Sermon on the 20th Sunday after Pentecost
[2011]
Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord,
how do not weep, into a world whereinjustice andpain are present? How to not weep, whenwe feel thatwe must complain?
And, with all this, the Lord said to the widow of Nain: „Do not weep!” [Luke 7, 13, acc. ESV]. Because here it was about the trust in God, in the God who raises the dead.
In the orthodox life the weeping is an ascetic necessity. For that the tears deletethe dirtiness of the sin from our hearts. And you can not be a new man until you cleanse the old man from you.
But the widow of the today’s Gospel, each of us, does need the ultimate meaning of life in its immense suffering. Because the burden of life can be lived, if you know that this life opens into another life, which is eternal.
And if we do not live with this eschatological sense, we can not understand the meaning of suffering. Because the suffering is the gift of transfiguration.
And who suffers more, with understanding, he understands, through it all, that suffering is redemptive. That provides us with a much broader perspective of the life.
And this is the spiritual perspective on human life! For that this understanding suffering is downing in us God’s mercy, mercy through that we feel deeply the suffering of humans, animals, birds, and of all creation built by God.
The Lord was filled with compassion on her [Luke 7, 13]. He felt that God and manmercy to her. Therefore, for that we love others spiritually, we must fill the mercy of God, that sees people in profound mode.
Why do we know not to talk to each other? Because we do not see in others the beautiful things, holy.
And who gives us eyes to see the depth of others? The tears of repentance. And in the measure in that we do not have tears for our sins, we have no eyes to see and no ears to hear, namely the spiritual senses.
The Lord does not overlook the drama of the woman! Because He, after His humanity, was born of a woman. And that Mother and Virgin, Mary, Mother of God, would suffer and she the pains and death of her Son.
Because after the love of enemies at last sunday, now is asked from us mercy, a penetrating understanding of life of all people, for that with all we have to fill the mercy of God.
The resurrection of the widow of Nain’s son is a huge miracle. But it makes us to see that miracle is something natural of our orthodox life, which daily we rise from the death of sin for to be with the Lord.
Into a childish mode, some of us want huge miracles, because they want the spectacular of miracles and not healing of passions.
But the wonder finds our hearts, finds the change of us.
The son of widow has risen from the dead and was another man. For this must not to weep his mother: because he will change for the better.
The reason for that, we do not have to look back, at our past life, but to the joy that stand before us. And this is the joy of our salvation!
We believe in Him and in Him we live for to rejoice in Him forever. And this joy of us is always full of wonders, because we live the divine and deifying changes.
And the fact that we feel a helping, a lighting, a cleaning, a divine happiness in our life of prayer and of asceticism means so many miracles in our hearts.
And they are wonders that remain. And they are miracles by which God sanctifiesus. And we must rejoice by the signs of His mercy toward us.
And joy for them means humility. It means that as we are and no more. And if weaccept our level of spiritual growth, God gives us more than we are.
So, we must to honor the miracles of God with all of us but we accept that our interior change is making in the rhythm that we live it.
To think about us that we are others is non productive. Once with the acceptanceof our level, we understand who we are and what we can do.
Therefore: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner! And fromhere we have to go: from to feel sinners.
And who feels and sees his sin is a great man. He is rose from the dead, a son of the widow, namely of repentance.
And this is the message of the day: all of us need to rise spiritually, on each day, from our sins. Without this daily resurrection, we can not enjoy forever. Amen!