Homily on Great Friday*
By Righteous Alexei Mechev
By Righteous Alexei Mechev
What a sorrowful sight is before our eyes! Our Savior is in the tomb. In the tomb is our Joy, the Treasure of our heart. But how could You, our Consolation, be enclosed in this small tomb? Is this the place for You? You, while living on earth, gave life to all, and now You Yourself lie lifeless. You dried the tears of all, and now You cast Your beloved ones into tears for You. Is this Your place? Here is the place for us, mortals, not for You, the Immortal; for us with corruptible and sinful bodies, for us sinners justly condemned to death, and not for You, the Most Holy and Sinless.
Brethren! Let us weep and lament: it is we, by our sins, who have bound the Sinless One in the bonds of death; it is we, condemned to death, who compelled Him to descend to the gates of death; for us, whom Hades was ready to devour, He descended in soul into Hades, while in body He lies before us.
O Divine, inexhaustible and ineffable Love! Sweetest Jesus! How greatly You have loved man — this most insignificant and ungrateful creature. For him You Yourself became man, in order to bring him into communion with God; You Yourself suffered, to deliver him from eternal sufferings; You Yourself died, that he might live forever; You Yourself descended into Hades, that he might never be there. Man lost everything through sin — and You restore everything to him — and how do You restore it?
Man lost blessedness through pride, disobedience, through the desire to be equal with God; and You restore it through obedience to the Heavenly Father, through the deepest self-emptying and humility, through the most shameful and grievous death, and finally through descent into the depths of Hades. You have restored to man what he lost — and now he has truly become happy and blessed; now he is again with God, lives for God, strives toward God, seeks consolation in God, and hopes to live and rejoice with God unto endless ages. Who can describe, who can measure the whole abyss, the whole ocean of God’s mercies, which our priceless, most precious Savior — now lying silently in the tomb — has poured out upon us from His Father?
Brethren! Let us feel all these mercies of our Savior, and in gratitude of heart let us fall down in body and soul before this tomb; let us kiss His wounds, endured for us, His hands and feet, pierced for us — let us kiss them not only with our lips, but above all with a warm and loving heart; and let us remember His mercies all our life, and until the end of our days offer thanksgiving and glorification to Him. O that our whole life might be nothing else but a fragrant incense before Him. Let us pray for this before Him who lies in the tomb, and the tearful prayer of a sinner will be heard by Him who died for sinners. Amen.
Notes:
* Published for the first time from the “Notebook” from the archive of E. V. Apushkina.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
