salvation day and night, with complete humility and obedience to God, can be rewarded with the revelation of the great mystery of God that appeared on the Jordan, as many saints and martyrs of Christ were rewarded with this vision. Martyrdom for Christ is considered the third baptism; for the first baptism was John’s, with water; the second is Christ’s, the Holy Spirit and fire. The third baptism, martyrdom, is called baptism of blood. The martyrs of Christ, baptized by the shedding of their blood for Christ, usually contemplated much of the Jordanian mystery revealed at the Baptism of the Lord. The most famous example of this mystical baptism of blood is the death of the first martyr of Christ, Archdeacon Stephen, about whom it is written: Stephen, being filled with the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Here, therefore, the Spirit, the Son, and the Father are shown. And (Stephen) said: Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. And he was stoned by the Jews (Acts 7:55-60).
Let us also strive with firm faith, good deeds and fraternal participation in the joys and sorrows of our neighbors, and at the same time in constant humility and obedience to the living God, to return the sinless purity in which we have clothed ourselves with baptism; then we too will be worthy of the glory, joy and eternal grace of God’s saints and martyrs. So we too will be enlightened, the heavens will be opened to us, and God will appear to us - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, Consubstantial and Indivisible, to Whose glory befits, now and ever, at all times and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
Archpriest Alexander Shargunov
Healing by Jesus Christ of a man born blind. Paintings
Great painters such as Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1260 - 1319), El Greco (1541-1614), V.I. turned to the plot of “The Healing of the Man Born Blind”. Khudoyarov (1831-1891), V.I. Surikov (1848-1916) and others.
Healing the blind. Beginning of the 14th century. Duccio di Buoninsegna
Christ healing the blind. XVI century. El Greco
Healing a man born blind. 1860-1870s IN AND. Khudoyarov
Healing of the blind by Christ. 1892 V.I. Surikov
Sermon by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill on the day of remembrance of Equal-to-the-Apostles Methodius and Kirill
On May 24, 2022, on the 6th Sunday after Easter, about the blind man, the day of remembrance of Equal-to-the-Apostles Methodius and Cyril, teachers of Slovenia, His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Kirill celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the church of the Blessed Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky in the monastery of the same name near Peredelkino. At the end of the service, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church delivered a sermon.
Christ is Risen!
I congratulate you on a double holiday - on Easter Sunday, dedicated to the memory of the healing of the blind by the Lord and Savior, and on the memory of Saints Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius, teachers of Slovenia.
Secular people, speaking about the Thessalonica brothers Cyril and Methodius, first of all talk about their contribution to the development of the Slavic language and Slavic culture. This is correct, because it is with writing, which the holy brothers invented and introduced into life, on which the texts were based, that, strictly speaking, the cultural tradition of the Slavic peoples begins. The special contribution of Cyril and Methodius to the formation of Slavic culture cannot be minimized and placed in a certain shadow of their life. But if we talk about Saints Cyril and Methodius Equal to the Apostles only as cultural figures, we will make a fatal mistake. Because first of all, we glorify the Thessaloniki brothers as equal to the apostles, as great saints of God, who brought the Gospel to the Slavic peoples, who brought the news of the Risen Christ to the Slavic peoples.
Cyril and Methodius were our Slavic apostles. And in order for their apostolic mission, their apostolic ministry to be convincing, so that it reaches the hearts of the Slavs of that time - dark, unenlightened, formidable, hostile people; so that the words of the enlighteners would melt the hearts of people, reorient consciousness from the struggle for existence, which was the only law of life of these wild tribes, to attempts to build social, interpersonal relationships on the basis of God's commandments - and this revolution took place in the life of the Slavic peoples. This was probably the most important thing that happened through the missionary service of the holy Thessaloniki brothers.
But when we talk about their contribution to culture, we must not forget another very important circumstance - that the words “culture” and “cult” have the same root, which means that these concepts are closely related. Secular cultural historians do not talk about this today, but all culture initially originated and developed around the cult, that is, around worship. Without the Slavic alphabet, without the Slavic language, there would have been no Slavic worship, which means that Slavic culture would not have developed, and it is unknown whether the Slavs would have emerged as an independent ethnic group, different from the surrounding ethnic groups, with their own system of values, with their own language, with with its writing.
When we talk about culture, let's not forget that culture is associated with cult, with worship, that is, with the spiritual dimension of human life. Well, what happens to culture when it is torn away from this spiritual dimension? I can stop here and not talk about anything. Each of us, my dears, sees this with our own eyes. People with piercing eyes call this cultural decline. People who evaluate this phenomenon culturally shrug their shoulders and also testify: the further modern culture moves away from the spiritual basis, from the vertical dimension of life, from the highest Divine principle, the less suitable it becomes for humans. Because if, as a result of opportunistic activity, only the mind and aesthetic sense are improved, and a person’s moral sense is destroyed, then there is little benefit from such a culture.
What has been said becomes obvious when a modern person, often far from the thoughts that we share today, begins not so much rationally as with his heart to feel that something is wrong in a culture that offers a person sin instead of a sublime ideal. After all, when a culture offers sin to a person as a model of behavior, as the main vector of human life, when sin is romanticized and offered not only as a way to receive pleasure and pleasure, but also as an indispensable condition for the life of a modern person, then the decline of culture occurs. Culture turns into anticulture, into a destructive force that destroys the moral principle of man.
This is not the kind of culture that was offered to our distant ancestors by this amazing spiritual tandem of two brothers - the most enlightened men, encyclopedists, philologists, historians, theologians, who combined brilliant erudition with the most important thing - unshakable faith and the awareness that culture only becomes fruitful when it elevates humanity spirit. And a culture that overthrows the spirit becomes a terrible and destructive force. Therefore, today for many people, especially those working in the cultural sphere, a more than serious, vital question arises: what culture do they serve? What is the result of their participation in cultural activities?
Let the day of remembrance of Saints Cyril and Methodius help not only cultural figures, but also many of us to answer the question: when we participate in a certain process - education, upbringing - what kind of culture are we working for? What are we directing the lives of the next generations towards - towards the possession of a genuine spiritual culture that elevates the mind and moral sense, or, on the contrary, are we working on the side of the force that, using anti-culture, destroys a person, starting with his soul and heart?
May Saints Equal to the Apostles Cyril and Methodius help us, and our Church, and our educational system, and culture to follow their path, so that spiritual life is strengthened, so that man rises above the animal world, so that everything that is done on this battlefield is aimed at destroying evil and strengthening the principles of spirit and virtue. Amen.
Press service of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'
Week about the blind. Soulful teaching
And the blind parents, in their own mind, the verb, are sins for the sake of their parents; є3дА ѓз the disbelief of kзhкъ рo1хсz in the accusation; I never thought to ask when is night, when is day; impatient with stones and stumbling blocks. You have never seen the present sun, nor the image that created me. but I pray1tisz xrte b9e, see us and3 have mercy mz. (poem for the day, l.424).
This is how church hymns show us the pitiful and sad situation in which the man born blind found himself. Was this fair? The disciples are perplexed about the reason and ask the Lord, suggesting here punishment for sins. But the Lord says that no, but the works of God must now appear on man. Questions and bewilderments that might arise when reading these Gospel lines are explained to us in detail by Bl. Theophylact of Bulgaria:
Another will ask: how did He say this? For this would mean that man, deprived of light, was offended so that the works of God might be revealed in him? Couldn't they have appeared differently?
What kind of offense, tell me, man, does he suffer? Tu, you will say that you are deprived of light. And what harm comes from being deprived of sensory light? On the contrary, he is more favored. For along with his physical sight, he also received his sight with the eyes of his soul. Blindness served him well, since through healing from it he came to know the true Sun of Truth. So, this blind man is not offended, but favored [].
Why did the Lord create a new miracle in exactly this way: in word, and in deed, and by commanding the man born blind to go to the Spring of Siloam, when on other occasions he not only healed, but also raised the dead with His word alone? But here, after recently confessing to the Jews about His eternal existence: “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58), he wanted to show in practice, in a tangible way, that He Himself is the Creator and Creator of all living things, Consubstantial with His Father:
Jesus did not stop at the words, but added action to them. He spat on the ground, made clay out of the spitting, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay, showing through the clay that He also formed Adam’s body from clay. The very words that Adam I created could seem tempting to the listeners, but when the words were confirmed by deeds, there was no longer any reason for temptation. He makes eyes out of clay, using the same method of creativity that he created Adam. He not only arranged the eyes and opened them, but gave them sight, and this showed that He also breathed a soul into Adam. For without the action of the soul the eye would never have seen, even if it were constructed.
He also used spitting to give him sight. Since He intended to send the blind man to Siloam, so that they would not attribute the miracle to the water of the spring, but would know that the power that came out of His mouth formed the eyes of the blind man and opened them, for this purpose He spat on the ground and from the spitting of His lips made sight. Then, so that you don’t think that the miracle depended on the earth, he commands you to wash yourself so that the clay disappears completely. However, some say that this clay did not disappear at all, but turned into eyes. He commands the blind man to go to Siloam, partly in order to reveal the degree of his faith and obedience, for he did not reason that there was no need to go to Siloam or wash himself if clay and spitting made him fully sighted, but he obeyed the Commander; partly in order to stop the mouths of the foolish Jews, for naturally many looked at him when he walked with his eyes anointed with clay, and peered attentively at him, so that they could not subsequently say: this is him, this is not him.
Why did the evangelist add an explanation for the name Siloam? So that you know that here too Christ healed the blind man and that Siloam is the Image of Christ. For just as Christ is a spiritual Stone (1 Cor. 10:4), so is Siloam spiritual; and just as the brook of Siloam, with its strange flow, represented something sudden and amazing, so the coming of the Lord, hidden and unknown to the angels, with its power drowns out every sin [].
Bl. Theophylact of Bulgaria greatly praises the courage of the blind man who received his sight, who was twice summoned to the assembly of the Pharisees. Not in order to accurately understand the miracle that was performed: for there has never been such a case in the entire history of mankind when someone could heal a man born blind, but, on the contrary, wanting to find more reasons to accuse Jesus, who created clay from the earth on the Sabbath day. The healed man, being a man of a very humble and poor family, during interrogation before eminent leaders and elders, not only was not afraid of their insidious questions in order to renounce the truth, but he was not afraid to reproach them and argue with them, for which he suffered severe punishment:
Like sons of lies, (they) drive him, the confessor of truth, out of the temple. But it served him well. He was kicked out of the temple, and the Lord of the temple immediately found him. They dishonored him for his opinion in favor of Christ, but he was worthy to know the Son of God [].
The miracle of the healing of a man born blind can also be interpreted in an allegorical way:
Please note that this miracle also happened in the spiritual sense. Every person in general was blind from birth, that is, from subjection to birth, with which corruption is connected, for since we were condemned to death and reproduction through passionate birth, then a kind of thick cloud has spread over our mental eyes, and, maybe those leather clothes that Holy Scripture mentions (Gen. 3:21).
The pagan people in particular were blind. And he was blind from birth. For example, the Greeks, because they idolized what is born and perishable, became blind, according to what was said: “Their foolish heart was darkened” (Rom. 1:21).
Jesus “saw” this blind man, that is, every person in general, or in particular the pagans. Just as the blind man could not see the Creator, He Himself, out of the compassion of mercy, visited us, the East from above (Luke 1:78). How did you see it? “Passing,” that is, not being in heaven, and, according to the prophet, “bowing down from heaven and looking upon all the sons of men” (Ps. 13: 2; 2, 3), but appearing on earth. And in another sense: “as he passed by” he saw the pagans, that is, he did not come to them primarily. For He came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24), and then, as if in passing, He looked at the pagans sitting in the darkness of complete ignorance.
How is blindness treated? Spit on the ground and make clay. For whoever believes that the Word descended on the Holy Virgin, like a drop dripping onto the ground, will anoint his mental eyes with clay from spitting and earth, that is, the One Christ, consisting of the Divinity, whose sign (symbol) is the drop and spitting, and Humanity , the sign of which is the earth from which the body of the Lord is.
Will healing stop with faith? No; must go to Siloam, the source of baptism, and be baptized into the Sent One, that is, into Christ. For all of us who were spiritually baptized were baptized into Christ. And whoever is baptized is then subject to temptation. Perhaps Christ, who healed him, will be brought before kings and rulers (Luke 21:12). Therefore, you need to be firm and unwavering in your confession, not to renounce out of fear, but, if necessary, to become both excommunicated and expelled from the synagogue, according to what was said: you will be hated by everyone because of My name, and they will drive you out of the synagogues (Matthew 24:9 ; John 16:2). If people who are hostile to the truth drive out her confessor and remove him from what is holy and precious to them, that is, from wealth and glory, then Jesus will find him, and when he is dishonored by his enemies, then he will be especially honored by Christ with knowledge and the most thorough faith . For then Christ will be most worshiped as a visible Man and as the True Son of God [].
Patriarchal sermon on the 6th Sunday after Easter, about the blind man
Audio |
On June 6, 2022, on the 6th Sunday after Easter, about the blind man, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the church of the blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky in the monastery of the same name near Peredelkino. At the end of the Liturgy, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church delivered a sermon.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Today, this Sunday, we stand on the threshold of the end of the Easter festivities, and it is on this day that the Church offers the well-known gospel story about the blind man - about how the Lord makes a man born blind sighted (John 9:1-38). A miracle absolutely inexplicable - neither from a medical point of view, nor from the point of view of human experience. Nothing like this has ever happened to a person deprived of sight from birth, that is, with such deep violations of the entire system that provides visible perception of the world around him that he cannot see anything. But, contrary to the historical experience of all mankind, the Lord Jesus Christ heals a man born blind.
This great miracle was perceived differently by those around him, and few were able to see in it the manifestation of the power of God. Why? Yes, because the Pharisees who surrounded the Savior were not ready to recognize Him even as a prophet, much less as the Son of God, possessing Divine power. The Jews are perplexed and confused, and therefore they have a desire to minimize everything that happened. And we know from today's narrative what attempts were made to hide the essence of this event from people.
Such a desire to hide from people the manifestation of the power of God, so clearly revealed in the miracle of healing of a man born blind, has been present throughout a significant part of human history. But in a very special way, the desire to hide the power of God began to be realized, with the support of many human forces, at a time when the denial of God little by little became the dominant philosophical idea. There is no god! How then did it all happen? What about the world that was created? Science says that the entire universe has existed for no more than fourteen billion years. This is a huge period of time, it is difficult for us to even imagine what it is, but still a limited period of time. This means there was a time when the universe did not exist. How did the universe come into being? And here modern man is offered many different theories of how the universe appears out of nothing.
The experience of man - each of us and the entire human race - is such that nothing can come from nothing. Nothing is emptiness, vacuum, nothing is the absence of any material and other forces and capabilities. And the Lord creates the universe by His power; and for many, many eras people have tried to explain how all this happened. And it is quite obvious that man cannot explain the origin of the visible world. Although there are numerous theories today about how all this happened, they remain hypotheses. It is impossible to prove exactly that everything was exactly this way and not otherwise, because the beginning of the world lies outside human experience.
Nevertheless, there are many theories according to which the world happened by chance, on its own, and this idea, striking in its absurdity, takes possession of the minds of people. Today, many still think that the world itself came from nothing, and it must be said again that this idea, strange from the point of view of human logic, is destroyed by our experience, our understanding of life and, of course, cannot dominate the human race.
Today’s Gospel reading testifies that the power of God is truly capable of accomplishing what seems impossible for man. God, who created the eyelids, created the cosmos, in His Son revealed a certain grain of His omnipotence by healing the man born blind. And for us, reading this wonderful Gospel text, it is very important to understand that in this particular case God reveals to us His omnipotence, His power, His love for us.
Today's Gospel is truly imbued with the amazing revelation that God is Almighty, that everything is in His hands - the beginning and end of the world, life and death, health and illness, cataclysms, storms and calm. Everything is in His hands, and therefore today’s Gospel reading should strengthen us all in our faith, in the understanding that the power of God is the power that created the world, controls the world, and has complete dominion over us. And we must, in response, with humility, love and full understanding, accept this revelation about Divine omnipotence, about the power and love of God, which appear in His Providence.
Taught by this Gospel reading, let us try to strengthen our faith. And if someone convinces us that everything happened by itself out of emptiness, out of nothing - fourteen billion years ago there was nothing, and suddenly everything appeared - then let’s remember today’s reading from the Gospel. Then we will understand: people did not have the power to heal a man born blind, just as they do not now, with all the achievements of science and technology, but this miracle is easily performed by the Savior, the Son of God. Through this manifestation of the power of God, let us remember that God is the Creator and Provider of the world, He is above everyone, everything is in His right hand, and our only response is love for God for everything that He has done and is doing; this is the desire and desire to live according to the law that God gave to people, so that a person can live with dignity, so that a person can be happy.
And may the Lord help us to perceive the sacred texts in this way, refracting them through the experience of our lives, through our understanding of what is happening to us, so that, combining our experience with the greatest wisdom of the Holy Scriptures, we can fully transfer our lives into our hands God and subordinate it to the holy Divine will. Amen.
Press service of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'
The Lord saw a man blind from birth, and the disciples, who were almost always with the Savior, asked: Teacher! Who sinned: he or his parents that he was born blind?
People have long noticed that sin is somehow connected with punishment. Well, for example, a mother tells her child that when we cross the road, hold hands. But he doesn't listen. He runs out and the car breaks his bones, ribs, skull... What a sin? Disobedience. If I had obeyed, I would have been safe. But what does disobedience come from? From pride. Because the child thinks that he is smarter than his mother. He doesn’t think that she wants to save his life, his health, so that he doesn’t get hurt. And he thinks that his mother simply exists only to force him to do what he doesn’t want. And out of pride, every person wants to do what he likes. Or, for example, parents: dad drinks - a mentally retarded child is born - a completely obvious addiction. Or another example: parents swear in front of their children, call themselves and each other different names, and then, from the age of twelve, he simply stops respecting them and wants to sneeze at them. And again he gets into trouble, perhaps more terrible than just breaking bones. Who sinned? Initially, parents.
Jesus answered: Neither he nor his parents sinned, but this was so that the works of God might be revealed in him.
And what are the works of God? The most important works of God are works of mercy. There was a controversy on TV where one person said: all these poor, sick people should simply be destroyed. Hitler and Stalin adhered to the same theory. Let's say a person is mentally ill. Well, what's the point of feeding him and treating him - it's money. What is the most valuable thing a person has? Money. That's why they need to be put into a gas chamber. Although such a theory was condemned, and those people who preached this theory went to the gallows. It was a long time ago, but their work lives on. Therefore, it did not end with Hitler. A lot of people, both in our country and everywhere, believe that certain categories of people need to be destroyed. Very often I heard from women who suffered from their own alcoholic husbands that alcoholics must be destroyed. Why are you suffering? Are divorces prohibited now? No! Or does the church prohibit divorce from an alcoholic? Please! Well, if he is an alcoholic, then get a divorce.
We even had a case in our parish: one man was courting one bride; and looked after him for a whole year. And so, she then agreed, and it turned out that he had not drunk anything for a whole year - he wanted to marry her so much. But already at the wedding it turned out that he was an alcoholic. Well, what did I tell her? I said: “Tomorrow file for divorce! Tomorrow!" The wedding was on Sunday, I said: “Go on Monday.” But she did not agree, so she had to get a divorce only six months later.
What is drunkenness, especially binge drinking? This is a mental illness. If before marriage a person hides some of his mental illness, then the marriage is considered invalid. Because it's deception. You marry a healthy man, but he turns out to be mentally ill. And this is considered the basis, even in ancient times it was believed that this is not a modern innovation. Such cases do happen. Hidden deception - but in a marriage everything should be pure. How is it possible, I wonder, with an alcoholic, about whom it is said that a drunkard will not inherit the kingdom of God, how can one build a home church? Sorry. This is completely unrealistic. It's simply impossible. Therefore, the task of Christian marriage is not fulfilled.
Works of mercy are the main works of God. Therefore, poor people need care. And the mentally retarded, and the mentally ill, and alcoholics, and drug addicts - they need care. This does not mean that, say, some person is violently insane, and we need to give him the opportunity to do what he wants. No, on the contrary. It is necessary to very seriously limit his freedom, it is imperative to ensure that he takes those medications that will make him not violent, and it is imperative to ensure that he is treated with good, kind treatment, because love can also treat mental illness. This is very difficult, but such experiments exist in the history of medicine and are still practiced.
It’s just very expensive, because the one who takes care of them is doing a very difficult job. Therefore, you need to find naturally kind people, and also pay a salary that would be three times higher than the doctor’s salary, so that he can compensate for his vacation, or he must have at least four days off a week, etc. That is, this is an expensive matter, but it is necessary.
If we remove from our lives all the blind, lame, wretched, hunchbacked, stupid, drunk, drug addicts - what will humanity turn into very quickly? Into a ruthless society. And our current society is a society of absolutely ruthless people. With rare exceptions. Can you imagine? One of the kindest people on earth - and what it turned into - into a people of ruthless bastards. When we don’t feel sorry for anyone, the main thing is “I would have killed him.” No one is involved in raising their own children, the largest number of abortions, they kill their own children, everyone is dissatisfied, and knock on any door in the evening - there is a scandal, they swear endlessly, the entire population speaks only in obscenities, and so on and so forth.
And as a result of what, and why did this happen? Yes, because for a very long time, for decades, some killed others for no reason. Then, after the war, the extermination of people, war invalids, who survived in this meat grinder, which Stalin organized with his minions, because for every German, six Russians died... You know, this is not a war, this is called a massacre, translated into Greek - Holocaust . This is genocide. I understand that he, like any bandit, was a coward and was saving his own skin, because if he had been captured, he would have either been hanged or impaled like Saddam Hussein, and he would have wriggled there, and it would have definitely been shown on TV all over the world, because television had already been invented by that time. He, of course, was afraid of this, and abandoned people: one rifle for ten - “Whatever!”, an absolutely ruthless man.
And in such an atmosphere people grew up - completely ruthless. This makes ruthless investigators, ruthless judges, ruthless prosecutors, and the entire system of the country - it is ruthless. I was amazed once. I know one case, it happened in the army. I came to the chief military prosecutor just to get some advice: “Well, how?!” People died!” And he says to me, Colonel General: “Someone must sit!” That is, it doesn’t matter to him at all that a person is innocent, that he has children, and so on, so on, so on. I left and didn’t even communicate with this person anymore. “Someone has to sit.” Interesting? What does this mean? And the fact is that the place where a person should have mercy, this place does not exist at all. And he thinks he's right. He was brought up in such a way that since in some cabin, homeless people burned down, and in large numbers - eight people (of course, from careless handling of fire, they climbed onto a construction site at night), then the person who is leading this construction site must sit down. The question is: for what? It’s like, for example, homeless people would come into any apartment while people are at the dacha, make a fire there, because they don’t know how to turn on the electric stove, and they would burn out. You arrive and they still put you in prison. Well, it’s just absurd. But people don’t care: absurd or not absurd. The main thing is to close the case. And when they can’t find the criminal, they take anyone and beat him until he confesses everything. I know a case when the one who killed came to the police and said: “I killed,” and he was imprisoned, and the one who was imprisoned innocently is still imprisoned. Because no one cares. Whether you write or not, there is only one answer: “There was a case, the court found...” Therefore, two murderers, three murderers can be imprisoned in one case. When Chikatilo was caught, several people were shot before. For what? Never!
Some say: “Introduce the death penalty!” Then we will be covered in blood not to the knees, but to the waist. With this kind of law enforcement system. That is why the main things are the works of God, these are the works of mercy. Because every wretched person cries out for care, it awakens in a person, reanimates the remnants of conscience, the remnants of pity. And in such people the works of God can be revealed. Blind people needed. We need hunchbacks, we need mentally retarded people, we need mentally ill people, we need alcoholics. Needed. You just need to learn to live with them. It is very difficult. But if, in view of every obstacle, they cut each other... Some person parked the car in an inconvenient way, if after that they immediately cut his throat, then very soon there will be no one left at all. This is how people will kill each other if this is how they solve problems. Why is it that the Russian people, even after what they endured in the twentieth century, still remain a hundred years later in the number of one hundred and forty million? And why is it that the Chechen people, where they don’t drink, where they have many children, who take care of children (there are no orphans, no orphanages), why are there a million of them? Yes, because they cut each other. That's why. Those who offended were stabbed to death. Whoever killed my fourth cousin - I will slaughter your entire family. That's why. And then, the million became only thanks to the Soviet regime, when a cruel law was in force and it was impossible to cut people so arbitrarily. And so, if given free rein, Yandarbiev will immediately go to war with Doku Umarov, and they will all cut each other off. Such a law is completely different, it is not Christian, there is not even such a concept there. That's the problem.
Christ says that such people are needed (“the blind, the lame, the wretched, ...” - approx.). Why then did He heal him?
I must do the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night comes when no one can do anything.
Every person should help his neighbor in need with the capabilities that he has. If a six-year-old child sees someone drowning, he rushes to save him - this is madness: there will be two drowned people. What should a six year old child do? Run to the nearest house and say: “My uncle is drowning there!” What if a young man of twenty years old? He should immediately throw himself into the water. If we meet a blind man, what should we do? We should ask where he needs to go, take him across the road, maybe help him get into the transport. And if we are on the way, we can put him in our car and drive him. This is what we can do. What can Christ do? And Christ can give him new eyes. And He does it. Because the Heavenly Father sent Him to show people that, behold, I put aside my affairs and take care of a blind man. He did not say to the Son of God, who created the entire Universe: “I have no time, I am God, to deal with such trifles as giving someone sight.” No. God leaves the affairs of the entire Universe in order to give eyes to the blind. How important is it. Thus, he gives all people who want to be Christians this example.
As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
Because everything that is not Christ is all darkness.
Having said this, He spat on the ground, made clay from the spit, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay, and said to him: Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which means: sent.
He went and washed, and came back seeing. Then the neighbors, who had seen before that he was blind, said: Isn’t this the one who sat and begged for alms? Some said: this is him, and others: he looks like him. He said: it’s me. Then they asked him: how did your eyes open? He answered and said, The man called Jesus made clay, anointed my eyes, and said to me, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash. I went, washed and received my sight. Then they said to him: Where is He? He answered: I don’t know. They took this former blind man to the Pharisees. And it was the Sabbath when Jesus made clay and opened his eyes. The Pharisees also asked him how he received his sight. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Then some of the Pharisees said: This Man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath. Why did the Lord give the Sabbath to the Jewish people? So that they do not forget God. So that Saturday is dedicated to what? The works of God. But they forgot what the works of God are. Give eyes to someone who has been blind since birth! And they say: This Man is not from God. What does this mean? That they were complete spiritual perverts. Everything has been distorted. Good was called evil. Therefore, it is not surprising that they sentenced the one who came to save them to crucifixion.
Others said: how can a sinful person perform such miracles? And there was a quarrel between them. Again they say to the blind man: What will you say about Him, because He opened your eyes? He said: this is a prophet. Then the Jews did not believe that he was blind and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight...
We are ready to deny the known truth. They brought people who knew him blind since childhood - no, let’s now lead the investigation. Because what people need is not the truth. What do people need? People either need praise from their superiors, people need promotion, people just need to close the case so that it doesn’t hang around. Like doctors: to heal the sick? - it is not so important. What is more important? It's more important to get money from him. Why? But because the task is this: this is a medical service. And in every service the main thing is money. The main thing is not the final product – human health. How an ordinary doctor acts, and how one doctor told me: “Everything that is done is done for the prosecutor.” Therefore, even such a thing as childbirth, the most ordinary thing is to give birth to a child. All mammals give birth to children in almost the same way. Why are only eight percent of births physiological? Medicine intervenes in the rest. It’s really simple - it’s not done in the way that’s best for the child, but in the way that’s most convenient for the doctor. If doctors have the slightest suspicion of some possible pathology, a caesarean section is performed. But the doctor is in no way interested in a woman giving birth to five or eight people, he would rather cut her stomach, sew her up - she gave birth calmly, he did everything. Nobody will scold him. And less fuss. It should be noted that - fuss. So she can give birth for a day, and so - we will treat her in twenty minutes, and even while she is in this condition - we will tie the fallopian tubes so that she never gives birth at all: “Well, what do you want? We’ll do it for you right now, we’ll do it?” She lies covered in blood, in madness: “Come on, come on!” - "Let's". Once - that's all. And they castrated the man. How many such cases? Hundreds of thousands. I'm not even talking about how they greet her there, see her off, what is a maternity hospital? Any Russian woman will say that this is pure extortion. From start to finish. And what for this money? Does the person receive care? No. He gets staphylococcus. It is almost impossible to get children from the maternity hospital without staphylococcus. This is the result. Because everything is confused: cause and effect, the task is confused. Of course, that’s why more and more people agree to give birth at home, take risks, because suddenly there is bleeding - then you need to urgently go to surgery. But at least without staphylococcus. Well, at least I know: this midwife, she is conscientious, and I will pay her, and with much greater pleasure, because she treats your baby with love, a month, two months before, before birth, during birth, please , he can prepare everything: boiling water, alcohol, and the necessary injections - everything can be done, but just don’t go to these freaks who, by some strange coincidence, are called doctors.
Because a doctor must, firstly, love a person, and secondly, he must be ready to lay down his soul, and if they give him something in gratitude, he must bow in gratitude. And never, even in the most terrible Soviet times, did doctors go hungry, because the people were very grateful. But such an extortionist as now... It’s like they’ve broken the chain. The hospital was built with public money. He was given education with public money. The equipment in the hospital is funded by public money. And his salary is paid from people's money. And he still extorts. Well, I would be content with gratitude. No. He definitely needs a four-story mansion, like a banker or oilman. That’s what it is: we can take any doctor from any Moscow hospital and see how he lives (I mean from the authorities). And there are saint doctors. As much as you like. I know such people myself, and only to such people do I turn.
How I recently met in my life - I still remember, I will never forget - a holy policeman. And you know, during his twenty-year career in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he remained a district police officer. Now he says: “I’m resigning – I can’t stand it anymore.” Simply - an amazing person. He came to me for advice on one issue. I say: “Well, brother, I really didn’t expect it.” A truly Christian soul. And he doesn’t go to church, it’s just that his parents have genetically passed on his attitude towards life, his attitude towards relatives who ride him, and deceive him, and rob him (his own brother robbed him). And this is his attitude, as if he were from the sixth century, when some reverend monk, who was robbed by robbers, and he ran after them: “They forgot the staff!” Marvelous. Of course, there are such doctors and teachers. But for the most part, life is ugly. Because a person loses his compassion. He looks at a person as the source of his well-being. And this look is like the look of a spider at a fly. How to suck it out. This is not a human relationship. Therefore, a person loses his natural human properties and turns into such a terrible blood-sucking insect. This is very sad. How will such a person raise children? Who will he educate? He will raise a spiritual monster like himself. This is very dangerous for everyone else.
They called the parents of the one who had received his sight: is this your son, about whom you say that he was born blind? How can he see now?
Identification is underway.
It was as if they had found a dead man in the river who had drowned in winter. The parents answered them: we know that this is our son, that he was born blind, but how he sees now we don’t know.
We don’t know who opened his eyes. We didn’t see anything, we don’t know anything, and in general: our hut is on the edge.
Who, what, why?.. They are afraid of the authorities. As if the Pharisees did not excommunicate him from the synagogue. And if from the synagogue, then from business. What will we eat? Therefore, it is frankly better to lie everything. You yourself are of advanced years, ask yourself.
These are parents, parents disowning their son.
On pain of pharisaism. This is how the parents answered because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that whoever recognized him as Christ would be excommunicated from the synagogue.
That is, there are already conditions. Do they need the truth? No. They need to do something against Jesus Christ. And why? Why are they so deceitful and heartless? When a person lies, doesn’t he know that he is lying? When he accuses an innocent person, doesn’t he understand? Any judge, when he takes away from the poor and gives to the rich, doesn’t he understand what he is doing? What, the government doesn’t understand that over the past five years the rich have tripled their capital, but the poor? And the poor became twice as poor. What, no one understands this? No, everyone understands everything perfectly. That is why the parents said that “he is of advanced age, just ask him.”
So, they called the man who was blind a second time.
The second interrogation seems to be unclear.
Because they are not establishing the truth, but rather they want to achieve their own. It's good that they didn't beat me. It’s good that they didn’t put an electric iron on my chest. It’s good that the marble paperweight didn’t knock out the teeth. Give glory to God, we know that That Man is a sinner.
He answered them: (also, wonderful words)
whether He is a sinner, I don’t know;
One thing I know is that I was blind, but now I see. Or he could have admitted: “Oh, I’ve become blind again, I can’t see anything.”
And they would fall behind. To give them what they ask for. But he confessed courageously. They asked him again: What did He do to you?
How did I open your eyes? He answered them: I already told you, and you did not listen; what else do you want to hear? or do you also want to become His disciples? He was not afraid of the Pharisees.
They reproached him and said: You are His disciple, and we are Moses’ disciples.
We know that God spoke to Moses... Although this dialogue took place one and a half thousand years after that dialogue between Moses and God. There were also disciples who distorted everything.
We don’t know where He comes from. The man who received his sight answered and said to them: It is surprising that you do not know where He comes from, but He opened my eyes. But we know that God does not listen to sinners; but whoever honors God and does His will listens to him. Since the beginning of time it has not been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If He were not from God, He could not create anything. They answered him: You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us? And they kicked him out.
Again: thank God they didn’t kill me.
Jesus, having heard that they kicked him out, and having found him
- imagine, the Son of God, the Creator of the Universe, is looking for the one whom He healed.
Are there many doctors who will look for a patient to find out: how is the rehabilitation, does he go to physical therapy, and how are things going in general? At least call. Christ, who rules the Universe, takes the time to find this person. ...He said to him: Do you believe in the Son of God?
He answered and said: Who is He, Lord, that I should believe in Him? Jesus said to him: And you have seen Him, and He speaks to you. He said: I believe, Lord! And he bowed to Him. Christ acquired a disciple.
That's why he healed. Because the healing of bodily blindness is, of course, a wonderful, wonderful thing, but even better is the healing of spiritual blindness. Then the man did not know Jesus Christ, but now he has received his sight and recognized him. For what? If a person has truly become a Christian and has received his sight, he will do works of mercy. And things will get a little better on earth. Because the will of God is that everything on earth should be “as it is in heaven.” Mercy, love and desire to help. This is why Christ came. So that people turn as a result of their lives not into beast-like blood-sucking insects sucking each other's blood, but so that they turn into angels. Collapse
