Never before, dear brothers, has there been so little of God in man as today; never before has man been so ungodly as today. Today the devil has incarnated himself in man in order to disincarnate the God-man. Today all evil has entered the body of man in order to drive God out of the body. Today all of hell has moved onto earth; does anyone remember that the earth was once paradise? The present fall of man is immeasurably more terrible than the first fall of man; then man fell away from God, but today he has crucified God, he has killed God. Man, what can one call you if not the devil? But what am I saying? This is an insult to the devil. The devil has never been so evil, so cunningly evil, as man. The Lord Christ descended into hell, and they did not crucify Him there! Are not men worse than the devil; has not the earth become more of a hell than hell itself? They did not cast Christ out of hell; and people even today drive Him from the earth, expel Him from their body, from their soul, from their city...
Brothers, a sinister question has pierced the apple of my soul like a serpent, gleefully asking: was man ever good if he could crucify Christ? Do you believe in man, do you boast of him, are you an optimist? Ah, look at man, look at humanity from the heights of Good Friday, look at man as he murders the God-man, and tell me, will you still remain an optimist? Are you not ashamed to be man? Do you not see that man is worse than the devil?
Forget all the days that came before, and all the days that came after Good Friday. Restrict man to the confines of Good Friday. Will it not be the apple of all evil, the core of all temptations, the center of all vileness? Has not the earth within man gone mad on this day? Has not man, by killing the God-Man, proven on this day that he is the madness of the earth?
Even the Last Judgment, my brothers, will not be more terrible than Good Friday. It will undoubtedly be less terrible, because then God will judge man. But now man judges God. Now is the Last Judgment for God. And His judgment judges humanity. Now man values God and values Him at thirty pieces of silver. Christ for thirty pieces of silver! Is this the final price? Is Judas our final word about Christ?
Today, humanity has condemned God to death. This is the greatest rebellion in the history of heaven and earth. This is the greatest sin in the history of heaven and earth. Even the fallen angels did not commit such a thing. Today, the Last Judgment of God has taken place. Never has the world seen a more innocent condemned person or more insane judges. A mocked God is more terrible than ever. "Hell, the ever-laughing one," has entered into man today and mocked God and all that is God. Today, He is mocked who never laughed: they say that the Lord Jesus never laughed, yet He was often seen weeping. Today, He is shamed who came to glorify us; today, He is tortured who came to deliver us from torment; today, He is put to death who brought eternal life. Man, is there an end to your madness? Is there a limit to your fall?
We bestowed the cross, the most shameful gift, upon the One who bestowed upon us eternal glory. Leper, He cleansed you of your leprosy; is this why you bestow upon Him the cross? Blind man, did He open your eyes so you could make a cross and crucify Him upon it? Dead man, did He raise you from the grave so you could drive Him into your own? Sweetest Jesus, my brothers, sweetened the bitter mystery of our lives with good news; for which of these do we bestow upon Him such gall?
"My people, what have I done to you? Have I not filled Judea with miracles? Have I not raised the dead with a single word? Have I not healed every disease and affliction? What then do you give me? For my healing you wound me; for my life you kill me and crucify me."
Good Friday, my brothers, is our shame, our disgrace, our defeat. Every soul shared in some small way with Judas Iscariot. If not, we would be sinless. Through Judas, we all fell, we are all Christ-sellers, we all betrayed Christ and embraced the devil, we embraced Satan. Yes, Satan, for the Holy Gospel says: "And after the bread, Satan entered into him ( Judas) " ( John 13:27 ). After what bread? After the Bread that Christ gave him, after Communion, after Christ. Oh, is a greater fall, a greater horror, possible?
Love of money, you have betrayed the Lord Christ! Love of money, you betray Him even now. Judas, Christ's disciple, the one who was with Him for three years, who was present at all of Christ's miracles, who in the name of Jesus cleansed lepers, healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out unclean spirits—love of money made this Judas a traitor and murderer of Christ. How then can this love of money not make me, and you too, a traitor and murderer of Christ—me, who for three years did not contemplate the incarnate God, who did not cleanse lepers in the name of Jesus, who did not heal the sick, who did not raise the dead? Judas was long with the One who had nowhere to lay His head, the One who, by both deeds and words, taught that there was no need to wear gold and silver. And me? And you? If you cannot rejoice in poverty, brother, if you cannot be happy in poverty, know that you are a candidate for Judas. Do not ask, "Lord, is it I?" ( Matthew 26:25 ). For you will surely hear the answer, "Yes, of course." Do you strive for wealth, does a thirst for money lurking within you, know that a Judas is being born within you. My brother and friend, remember this for the rest of your life: the love of money crucified Christ, killed God; the love of money turned a disciple of Christ into an enemy of Christ, a murderer of Christ. But not only that, it also killed Judas. The love of money has such a cursed quality that it makes a person not only a murderer of Christ, but also a suicide. It first kills God in the human soul, and having killed God in man, it kills man himself.
Death is a terrible mystery, brothers, but the most terrible thing is when people betray God to death and desire to kill Him completely, to destroy Him utterly, so that He is completely dead, completely and entirely. Today is the day when people are terrible to God, for they torment God as no one has ever tormented Him, for they spit on God as no one has ever spat on Him, for they beat Him as no one has ever beaten Him. Let all that is called human be silent, "let all human flesh be silent!" Let no one boast of man, let no one boast of humanity ( 1 Cor. 3:21 ), for humanity does not tolerate God in its midst; it kills God. Is such a humanity really something to boast about? Let no one boast of humanism! This is all just Satanism, Satanism, Satanism...
Today, not devils, not beasts, not jackals, but people wove a crown of thorns and placed it on the head of Christ. With a crown of thorns they adorned the One who adorned man with immortality! Humanity weaves a crown of thorns around the head of the One who wove a crown of stars around the earth! I weave a crown of thorns for Christ, and you, my friend, too, if I am a lover of money, if I am fornicator, if I am an adulterer, if I am a blasphemer, if I am a slanderer, if I am a drunkard, if I am unmerciful, if I am angry, if I am not self-controlled, if I have sinful thoughts, if I have impure feelings, if I have no faith, if I have no love. Every sin of mine, every sin of ours, is a thorn woven by us into the accursed crown that maddened humanity ceaselessly weaves around the head of the Lord Jesus.
Man torments God more mercilessly than the devil. You do not believe it? Listen to what an eyewitness says: “Then they spat upon His face” ( Matthew 26:67 ). O His face, His wondrous, enchanting face… Lord, why did their lips not become leprous and turn into a sore? Was it not to teach us patience and meekness? … They spat upon that wondrous, that gracious face, more precious than all the constellations, than all the beatitudes. What am I saying? Far more than all the beatitudes, for in that meek face lies all possible eternal bliss, all possible eternal joy… They spat upon that bright face before which the sea became humble and calm; that face which humbled stormy souls and gave them peace. And you boast of man? Oh, fold up your banners, you pests and worthless ones! No one, no one needs to be as ashamed of themselves as man—not the devil, not the beasts, not the animals… People spit on God—is there anything more terrible than that? People beat God—is there anything more satanic than that? Brothers, if hell didn't exist, it would have to be invented, invented for people, only for people…
They spit on Him, the Creator and Savior, and beat Him, yet He meekly and silently endures it all. Is there any justification for you, who respond to every insult with insult? To evil with evil? Who curses those who curse and hates those who hate? By responding to evil with evil, you spit on the Lord Christ; by hating those who hate you, you beat and torment Christ; by responding to insult with insult, you dishonor the Lord Jesus, for He did not act like that.
Pilate hands over the Meek Lord to be crucified. The people lead Him from tollhouse to tollhouse, from torment to torment, from mockery to mockery. They crucify the mocked God, chain Him to the cross. Are the nails driven into the hands of Christ not driven into the hands that have healed so many sick, cleansed so many lepers, raised so many dead? Should the lips that have spoken as no man has ever spoken be silenced? Jairus, where are you ( Mark 5:22 ; Luke 8:41 )? Lazarus, where are you ( John 11-12 )? Widow of Nain, where are you? Defend your Lord and mine ( Luke 7:11-15 )! Will you crucify Him—the hope of the hopeless, the consolation of the disconsolate, the eye of the blind, the ear of the deaf, the resurrection of the dead? Will you drive nails into the holy feet who brought peace, who preached the gospel, who walked on dry land, who hastened to all the sick? To the dead Lazarus ( John 11-12 )? To the demoniac of Gadarene ( Mark 5:1-20 ; Luke 8:26-39 )?
God is crucified. Are you content, God-fighters? Are you happy, God-killers? What do you think of Christ on the cross? Liar, impotent, seducer, "who destroys the church and in three days builds himself: if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross !" ( Matthew 27:40 ) 42
And what does the Lord think from the cross about the people under the cross? That which only the God of love and the God of meekness can think: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do ." ( Luke 23:34 ) 43 Truly, they know not what they do with God in the flesh. Was it easier for the Lord in the body than on the cross? More difficult, I tell you, than if I had a devil in every pore of my body. For the difference between God and man is infinitely greater than the difference between the devil and man, and the difference between death and God than the difference between death and man. The Savior felt this torment, His pure, sinless nature rebelled against death, and in the face of death He "began to sorrow and be grieved... My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death" ! ( Matt. 26:37, 38 ).
If God grieves, if God laments death, then tell me, is there anything more terrible for man? Anything more unnatural than death? Anything more repulsive than death? Death is hard for God, and even more so for man. Compared to everything else, death is the hardest thing for man, since it represents man's greatest separation from God. Man in Christ felt this and painfully confessed: " My God, my God, why have I forsaken me?" ( Matthew 27:46 ). This is the cry of the only-begotten Son of God, who is consubstantial with the Father, one with the Father. Isn't this the best proof that death is a force that tears one away from God, distances one from God, separates one from God?
We have crucified God. Man, what more do you want? If it had not been for the good thief, you would have no excuse. If not for him, the earth would forever remain hell. When all the disciples were offended by Christ, the thief confessed Him as Lord and King: "Remember me, O Lord, when You come into Your kingdom!" ( Luke 23:42 ) 46 The thief is our hope, for he believed in Christ as God when everyone had lost faith in Him; he believed in Christ as Lord when Jesus was mocked, ridiculed, tormented, when He was in the most shameful position, when, like every human being, He suffered terribly and was tormented.
While people spit on God, while people crucify God, all of nature protests against this: “From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour” ( Matthew 27:45 ). “And the sun became dark, and the veil of the church was rent in half. And Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.’ And He went out and said these things” ( Luke 23:45, 46 ). “And the earth quaked, and the rocks split, and the graves opened, and many bodies of the saints which had slept arose” ( Matthew 27:51, 52 ) .
When people finished their comedy with God, when all fell silent, the universe spoke, the stones spoke, and showed themselves more sensitive than humans, sensitive to Christ's pain. And the sun spoke, eclipsing its light from our planet in shame. The sun's light was ashamed of what people rejoiced at. The dead in their graves heard Christ's cry, awakened, and rose from their graves, while the living stood beneath the cross, carrying dead souls within their bodies. "Today the veil of the Church is rent to expose the wicked, and the sun hides its rays, beholding the Lord crucified."
"All things sympathized with Him who made all things"—yes, all and everything sympathized with the crucified Lord, all and everything, except man, except people. All creation, even on the cross, recognized God in Christ and confessed Him as God. And from the cross, Christ demonstrated that He is God. By what? By what? By His answer to the thief. By what else? By His prayer for His enemies: " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" ( Luke 23:34 ).
Truly, people do not know what they are doing to Christ. Out of malicious ignorance, people crucified Christ, and out of ignorance, they crucify Him even now. "For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory" ( 1 Cor. 2:8 ). The Lord came into the world with meekness and humility. Is it not the greatest meekness and the greatest humility that God became man, that He clothed Himself in a weak, cramped, insignificant human body? It was with meekness and humility that the Lord left this world; He left it meekly praying for His tormentors. People do not know Christ, and that is why they persecute Him; they do not know what kind of love, what kind of humility, what kind of meekness is this, if God allows people to judge Him, allows people to spit on Him, allows people to beat Him and kill Him.
Christ's lot on earth is terrible even today, brothers. Every sin of mine is Good Friday for Him. Four of my sins, and I have crucified the Lord Jesus. Every sin of yours, brother, is a greater torment for Him than for you and me. By committing sins, you crucify Him. Every impure thought, every lustful sensation roars and howls: "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Is not our whole life an unceasing Good Friday for the Lord Christ? Is not every sin of mine a nail driven into the hands of the meek Lord, every passion of mine a branch of thorns, all my passions a crown of thorns which I place on the head of Christ. Our mockery of Christ is more terrible than the Jews'. The Jews could have believed in Christ far less, for He had not yet risen. And we, those to whom Christ has truly testified for twenty centuries that He is risen, mock the risen Christ, spit upon the risen Christ, crucify Christ anew, and the risen Christ at that! Doesn't a priest who, by his very life, excommunicates his flock from Christ crucify the risen Lord Christ? Doesn't a mentor, a teacher, who, with his godless teachings, drive God from the souls of his disciples, torment and mock the risen Christ? Doesn't every Christian, even one who calls himself a Christian, dishonor Christ, spit upon the risen Christ?
Alas, we continually persecute the risen Christ... "How is it that we persecute Christ," some will say, "if He is not with us bodily? If we do not see His body?" Oh, we persecute Christ, my brothers, we persecute Him when we persecute His Spirit, when we reject His teaching, when we persecute His saints, when we persecute His Church. We persecute Christ when we persecute the beggar who asks, for it is He who asks in the beggar; we persecute Christ when we do not clothe the naked, for in the naked Christ is naked; we persecute Christ if we do not feed the hungry, for in the hungry Christ is hungry; we persecute Christ when we do not visit the sick, for in the sick Christ is sick. In every sufferer Christ suffers, in every sorrowful person Christ grieves. In His boundless love for mankind, He continually incarnates Himself in the bodies of all the hungry, all the sick, all the thirsty, all the grieving, all the pitiful, all the despised, all the mocked, all the humiliated, all the insulted, all the naked, all the outcasts. He continually takes upon Himself a human body, suffers with it, is tormented in it, grieves in it. In His immeasurable mercy, He continually identifies Himself with them. "Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me" ( Matthew 25:40 ). "Inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you neither did it to Me" ( Matthew 25:45 ). Christ incarnates Himself in every Christian. Listen to what He says: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" 49 ( Acts 9:4 ), for in persecuting those who believe in me, you persecute me; in spitting on those who believe in me, you spit on me; in tormenting those who believe in me, you torment me. Know, the Apostle Paul teaches: “In like manner, when you sin against your brethren and strike their weak conscience, you sin against Christ” ( 1 Cor. 8:12 ) .
Not only for the Lord Christ, brothers, but for all Christ-bearers, life on earth is a never-ending Good Friday. The more you find Christ within yourself, the more persecuted you become. If you belong to Christ, consider yourself the most vile place in the world, trampled upon by all, just as they trampled upon Christ. When you are cursed, bless; when you are beaten, forgive; when you are hated, love. Conquer your tormentors with patience, like the Lord. Respond to evil with good, fight as the Lord Christ did: fight pride with humility, fight rudeness with meekness, fight hatred with love, fight insult with forgiveness, fight slander with prayer. This is the path to victory, the path that the Lord Jesus laid out once and for all; He leads us through suffering to resurrection. We are on this path, the only path that ends in resurrection, if we bless those who curse us, if we do good to those who hate us, if we love our enemies, if we resist evil with good, if we do not become angry when insulted, if we pray when blasphemed, if we endure with prayer when spat upon. We are faithfully walking the path that ends in triumph over death if, even when crucified, we pray with Christ for our tormentors: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" ( Luke 23:34 ).
Men condemned God to death; but by His resurrection Christ condemns men to immortality. He repays blows with embraces, insults with blessings, and death with immortality. Never have men shown themselves to hate God more than when they crucified Him; and never has God shown greater love for men than when He rose again. Men wished to make God mortal, but by His resurrection, God made men immortal. The crucified God rose and slew death. Death no longer exists. Immortality has surrounded man and all his worlds.
With the Resurrection of Christ, human nature inexorably embarked on the path to immortality and became terrifying even to death itself. For before the Resurrection of Christ, death was terrifying to man, but after the Resurrection of Christ, man became terrifying to death. If man lives by faith in the risen God-Man, he lives above death, unreachable by it; it is his footstool. "Where, O death, is thy sting? Where, O Hades, is thy victory?" ( 1 Cor. 15:55 ). When the man of Christ dies, he simply lays aside his body, like a garment, which he will again clothe himself in on the Day of Judgment.
Before the resurrection of the God-man, death was man's second nature; life was first, and death was second. Man had become accustomed to death as something natural. But with His resurrection, the Lord changed everything: immortality became man's second nature, natural for man, and death—unnatural. Just as before Christ's resurrection, it was natural for people to be mortal, so after His resurrection, it became natural for people to be immortal. Through sin, man became mortal and transitory; through the resurrection of the God-man, immortal and eternal. In this lies the strength, the power, the omnipotence of Christ's resurrection. Without it, there would be no Christianity. It is the greatest miracle of miracles. All other miracles flow from it and are reduced to it. From it flow faith, love, hope, prayer , love for God, and brotherly love. Look, the disciples—fugitives who fled from Jesus when He died—returned when He rose. Look, the centurion confessed Christ as the Son of God when he saw "those risen from the tombs" ( Matthew 27:52 ). Look, all the first Christians became Christians because the Lord Jesus rose, because He conquered death. This is something no other faith possesses; something that exalts the Lord Christ above all gods and men; something that most indubitably demonstrates and proves that Jesus Christ is the one true God and Lord of all worlds.
Thanks to Christ's resurrection, thanks to His victory over death, people have become, are becoming, and always will become Christians. The entire history of Christianity is nothing other than the history of a single miracle—the miracle of Christ's resurrection, which continues unceasingly in all Christian hearts, day after day, year after year, century after century, until the Last Judgment.
A person is truly born not when a mother brings him into this world, but when he believes in the risen Lord Christ. For only then is he born to immortal and eternal life, while a mother bears a child for death, for the grave. The Resurrection of Christ is the mother of us all, all Christians, the mother of immortals. By faith in the Resurrection, a person is born anew, born for eternity. "That's impossible!" the doubter remarks. But listen to what the risen God-Man says: "All things are possible to him who believes!" ( Mark 9:23 ). And the one who believes is the one who lives with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his being, according to the Gospel of the risen Lord Jesus. Faith is our victory, by which we conquer death.
Faith in the risen Lord Jesus. "Where is thy sting, O death?" ( 1 Cor. 15:55 ). And the sting of death is sin. By His Resurrection, the Lord "blunted the sting of death." Death is a serpent, and sin is its sting. Through sin, death pours poison into the soul and body of man. The more sins a person has, the greater the sting through which death pours its poison upon him.
When a wasp stings a person, he tries with all his might to remove its sting. But when sin stings with the sting of death, what must be done? One must call upon the risen Lord Jesus with faith and prayer to remove the sting of death from the soul, and He will mercifully do so, for He is rich in mercy and love. When many wasps attack and sting a person's body, the body becomes poisoned and dies. The same thing happens to the human soul: when many sins pierce it with their stings, it becomes poisoned and dies a death without resurrection.
By conquering sin through Christ, man conquers death. If you've lived a day without conquering a single sin, know this: you've become more mortal. But if you conquer one, two, or three sins, behold, you've become rejuvenated with a youth that never ages, rejuvenated with immortality and eternity. Never forget: to believe in the risen Lord Christ means to wage a ceaseless battle against sin, against evil, against death.
A person proves that he truly believes in the risen Lord by struggling with sins and passions. If he struggles with them, he struggles for immortality and eternal life. If he does not struggle, then his faith is futile. Isn't human faith a struggle for immortality and eternity? Then tell me, what does it consist of? If faith in Christ does not achieve resurrection and victory over death, then what good is it to us? If Christ has not risen, then sin has not been conquered, death has not been conquered. If neither sin nor death have been conquered, then why believe in Christ? He who, by faith in the risen Lord, struggles with every sin, gradually strengthens within himself the feeling that the Lord has truly risen, has truly blunted the sting of sin, and has truly conquered death on every battlefield.
Sin gradually diminishes the soul within a person, erases it into death, transforms it from immortality into mortality, from imperishability into perishability. The more sins, the more mortal a person is. If a person does not feel immortal, know: he is immersed in sin, immersed in shallow thoughts, immersed in faded feelings. Christianity is a call to fight death to the last breath, to fight until final victory over it. Every sin is a retreat, every passion is an escape, every vice is a defeat.
It should come as no surprise that Christians also die physically. Bodily death is a sowing. "A mortal body is sown," says the holy Apostle Paul, "and it sprouts, grows, and grows into an immortal body" ( 1 Cor. 15:44 ). Like a sown seed, the body decomposes, to be revived and perfected by the Holy Spirit. If the Lord Christ had not been resurrected in the flesh, what benefit would it have received from Him? In other words, He would not have saved the whole human race. If the body had not been resurrected, then why was He incarnate, why did He take upon Himself flesh, since He bestowed upon it nothing of His Divinity?
If Christ did not rise, then why believe in Him? I'll be honest, I would never have believed in Christ if He hadn't risen and conquered death. He defeated our most terrible enemy and granted us immortality; without this, this world is a noisy exhibition of disgusting nonsense. Only by His glorious resurrection did the wondrous Lord free us from meaninglessness and despair, for neither in heaven nor under heaven is there greater nonsense than this world without resurrection, and there is no greater despair than this life without immortality. And in no world is there a more miserable creature than a person who does not believe in the resurrection of the dead. It would have been better for such a person never to have been born… ( Matthew 26:24 )
In our human world, death is the greatest torment and the cruelest horror. Liberation from this torment and this horror is salvation. This salvation was granted to the human race by the only Conqueror of death—the risen God-Man. By His resurrection, He revealed to us the entire mystery of salvation. To be saved means to secure immortality and eternal life for one's body and soul. How is this achieved? By nothing other than the God-man life, a new life, life in and for the risen Lord.
For us Christians, this life on earth is a school where we learn how to secure eternal life and immortality. For what good is this life to us if we cannot acquire eternal life through it? But to be resurrected with the Lord Christ, a person must first suffer with Him and live His life as their own. Having accomplished this, on Easter, a person will be able to say with St. Gregory the Theologian : "Yesterday I was crucified with Christ, now I am glorified with Him; yesterday I died with Him, now I live; yesterday I was buried with Him, now I am risen with Him."
The four Gospels of Christ are summed these words. These are the words: "Christ is risen!" – "He is risen indeed!"… Each word contains a Gospel, and the four Gospels contain the entire meaning of all God's worlds, visible and invisible. And when all human sensations and thoughts gather in the thunder of the Resurrection greeting, "Christ is risen!" – then the joy of immortality overwhelms all beings, and they respond with delight to the roar of the wondrous Paschal response: "He is risen indeed!"
Source: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Iustin_Popovich/filosofskie-propasti/2_3