Christmas of John the Baptist and the Baptist of the Lord brooklyn-church.org

Christmas of John the Baptist and the Baptist of the Lord. Preaching Orthodox Life Рождество Иоанна Предтечи Christmas of John the Baptist Now the Holy Orthodox Church honors the memory of St. The Prophet John the Baptist and the Baptist of the Lord. Today the greatest of the prophets, John , who is about to be Lord of Christ, looks with joy at those who come to celebrate his Christmas and prays to Christ in abundance to give His grace to all the prayers. According to the testimony of the Lord, no one born on earth was as great as St. John the Baptist. And when you think about the testimony of the Gospel of it, it really captures the spirit. But not only the spirit captures: you see in it the image of a man who managed so unlimitedly, so unlimitedly to be devoted to his God and his earthly vocation and who can serve each of us as an example and an image, because each of us in some sense in relation to To others is so often the forerunner of the Lord, to those whom the Lord sent ahead of Himself to bring people the word and way of life that would prepare them to understand Christ, to receive Christ. And when our life we ​​dishonor our testimony, when people look at us and stop believing in our words and in the words of Christ, then we take on a terrible responsibility. Not only do we ourselves live in the judgment of ourselves and in condemnation, but we do not attract others for ourselves to where we are called to lead them: to joy, to the joy that the Lord has left to us and which no one can take away, but to which no one, Except the Lord, can not give. Let us recall some of the expressions used by Christ or the Gospel in relation to the Baptist John. The first thing we hear about him is that he is the voice crying in the desert. The desert is not only an uninhabited place, it's a place where it's empty ; And so often in the human heart is empty, in human life is empty. Not only is there no content of the eternal, but there is not at all such content that could be lived. And in this respect we are surrounded, all, by the human wilderness. And in this wilderness we are called, like the Baptist, to testify. The testimony of John the Baptist did not begin with words: before returning to the people and speaking before demanding them to be worthy of the title of man, he himself retired to the bare, hot desert and remained alone with himself, face to face with himself In the sight of God. Sometimes we also have to remain in such solitude. It happens when our neighbors leave us, when it becomes empty around us. It happens when we are touched by illness, and then, no matter how we are surrounded by care, we feel that we are alone, because we are facing the face of life and death where every person alone will decide the issue of life and death for himself - Not only temporal, but also eternal. It happens that we will retire ourselves in order to recover, and then we know how difficult it is to be alone with oneself when it is not used to it: it becomes fearful - then our inner void opens before our own eyes, and in this Emptiness, into this desert we must enter. It will be lonely there, it will be empty, it will be difficult to live there, but only if we manage to live in this desert, with God alone, will we be able to return to people, never losing God and capable, by defeating ourselves, to conquer everything. And so John spent more than thirty years alone in the wilderness, struggled with his heart, struggled with his life and went on preaching and witnessed by God as the greatest - but not only. The Gospel calls us not a prophet, but a VOICE. He became so attached to the will of God, he became one with the life-giving word that he must pronounce to save people, to awaken people, so that life would also shine in them, joy re-emerged that he was ONLY a voice. It is no longer a man who says: it is God who speaks in his voice. So spoke the saints. One of the ascetics of Athos, who not so long ago died, said: "The saints do not speak for themselves; They speak from God, and only ... John rejected all earthly things in order to belong to God, and the Lord returned him to this land. The Lord did not leave him in the distant wilderness: when John became inseparable with Him, the Lord sent him to the people, so that people could live the life that John knew. And here the question is posed to each of us: is there such a life in me that I can light another person? Where is this life in me? When people meet me - do they catch fire? When people hear me, does their heart flutter-how does the Gospel speak of the companions of Emmaus, the "heart" burns in them? When people see our life, do they say about us, as they talked about the first Christians: How do they like each other! .. Is it amazing, hearing, seeing us, to the fact that we have something that no one has? And if it is not so, then we did not go even by the predecessor, we are not ready to bring Christ to people, we are not even ready to pave the way for Him to find some way for Himself. And we are called to be those who prepare joy for people, the joy of meeting with God, a joy that will never end and to which no one, nothing can take. Why is that? Because we want to live on our rights, we want to live for ourselves, we do not want to go to nothing. And this is what the Gospel says about John the Baptist. Witnessing to people about who he is, the Baptist says: I need to decrease, to no avail, so that He will grow to the fullest extent ... John himself is only the Forerunner; He must open the door and move away so that people no longer remember him, suddenly seeing Christ and forgetting everything in this joy. To go to nothing, preparing the way of the Lord ... Who among us can do this? Who among us, enlivening someone's soul, even with a kind word, does not want to remain in this joy of mutual communication? Who, having said the life-giving word, sometimes inadvertently when the Lord gives us, does not want to be remembered and never forgot that this word was said to them? But the Baptist himself says: I am a friend of the Bridegroom ... What kind of friend is this? In ancient times Jewish, as well as pagan, the groom had a friend who cared for everything for marriage and who, after the marriage, brought the bride and groom to the wedding room, stayed outside the door and guarded, so that no one interrupted their deep, mysterious encounter in the marital Love. He was a friend, because he knew how to stay behind the door, stay outside. His joy was that the joy of the bride and groom was now perfect, they were left alone, and he was the protector of this meeting. I will also say: who among us knows how to do this with someone else's joy? Do everything to make this joy happen, do everything to make it shine with eternal light, and move away, protect it, guard it, and remain forgotten behind a closed door? Here's another image of him, the last image. His depreciation, his convergence to nothing came almost to the limit. He was taken to prison for a truthful, honest word. Christ, however, remained at large. He preaches, John's disciples moved to Him, He is surrounded by His disciples. He grew up to the full measure of His earthly vocation. And John knows that death is upon him, that he will not come out of prison, and suddenly he is covered by doubt. He who on the banks of the Jordan River before everyone witnessed, Who is the coming Christ, he sends his two disciples to Christ to ask: Are you the one that we expected, or should we expect another? In other words, are you really the one about whom I brought my testimony, or was I mistaken? If he was mistaken, he vainly destroyed young years in the desert, in vain he went out to the people, in vain he is now in prison, in vain He will die, in vain EVERYTHING. It is in vain even that testimony that he brought to Christ, and in that case he will be deceived by God Himself ... And the strongest soul that has ever been on earth vibrates. And Christ does not answer him. He does not take away from him the fullness of the feat of faith and feat of faithfulness to the end. To the disciples who ask Him, He says: Tell John what you see: the blind see, the lame walk, the beggars preach the gospel; Blessed is he who is not tempted about Me ... - words, once, centuries before, written by the prophet Isaiah. And they come back with this word. It remains for John himself to enter into himself and put before him the question: when he was in the desert alone in front of God, - was it really all this or was it some kind of inner lie? When he came out of the desert to preach and shook people, renewed their lives, led them to a new life, to novelty, to the spiritual spring - was it true or not? When he saw Christ and saw the future in Him, - was it true or not? .. Of course, he only more deeply realized the obvious Truth and became established in it. And John died in faith and in absolute fidelity. How often does it happen that our soul hesitates that after we did everything we had to do, we said the word good, truthful, did what we could to make the other person come to life with joy and resurrected the soul and began to live The spring life of eternity, suddenly finds hesitation ... The soul is tired, the life is fading, our head is tending to the ground ... Was it worth it to do all this? I do not see the fruit, I do not know what will happen, but I've lost so much faith, so much love. Was it worth it? .. And the Lord does not respond to this with a testimony of success. He tells us: It is enough that all this was true, that all this was good, enough for you that you did what was necessary. In this - all. And now, before each of us is this image of the Baptist. Each of us is sent to each other as a Forerunner to say a word so pure, so free from itself, from self-love, from vanity, from all that makes every our word small, empty, worthless, rotten; Whether we are willing to go to nothing, if only a living person, the bride of eternal life, has grown from this man? And when all this is done, am I ready to say with joy: "Yes, let the last come to pass, let them not remember me, let the bride and groom meet, and I will go to death, into oblivion, return to nothing." Are we ready for this? If not, how weak is our love even for those whom we love! And what about those that are so often alien to us, are they indifferent? Now, we will often look into this majestic, but human image of the Baptist, and we will learn how a real, solid person lives, and we will try to live in the smallest, even if there are not many of them, but without a remnant, until the last Drops of our living power. Amen.