Today, looking at the body of a deceased person, involuntarily start think about life and death, about temporary and eternal. We all, anyway, we think about these things, but everyday bustle and everyday worries do not give us how to think about it. But yesterday we talked with this person, and now he is in another world, and we are only an orphaned body without soul.
Wise Solomon Several thousand years ago said:
"I have better goes to the house of crying about the dead, rather than going to the house of the pyr, for such an end to every person, and the living will attach it to her heart." Eccles.7: 2.
In other words, when we see a lifeless body, when death is like never close to us and we feel it especially acute, we all suddenly understand that such an end to every person. Whatever you are, rich or poor, smart or stupid, president or just working, - we all equally give their duty, our bones of the earth. But in this case, it is impossible not to think about what awaits us there, on the side of the coffin?
Why is it scary to think about these things, and we are subconsciously trying to close this topic, and without answering the main question of life? It must be said that this is the eternal questions that every sensible person should answer. After all, if you do not understand this, it makes no sense in any kind of action, and in the very existence!
Imagine a target man who quickly walks down the street concentrately looking forward, and to the question "Where are you?" He answers "I do not know." We consider such a person not in yourself. But we are not looking at the situation with you when we are confused by the most important questions, not knowing what to say, and sometimes we just run away from them. And life passes, and the moment comes when we all find ourselves on the threshold of eternity. Disease, war, catastrophe, hunger or epidemic can pass by us, but none can avoid death. So it's time to think about what will happen after earthly life?
My friend worked by Sanitar for a long time. He told that he had repeatedly had to see the last minutes of dying people. The worst thing he remembers is the eyes of these people. The expression of horror and despair, when you can no longer quietly, and give answers to eternal questions, and the need to cross the cover of earthly being, - all this with supernatural fear is depicted in the pupils of the dying.
Of course, we all scary about it to think, because we love life so much! The great thinker and writer Dostoevsky was sentenced to the shooting, and when the bag was put on his head and had to sound the slotted shots, the messenger rushes and handed the telegram from the emperor. It said that he is replaced by the death penalty for 4 years. After he described in detail his feelings from the experienced. He says that if at that moment, when he stood with a bag on his head, he would be offered to stay alive, but, provided that he would be to the very death of standing on the edge of the abyss and not move, he, without thinking, would agree , because it is immeasurable happiness - just live!
But it happens that we all, sooner or later, die. No one knows who, of us, here, will be as follows. And it doesn't matter what your health is, and it doesn't matter how much money you have to recover from any potential illness, a sudden heart attack of a completely healthy heart, or an accident on the way from work home can break our fragile life. And this wisely was done that we do not know any day or an hour of your death. Therefore, Christ says: "Always be prepared."
In the revelation of John the Bogoslev, it is written about what will happen after death:
"And I saw the great white throne and sitting on it, from whose person the sky and the Earth ran, and did not find them places. And I saw the dead, small and great standing before God, and the books were revealed, and the other book was revealed, which is a book of life; And the tried were dead by written in books, according to their business. Then he gave the sea of \u200b\u200bthe dead, former in him, and death and hell gave the dead, who were in them; And he was judged by his own. And death and hell are defeated in the lake of fire. This is the second death. And who was not written in the book of life, he was thrown into the fiery lake. " (Revelation 20: 11-15)
Each of the coffin standing should seriously think that it is waiting for him personally when death comes after him. Written in Scripture that the face of God is written a memorable book, and that "The tried were dead on written in books, according to their business..
If we don't think about it today, then believe me, tomorrow the feeling of our tank and mortality is stuck, and the day after tomorrow will completely disappear. Evtushenko once said the phrase, which became the gloomy motto of our modernity: "Curse of the century - a hurry".
So let's give today when we win on the last path of our dear to us, we think: who are you from where you and where are you going?
All the religions of the world, one way or another, tell us about the immortality of the soul. Ecclesiast still three thousand years ago the prophetically said: "And the dust returns to the ground than he was, and the Spirit will return to God, who gave him" Eccles.12: 7. There is something in us that it is impossible to fall asleep the earth and sand: this is the spirit, conscience, thought, love, faith! It is not subject to the drain!
Christ says:
"I am a resurrection and life; Believing in me, if it dies, will come to know. "(from John 11:25)
Today, when we are still alive and can freely argue about high, let's try, at least a few minutes a day to allocate that think of eternity. What awaits us there, on the side of the coffin, where we all, sooner or later proceed.
Today he left, lying in front of us, and tomorrow some of us themselves. However, we will remember and console the fact that it did not disappear, but is in another world, for we know that "God is not the God of the dead, but the god of living" (from Mark 12:27).
God has no dead, God is all alive. God has all alive!
You have now raised the "impossible" doing: follow Christ wherever he goes, follow him on all his earthly ways; And you accepted the promise from him that the bowl, which he needs to drink, he will divide with you, and at that test, in which he was immersed, he grants you to dive with him. Whether it is ready for the fact that he will lead you to Grac Hafsimania to be in the face of not only instant physical death, but the taughters of the death of one who understands the whole horror of this death.
And then, through everything, what we read in the gospel about passionate days, he will lead you to you, so that you have died with him, which you have symbolically accepted in Baptism, and the death you chose now, through the monastic stop. He will lead you to hell, for you are his priest, and you are called to go to the deepest, the most gloomy catwalks of life, to free up from hell those who are in captivity y and evil.
But the completion of all and not Hepsimania, and not passionate days that does not cry the soul cry: "My God, my God, what for You left me?" (), not a descent to hell, but glorious resurrection and ascension.
You are now starting this way; Anyone who pronounces words, briefly cast on the paramal: "Az ulcers of my gentlemen on my body is nothing" (), He appeals to him, asking for his strength, and Christ answers: "Pretty you grace of mine: for my strength is performed in the weakness ..." And Paul, Likuya, exclaims: And therefore I will praise only with my unfortunately, so that everything was the grace of the Lord ... ().
You were awarded a broken candle for you to remember the words of Christ that he flax smoking would not fade and the cane did not break down. Remember it is always, because there will be moments when you feel that you are so donated - they are about to be broken, and there will be minutes when you feel that all the light of the UGAS. Do not believe it:
Christ - the light of the world and your light. The power of your life is Christ; accept, agree all your life to be a cane is broken and flax warm, and expect no time when you have enough strength, and when, becoming completely transparent, you will see that the light of God, the non-resident divine light pours through you freely, and already Nothing will fade him and will not break you: the life of the Divine will cover everything ...
But remember the instruction that you have read: in work and illness, sometimes - in the torment of the soul you will go this way; But undergoing to the end will be crowned with glory. The grace of God will give you to fulfill what I have invested in your mouth ... Amen.
About birth and baptism
1967
When a child is born in the family, then everyone is happy: this is a holiday, because a person entered the world, and with him a limitless hope. First, with a baby entered the world untouchlessness, cleanliness, light, and the defenselessness and the opportunity for some kind of people to know something about love and love. And even - through the birth of a person goes into the world of hope, because it all belongs to this person, everything is possible - if only those who around it, they loved him so that it makes a real person from him: a person who can love, love to limit and love Without limit, love people so to be able to forget themselves for the sake of others, to love God so that the human heart becomes so deep, so wide to fit the sky into it.
And now four babies were born in our Orthodox parish family. Yesterday was baptized three, and today one; Three of them are without a mother, and therefore must be a mother: a gentle, understanding, sensitive, mother creatively alive; Such a mother, what a real mother happens. All of them were baptized under the arches of this temple: but not just under the stone villages, but in the presence of living people. Yesterday, when the baptism of the three little people were committed, there were several parishioners here, they prayed, sang, participated in this celebration, and indeed together, together were the perceptuals of these children, they met them as a living church, accepted them and made them their relatives; Today, the christenings were also accomplished among the praying people.
It should always be; Not in the sense that you need to baptize the children under the arches of the temple - because if the temple is empty, it is not, but only the temple. Church We are all, with Christ and God's mother, and the forerunner of the Baptist, and all the saints - we are all, and the saints and sinners, gathered in the name of Christ and God, united, filled with the love of Christ, Scientists to the Holy Saints to love God as a father, and friend friend - as native brothers. There is no demand of church, which would be private: Does anyone in the family can be in the mountain - and the other members would not be in grief? Or anyone in joy - and this joy would not cover everyone?
It should always be: both with the christening, and with weddings, and with other sacraments, and with all praying church. The whole church participates in them, and today we rejoice: four children are no longer, as they say in prayer, Chads of flesh, children of the body, but by Chadami heavenly kingdom God. They became native to God, and - even scary to say - they became relatives to him through us, because we believe, because, no matter what, we are also Christ. There are four candles, four living souls; Cleanliness, light, helpless hope, the openness of love entered the mystery of our arrival. We will enjoy - and not only about these four, but also about all the babies, about all the children who are around and in the midst of us, and we will store them: to guard the prayer, to protect with love, but to protect also lively, thoughtful human care, so that they rose worthy Clauses of Christ, the children of God.
Our joy is great about each. In each of us, there was once a baby; If he is still alive, if the soul is still full of sensitivity, susceptibility, if life did not darke our heart, did not hurt our mind, did not break our will to good, we will be happy. But if it happened to this grief - we will look at the children around us, to divide and rejoice at them, learn from them, because if we are not like children, we have no way to the kingdom of God. But, in addition, recalling the grief of his own, often broken life, take care so that no one of the children who around us would have broken life, did not fulfill, did not disgust.
And back, too, deep into myself, because the one who was once a baby, the tramp, boys - alive, only under a vesty. In each of us, life lives, cleanliness lives, everything that is just the heavenly kingdom, only we are almost all the time like Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, standing by the Merry's sister and crying about the fact that the man who loved Christ was died. In each of us, he is, Lazar, and over him every soul is crying and complains: why died all the bright, why is the coffin and the drainage is satisfied with everything that could be sky on earth, another of Christ?
But for hopelessness there is no place. Christ is coming to each of us, each of us hears dozens of times in their lives, and now: "The teacher came!" Each of us can go to him to meet him and fall to his legs, and he will say to each of us: the Heavenly man will rise in you, not the earthly! .. And each of us with sadness answers: Yes, I know - on the last day, when It will be too late on Earth to rejoice at this ... not true, "says the Lord, - "I am resurrection and life, And if anyone believes in me, if it is dead, then will come to life ... "And each of us can hear Christ, speaking: "Lazar, come out" (), get out of the coffin, stand alive, enter back to the earth's life and be another of Christ on Earth until you become his friend beloved in the sky! Amen.
Sermon newlyworn
1981
On your marriage day, in the apostolic reading on the liturgy, the Lord gave you the Word: we carry each other, and Tako perform the law of Christ ... And yet: we stood today with an elevated candles, testifying to the joy that your marriage is eternity It took the time that the kingdom of God approached, for it was said: the kingdom of God has already come when two is no longer two, but one. And however, this unity that constitutes the kingdom of God is apparently, and it should be detachment. For love is and joy, and liquefying, and the adequacy of each other, but Love is also a feat: we carry each other, and take the law of Christ ...
Often on the icons of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary insert: Joachim and Anna, standing and holding each other in the arms. It may be, the most beautiful image of human caress and human love, which can be so clean, so deep, which may be such a force that it is revealed to the whole holy, everything heaven and can give birth to the most holy that the Earth can incur ... Appreciate, keep the human love that brought you to each other and which connected you ...
Savior told us: "Believe in the light and you will Chad light ... "(). You gave, bestowed to each other, just as he gave Rebeki Isaac and Isaac Rebek; Your meeting is in God, the marriage is the sacrament, whose symbol is the Savior of Christ; And it's not by chance, we were not in vain. We asked him to be here as he was in Cana Galilee, and his blessing to combine you into the unity of marriage ... Believe in the light, in the light that the Lord lit in each of you, and blunt this Light, store it, protect it from all darkening; And do not be afraid of any darkness, whatever the twilight, which on Earth still surrounds every light. Because "The light in the darkness shines" (), And even when darkness did not accept him and did not become light, she could neither put it out, nor defend himself from him, because the smallest spark of light turns the darkness of the unconditional in the darkness, the rays of this light ...
We prayed that the Lord gives you to faith: a strong, not fluctuating faith in it, but also a strong and non-oscillating faith on each other. Believe each other! In this - light; And do not be afraid of anything. One modern writer said: to roll another "I love you" - it means to say to him "You will never die" ... to love and grow in this love, mobilically, sometimes heroically, it means to approve the eternal meaning of another person. You are not only given this, it is entrusted to you as a feat.
We looked at the anal three times, on which the Holy Gospel was attended by the Word of Christ, and the Savior himself. In the center of life, in the center of your procession, this is the Gospel, with the only commandment, which the Mother gave us: "Whatever he says to you - create ..." (). And then the human depletion, human impact, human poverty can instantly turn into the deep, the bottomless wealth of the Kingdom of God, as ordinary water of ablution in Cana Galilean became a good wine of the Heavenly Kingdom.
Do not be afraid to go this way - a narrow, demanding: in front of you was a cross; Christ all this path was held before he called for you to follow himself. He tried the road, he calls you not to the unknown, he calls you to go along the way he marched himself. And more than one: he himself and "The path and truth, and life" (). And the promise of it, the faithful in this wedding, the fact that the wintings of glory are cooked to you; And these crowns he keeps to give them to when you win last victory loyalty.
May the Lord bless you for your grace. The power of God in the glibliators is performed: do not look for fortresses; Give in the will of God, in his leadership, then the power of God and in your gentity will be accomplished, and you will be able to say that the Apostle Paul has been experienced by: "All of us is possible the essence of the Lord's fortunate Jesus Jesus ..." (). Let the power, and the mercy, and the joy of God, and the fortress of God will be with you ... Amen.
Sermon on funeral
1970
The death of mysterious, and she is also deep and majestic and lightly solemn as God's way; It is so great that the man should grow in a complete measure of his human greatness in a complete measure: in such a measure, so that he could stand in front of God only in spiritual contemporary and trembling silence. In the face of death and crying and the mountain, our are being made too small for the mystery, in front of which we stand, and therefore solemn, so full of faith and hope is so rich in love and awe of human funeral service. Every word in it is the word of faith; The first words of her: "God is blessed!" - How much faith is needed simple, honest trust in God, so that in the face of the death of the closest, sometimes, a person to bless the Lord in all the ways him, including this mysterious path. How much hope and confidence in God, to, turning to the soul who have left us, say: "Blessed the way, in which you go today, the soul, for the place of rest is prepared." Every word of our worship is firmly and truly only by the truthfulness of this faith of our and this undoless hope, and there is a worship of a reverent, warm, affectional love, which Christ, embodied God, surrounds the body of a person who has been orphaned for a while, until the resurrection of all, and referred to his soul . We are reverently and love the human body; This body entered the world, he took all the body with this body than the world is rich, - and terrible, and wonderful. With this body, he joined the secretions of the Divine - baptism, the militant, the communion of holy gifts, with the binding - all these wonderful actions that God realize the body, and the soul, and the spirit of human eternal life. Lask and love was manifested through the body, the body performed the commandments of Christ. We met the body face to face, and therefore we surround this body with such awe, we are confident of the calm, deep confidence of the Church, that this is the body that was inseparally connected to Earth with the eternal fate of a person - and in eternity will rise in glory when everything is committed In the image of a path that Christ is, God is alive, who took the flesh from the Virgin, who passed the whole mysterious human destiny, who established him by the death of the godfather in the coffin, and the victory of the Resurrection, the newly perceived and the ascended body, our body, our human flesh in the very depths of the Tropic Secrets His ascension.
That is why we are with the faith, hope and Easter confidence at the coffin of the deceased, that's why the words that once said Christ's widow: do not cry! - And addressed to us. Yes, do not cry: after God became flesh, and risen, and ascended, a person is no longer the limit, but the door revealed to eternity.
And we must be able to forget ourselves, forget our grief, to tell themselves "away away" and contemplate the great, which is now being done in the eternal fate of the slaves of God of Irina. She now comes into the path of all the flesh, in the path of every soul, to be in front of the living God, in which believed to whom he worked, who was settled, who worshiped from which life received. It should now be the content of our thoughts and our experiences, and everything that is less than this must be removed at least in part. Through tears, we must be able to see the radiance of the resurrection, and through our pain - the victory of Christ over and eternal life, revealing for the deceased.
Therefore, I heard the heart, and not only the hearing of the word apostle: I don't want you to be in ignorance and that, like poor faiths, you killed grief ... before us is not death, but the beginning of eternal life. Let's bow the resurrect Lord, we will bow to God, who came to the flesh, and spend in peace temporary and the joy of Eternal Slave of God Irina - and they will learn from her and how to live, and how to die. She waited for her death; Forgated many times, saying: Maybe I will not see, because I will die soon; And before the last confession said: I have nothing to bring God, I will only bring all myself; Let him take me and take me ... and so did the Lord. Glory to him forever. Amen.
Funerary
1980
We just sang the tropharov of the resurrection: "Christ is resurrected from the dead, death, death, and I guess in the tomb of the belly"; And before our eyes - death, in front of our eyes - the coffin. And however, the victory over his death and the resurrection of Christ, and the coffin no longer gaps horror for the believer. As they say in the Old Testament, death for a person - peace: we no longer cry without hope, although we have weeping about separation; We know that death is a temporary dream, a dream for flesh, which will rise on the last day, and recovery time for the liberated soul.
We are so deeply worried about the fate of people prisoners in prisons; But what prison can already be, the dark and terrible for a living human soul, for a living thought, for a sensitive heart than the sick body, which leads people from all his neighbors. Truly thoroughly languished in prison, in captivity Elena; Now the Lord released a living, sensitive soul of her. We all languish in captivity by the body, although we do not give yourself a report in this; All the highest, the deepest gusts are divided into our physicity, about fatigue, about powerlessness, about the circumstances that are due to the body of our; And however, it will be free from this captivity to each of us and get free to the freedom of God, when our spirit, not limited to anything, is nothing connected, it will appear before God, which is a life that there is a journal who is love.
And that's why we can proclaim before reading the Apostolic Message: "Blessed the path, in which you go, the soul, for the place of resting ..." And as if to predict our "cry of faith" with the words of the ancient Psalm, as if to tell us about His own destiny, the deceased says: "My soul will be alive and praise you ..". Yes, alive soul: not only the rest, but the babysitting, freedom came ...
Let the Lord bless the eternal peace of Elena, who left the trace of deep love, gave birth to deep respect for himself, and now reveals this secret of death as a secret of freedom ...
Funerary
1981
We, to some extent, others and to some extent their own, are now surrounding Vladimir's coffin. And what you gathered here, his employees, his friends, so much means; For you are not just gathered because the employee died, a compatriot, a friend, and because this man lived and his life has proven something, something revealed: not only talent, but some human depths that were forced everyone, Who is approaching him, read him, to love him, treat him with extreme thoughtfulness and seriousness.
We now stand at his coffin with burning candles; Gospel tells us: "Light in darkness shines ..." (), and darkness, if it does not accept it, then powerlessly drown it ... These candles seems to indicate that Vladimir has passed through life, as a spark of light, as a spark of life, a spark of deep human truth, which flashed through His love in the world, there was a meaning, it turned out to be some depth before us - and during his creative, gifted life, and for many months of meek, patient suffering and dying.
We think about death always as separation; And we are right, because we are separated from a person who we are expensive. But we should not forget that the death is made mysteriously, it is invisible to us the greatest thing that can happen to a person and what every soul, deliberately or for himself unknown, encourages: Meeting with the living God, meeting with the meaning, with that beauty , with the fullness of life, about which everyone sinks, to which everyone is striving and which is a few reach in her fullness on Earth: Heroes of the Spirit, Saints ... And therefore the candles that we keep, not only testify that this man brought light, Which will never go out, but that we accompany him to the mysterious, strict, wonderful holiday of the latter, all final meetings ...
We will now pray very differently, according to our faith, according to our experience of life; But one we can do: we can surround this body of an expensive person with deep reverence, love. A person perceives through the body: both the beauty and truth, and love, and joy, and grief, and communication with people, and the caress of the mother, and the miracle of love, and the incomprehensibility of the sacraments of the Church; This body is consecrated, this body is significantly for all eternity. And we surround it with love and reverence.
But this is not enough on our part. If a person passed through life as a light, like burning, if he enlightened the minds, the heart and the lives of those who knew him - each of those who remember him who knows that he did for him, as he revealed for him the depths of life how he inspired him how he touched his heart, as he lit up his thought - each of us should bring the fruit of his life so that he did not deprive the land of the wealth of mind, heart and purposefulness that belonged to him and with all of you So generously, richly shared. Each of you appeared as if the field, which he sentenced to the truth and meaning; And the fruits of this truth each should bring so that the gospel word is and in it: if the grain does not die, it will remain one; If it dies - I will bring the fruit of Storice ... the grain will be now laid in the ground; And the fruit should increase in the life of each of you. In this, he imposes on each responsibility and encourages everyone to live decent of the world, which is evidenced by these candles of life, candles of eternity ...
Three preachs about confession
1. Often, I am asked: how to confess? .. And the answer to this is the most direct, the most resolute can be: confessing, as if this is your desired hour; Conscribe, as if it was the last time, when you can bring repentance on earth, before you enter into eternity and become before God's court, as if this is the last moment, when you can lose the burden of long life and sin to Enter free to the kingdom of God.
If we thought so about confession, if we became in front of her, knowing - not only imagining, but firmly knowing - that we can die for any time, in any moment they die, then we would not have been so many idle issues in front of them; Our confession would then be mercilessly sincerely and truth; She would be straight; We would not try to get around heavy, offensive to us, humiliating words; We would pronounce them with all the sharpness of the truth. We would not think about what we say or something to say; We would say everything that in our consciousness seems to be untrue, sin: everything that makes me unworthy of my human rank, my Christian name. There would be no feeling in our heart that I would defy myself from certainly sharp, merciless words; We would not put the question whether it was necessary to say something, because we would know what can be included in eternity, and with what the eternity cannot be logged in ...
This is how we must confess; And it is simple, it is scary simply; But we do not do this, because we are afraid of this merciless, simple directness before God and in front of people.
We will now prepare for Christmas; Soon the pre-Organ post begins; This is the time that figuratively reminds us that Christ is coming that he will soon be among us. Then, almost two thousand years ago, he came to Earth. He lived among us, he was one of us; The Savior, he came to recover us, give us hope, assure in Divine love, assure us that everything is possible if only we believe in it and in yourself ...
But now the time is coming when it becomes before us - either at the hour of our death, or at the time of the last court. And then he will stand in front of us with a crucified Christ, with his hands and legs, perficing nails, wounded in the forehead, and we will look at him and see that he crucified, because we sinned; He died because we deserved the conviction of death; Because we were worthy of eternal from God condemnation. He came to us, became one of us, lived among us and died because of us.
What do we then say? The court is not that he will condemn us; The court will be that we will see who we killed our sin and who stands in front of us with all their love ... To avoid this horror, we need to stand on every confession, as if this is our death-time hour, the last moment of hope before However we see it.
2. I said that every confession should be such as if it was the last confession in our life, and that the confession should be given the last result, because any meeting with the Lord, with the living God, in the presence of the last, final, decisive Our fate of the court. It is impossible to get up in the face of God and not to leave from there or justified or convicted. And here is the question: how to prepare for confession? What sins to bring the Lord?
First, each confession should be extremely personal, "mine", not any common, and my own, because my own fate is solved. And therefore, no matter how imperfect my trial of yourself, it is necessary to start with it; We must start, putting yourself a question: what am I going in my life? What do I want to hide from the face of God and what do I want to hide from the court of my own conscience, what am I afraid?
And this question is not always easy to decide, because we are so often accustomed to hiding from our own fair trial, that when we look at yourself with the hope and intention to find a truth about yourself, it is extremely difficult for us; But with that you need to start. And if we didn't bring anything else to confession, it would have been true confession, mine, my own.
But, besides this, there is also much more. We should look around and remember what people think about us as they react to us, what happens when we find ourselves in their environment - and we will find a new field, a new foundation for a court of yourself ... We know that we are not always bring joy and peace, truth and good in the fate of people; It is worthwhile to look at a number of our closest acquaintances, the people who are me or a point us, and is made clear, what our life: how many I wounded, how many people went around, how many people offended, how many somehow seduced.
And now the new court is facing us, because the Lord warns us: what we have done to one of the small, that is, one of the people, the brethren of his smaller, then we made him.
And then remember how people are judged about us: often their court of earters and fair; Often we do not want to know what people think about us, because it is true and condemnation of our. But sometimes it is different: people hate us and love unfairly. Hate unfairly, as sometimes it happens that we do in God's truth, and this truth does not fit into them. And they love us often unfair, because they love us for the fact that we are too easy to fit in a false life, and they love us not for virtue, but for our treason of God, the truth.
And here it is necessary to say the court again and know that sometimes it is necessary to repeal in the fact that people treat us well that people praise us; Christ again warned us: "Mount to you when all people will talk about you well ..." ()
Finally, we can turn to the court to the evangelsk and ask yourself the question: how would you judge about us, if he looked - how does he actually do on our lives?
Check out these questions, and you will see that the confession of your will have already serious and thoughtful and that no longer have to bring to the confession of that emptiness, that kindergarten, long-faced tinet, which often has to hear.
And do not involve other people: you have come to confess your sins, and not other people's sins. The circumstances of sin are meaning only if they make your and your responsibility; And the story about what happened, why and how - no relation to confession; It only relaxes the consciousness of guilt and the spirit of repentance ...
Now the days are approaching when you probably all will be trap; Start preparing now to bring an adult, thoughtful, responsible confession and clean.
3. I spoke last time about how you can experience my conscience, starting with what she reproaches us, and continuing how people relate to us. And now we will make one more, the last step in this test of our conscience.
Our last court is not owned by our conscience, belongs not to people, but to God; And his word, and his court is clear to us in the gospel - only rarely we can think thoughtfully to him and just treat it. If we are reading in the pages of the Gospels with a simplicity of the heart, not trying to extract from them more than we are able to accept, and even more so - more than we can carry out life if we are honest and just treat them, then we see what has been said in the Gospel No matter how disintegrated by three discharge.
There are things that are obvious to us, but who do not care our soul - we will agree on them. Mind we understand that this is so, we do not care about them against them, but we do not touch these images. They are obvious, simple truth, but the life is not made for us. These places of Evangelskie suggest that our mind, our ability to understand things stand on the border of something that neither will, no heart we can still comprehend. Such places we are condemned in cosupiness and in caseless, these places require that we, without waiting for, so that our cold heart warmed, determined to create the will of God, simply because we are the Lord of the servants.
There are other places: if we react to them in good faith, if we truthfully take a look at our soul, we will see that we turn away from them that we disagree with God's judgment and with the Lord's will, that if we had sad courage and power Would rebel, then we would restrain the way they restrained in our time and how to rise from the century in the century everything, who will suddenly become clear that we are terrible to the commandment of the Lord about love, requiring victims from us, perfect renunciation from any self, from any selfishness, And often we would like to not be it.
So, around Christ, probably there were a lot of people who wanted a miracle from him to be confident that the commandment of Christ was true and could be followed without danger to his personality, for his life; there were probably those who came to the terrible crucifixion with the thought that if he won't get off the cross, if he did not happen a miracle, then he was not right, it means he was not God's man and you can forget his terrible The word about the fact that a person must die for himself and live only for God and for others.
And we are so often around the meal of the Lord, we go to church - however with caution: however, however, the Lord didn't vulnerable to death and did not require the latter from us that we have: renunciation from ourselves ... when in relation to the commandment of love Or a particular conventional commandment in which we clarify the endless diversity of thoughtful, creative love, we find this feeling, then we can measure how we are far from the Lord of the Spirit, from the Lord's will, and we can pronounce an incremental court on themselves.
And finally, there are places in the Gospels, which we can tell with the words of travelers in Emmaus, when Christ talked to them along the way: didn't our hearts burned inside us when he spoke with us on the way? ..
These are these places, even if we must be precious, for they say that there are something in us, where we and Christ is one spirit, one heart, one will, one thought that we have already cried with him Something already became his own. And we should keep these places in memory as a jewel, because we can live on them, not fighting against the bad in us, but trying to give lifestyle and victory that we already have a divine, already living, already ready to transform and transform and Become a part of eternal life.
If we look closely to note each of these groups of events, the commandments, the words of Christ, then our own image will quickly appear, we will become clear, what are we, and when we come to confession, we will not only be clear to our conscience, not Only the court of human, but also the court of God: But not only as horror, not only as a condemnation, but as a phenomenon of the whole path and all the possibilities that we have: the opportunity to become every moment and be all the time of those enlightened, ill-entertaining spirit People whatever we are sometimes, and the opportunity to win in yourself, for the sake of God, for the sake of God, for the sake of our own salvation, what is alien to God, what is dead, then there will be no way to the kingdom of heaven. Amen.
Descent to hell
One of the Easter Icons, which in Russian is called "Descent to hell", in English, we call "Plowing Hell, victory over hell." On this icon, we see those deep underground, away from loved ones, outside the world of human love and communication, those who died and became prisoners of alienation - mutual alienation and alienation from God. But in the midst of them we see the very gentlemen of Jesus Christ, by the hand of the emotion and Eve - and in their face, all of humanity, who outlines them from alienation, from the loneliness, from the darkness, to the kingdom of eternal love, in the kingdom that the cross won for us Christ.
In a sense, this is a marvelous and tragic image of what happens to confession: a priest who comes to confession in the image of God himself, designed to go together with the most hidden arms of pain, darkness, sin, truly goes to hell, depicted on the icon . And he sees there something wonderful and wonderful: it is not only a ray of light in these dwarfs, not only a spark of hope; In this thick darkness, the Lord himself is healing, healing, saving, bringing comfort, feeding a new force, bringing the joy of salvation ... What kind of Divo - stand in front of the living God, and how those who died, met the Lord Jesus Christ, stand face to Facial with him and from death to return to life. What is the fact that it is given to us!
Lazar died; Lazarus passed through the narrow gates of death, his body was exposed to decomposition, his soul went to the region of God's condemnation. And suddenly reached him voice, voice creative words God, without which nothing has become from what is: "Lazar, ridges" () - Out of death, away from the tension, go out of the grave and join in life: in the temporary, transit of the Earth's life as the Witness of the Resurrection is more significant, more significant than the resurrection of the body: the resurrection of the soul, who learned the darkness of death and went through it.
We all stand in the trial of God at different moments of life; We all sometimes sometimes that there is no eternal life in us that we live in a transient, short-lived life, and the only opportunity to ride us - this is the life of God himself, pouring into us, and beating the key. Unless we turn to God, if only we open these deep and frightening the abyss of our hell, his gloomy cats, then God himself comes there, life invades the most and we come to know new life - Life is different, the life of the Risen Christ, who defeated death, so that we live.
Let's be attentive to your life! We so often close your eyes on everything that gloomily, ugly and unsightly; If only we had the courage to open this ugliness before the gaze of God and say: "Lord, come! Coaching, winning this hell! " "Then the hell himself will be the place of light, repentance will be joy, the bareness of the heart will connect us with God. Let us give us the Merry, give us the Lord Consciousness of our honor, the consciousness of our greatness, as well as the consciousness of the greatness and holiness of God, whose participants we are called to be! Amen.
About communion
Great post 1967
In these weeks of the Great Post, many of us will be tested by the Holy Taine; The communion of the Holy Taine must be thoughtful and knowing what we do, what we ask and what we go.
The communion of the Holy Taine is that it means to call the Lord so we connect with us that not only mentally, but in the very flesh of our life is made by our life and our life is made by his life. Therefore, every time, when by having passed the holy Taine, we are doing darkness, we whatever the Lord are forcibly, painfully on the very path, according to which he was led to the passionate days on the crucifixion, to suffering, on the crop, - we must remember.
At the same time, we wish from the Lord's life of a new, transcerning life, and this life is given to us, because, when the Lord comes to us and connects us with you, eternal life conquers us and in us. But we do not accept this life; We want to rejoice at her, but we do not want to carry her burden: in this eternal life on Earth there is a burden and there is a tragic side, and not just joyful. On the one hand, we begin to live the life of the future century, but only then this life is held in us, we are moving away from the deeds, from the life of darkness, testers and death, when we are consciously, effortless will, merciless, to your weakness; And besides, when we have eternal life in yourself with gospel life, that is, actions that are not the cropping of this life itself, and prayer.
There is another side: we molim gentlemen to connect themselves with us and take over the gravity of our life and with us to incur her to incur; But at the same time, we must be ready to take on the fate of the embodied son of God on Earth, belong to the sky, God, truth, with all the consequences that can expire from this: first of all, internal struggle with a false and that we have; Then, willingness to stand for the truth of God, for the mystery of the kingdom of God, the love of the Divine on Earth in a relationship with people, even where that means the offer of some sacrifice, to sacrifice himself. And finally, the debt of readiness in the name of the Lord and his truth to be rejected, overcame, become alien for all those who, consciousness or not, stand against this truth.
Therefore, the communion of the Holy Taine, we will prepare carefully and concentrately, and we will prepare to come consciously to confession, renounced in yourself, turn away from all that it could captivate us, and prepare to start living after confession and compounds A new life, whatever we cost.
If we come so to do, then the gift of holy communion, compounds with Christ, the instigation of the grace of the All-country spirit, those new, unpached relationships that are created between us and the Father, and in it - with all people will bring fruit. Otherwise, we will raise that, resorting to God, we stay without help and forces - and not because it does not give help, and not because we have no strength, but because what God gives, we So easily waste in the desert of life.
Therefore, I will be happy to begin now to a new life: And those who are competing, and those who still have this indescribable celebration and joy, - and we will live in such a way that the sky is present on earth, the kingdom of the Divine inside us conquered everything around us, from the smallest to the great. Amen.
About Eucharist
1969
When the Lord established the sacrament of our faith in the secret evening, which we call the Divine Liturgy or the Eucharist, he collected his disciples around him: and those who later became loyal to him so that he had died for him, and the one who had already decided to betray her teacher; Together with the rest of the Lord set him in the face of the unspecified love of God; Because to be accepted for someone's table means that he, our owner, considers us equal to himself, with his companions who have the right to refraart bread with him, divide the essence of life with him; And here the Lord makes students equal in the love of God, equal to God through his love for us. This is one side of the extraordinary events that we call the Last Supper.
But we call these events by another name: we call it "Eucharist", from the Greek word, which means at the same time "gift" and "Thanksgiving". And indeed, this is the communion of the body and blood of Christ, this is an incredible admission, in which he accepts us is the biggest gift that the Lord can give us: He makes us breeders and equal, employees of God, and through an incredible, incomprehensible effect and strength The spirit (for this bread is no longer bread only, and it is wine - not only wine, they have become the body and blood of the giving) we become apparently, but gradually more and more, participants of the Divine nature, gods for admission, so what at the same time, Who is the embodied son of God, we are becoming a single revelation of God's presence, "by all Christ," about which Saint Ignatius Antiochi spoke. And even more than this, above and deeper than this: in this attachment to the nature and life of the only society of God, according to the word of St. Irinea Lyon, we really become - in relation to God's most unfortunate sons of God.
This is a gift; But what is thanksgiving? What can we bring to the Lord? Bread and Wine? They also belong to him. Themselves? But we are not the Lord? He called us from non-existence and bestowed us with life; He endowed us with all that we are and what we have. What can we bring, what would be really our? The Holy Maxim confessor says that God can do everything, except for one thing: he can not adhere to love him from his creatures, because love is the highest manifestation of freedom. The only gift that we can bring God is the love of a gullible, faithful heart.
But why thanksgiving called this mysterious Eucharistic meal rather than any other worship or any other action? What can we give to God? In the century, before Christ came to Earth and opened up her Divine Love, this question was the Psalmopevets David, and the answer he gives, such an unexpected, such a genuine, faithful. He says: What am I represented by the Lord for all his blessings to me? - a bowl of salvation, and the name of the Lord prize, and my prayers will be represented by the Lord ... The highest expression of gratitude is not to give a person back, because if anyone receives a gift and gives him for him, then he would have known the gift : Giving and receiving equal, both became donors, but a response gift in some sense destroyed the joy of both.
If we are able to accept the gift with all your heart, we express our full trust, our confidence that the love of giving is perfect, and taking the gift with all my heart and in all the simplicity of the heart, we bring joy and to the one who gave the heart. This is true in our human relationships: We strive to pay for the gift to only get rid of gratitude and as if enslaving, when we receive a gift from someone who doesn't like us enough to give us away from the heart, and who we yourself love not enough To take from the bottom of my heart.
That is why Eucharist - the greatest thanks to the Church and the greatest thanks to the whole earth. People who believe the love of God by open heart and without any thought "will be willing" for the gift, but only rejoicing the love that the gift expresses, get from God not only what he can give, but also what he himself is, and participation in his life, in his nature, his eternity, His Divine Love. Only if we are able to take a gift with perfect gratitude and perfect joy, our participation in the Eucharist will be genuine; Only then the Eucharist becomes the highest expression of our gratitude.
But gratitude is difficult, because it requires hope of a loving heart that can rejoice in the gift, and perfect confidence in the giving and faith in his love, that this gift does not humiliate us and will not enslave. That is why day after day we have to grow into this ability to love and be loved, the ability to be grateful and rejoice; And only then Mystery evening The Lord will be the perfect gift of God and a perfect answer to her all the Earth. Amen.
Christmas post. About post and communion
These days of the Christmas post, which will lead us to the celebration of the incarnation of the Lord, the words of Christ himself, harshly and clearly coordinate us. In today's parable about the insane richer, Christ speaks of overcrowded vocational goods; But we are all rich very differently, and not necessarily primarily financially. As we firmly rely on our relationship with God, which reliable support we find in the evangelical words - the words of Christ himself, in the teachings of the apostles, in our Orthodox faith! And the longer we live, the more we accumulate thoughts, knowledge, and our hearts are becoming richer and richer with feelings in response to the beauty of God's word.
But it saves us not this: the power of God saves us, the grace of God, who gradually teaches us and can clean and transform us. But, although it gives us our grace indefinitely, we are able to take the gifts of God only in a very small extent. We are almost unable to open the grace of your heart; The determination of will change to us; We do not have enough courage to go about the way we ourselves elected because it is so beautiful and lifeful.
The Apostle Paul gives us an image: we are similar to that sprinkle, graft, wound to the wound, on the life-giving tree, which is Christ. Yes, we are grafted - but how many lively juices can penetrate the sprigs in the vessels? How much life will be given and accepted? It depends on how revealed vessels of the twig and how many juices will be able to flow into them freely - and it depends on us.
Now there comes the time of fasting and the collens, which will lead us and put face to face before God come to the flesh to save us. But his arrival is also the court, because it is impossible to meet God and not be in court. And if there is anything common in us that relates us to the Son of God, who in the sacrificial, crucified love gives itself to our hands? Or we will have to get up in front of him and say: I got your gifts, but did not bring the fetus - as a person from parables, who received talent and schoronil, burned to the ground? Will we, as invited to frank Pier The royal son, who refused to come: one - because he bought a field; He wanted to become a landowner, but the land enslaved him; Or another who had a deal on earth, and he had no time to distract from his classes for God's sake, in order to stay with him; Or as the one who found himself a wife in the heart, and in his heart was not the place to share the joy of the royal groom.
The post does not mean that it is still more persistent than usual, begging for God; The post does not mean that it is necessary to come to the communion more often than usual. The post is the time when we must stand in the face of the court of God, listen to the voice of your conscience - and refrain from the communion, if we cannot join worthy. And to join adequately means that before each communion, we must reconcile with those with whom we are in the partnership; We must dwell on the thoughts of our mind and the hearts, nourishing us in treason and in the wrongness of people - and do something in this direction; We must reconcile with God alive, so it did not turn out that he died for us in vain. Therefore, our task is now to be deeply thinking about themselves, to expose themselves with a merciless, strict court and approach admission through confession, through repentance, through a thorough test of their own life, so as not to be convicted, starting carelessly to holy meal.
And this implies a few simple, but necessary things: you can not get to the communion, if you are late for the beginning of the liturgy; It is impossible to start communion without preparing yourself during the previous week a prayer, testing of conscience, rule before the communion. If the rule is too long to read it on Saturday in the evening after the vigil, the prayers can be distributed for all week, attaching them to the evening regulation and morning prayer. In any case, the discipline that is always required from us should be even more stable these days. AND Orthodox Church He teaches that those who wish to begin the communion should be present on the all-night on Saturday evening so as to prepare for a meeting with the Lord on the day of His Resurrection.
All this is not just formal, disciplinary "rules"; These are calls that lead us in the depths of spiritual life, to more worthy - or at least less unworthy - meet the Lord.
It is therefore entering now in the Christmas post and will prepare yourself with a strict discipline of the mind, carefully experiencing heart movements: how do we treat others to ourselves, to God, how do we learn from the Church of Prayer, worship and obedience to God's commandments?
And we also react more carefully than we do this usually, to comply with the physical rules of the post. They are designed to help us shake the relaxation and indulgence of their weaknesses, awaken in us sensitivity and vigor, do not give us to go to our landing, which prevents us in sparking to God.
Observe these rules, get ready attentively throughout the Christmas post, expecting the coming of the Lord, but not passively, but in the state of the collected wakefulness, with which the clockwork awaits the arrival of his queen or king. We will remember that being in the presence of God - the greatest honor, the most holy, which can happen to us; This is not the "right" of our, but the greatest honor that we have, and we will keep yourself accordingly! Amen.
About communion
When Moses came down from the Sinai mountain after the vision - not God's glory, but the glory of God, - his face shone so that no one could put this light, and he had to put his cover on his face so that people could stand in front of him and hear the news brought by him from God.
Not so straightened, of course, but it happens to us when a big joy overwhelms our heart when we are given to the prestitude of something that captured our spirit amazement, an indefunctioned flavor, which made us bow in tremendous reverence. This can happen from the meeting - when someone revealed to us the reality of love, let us know God as never before we were led. It can happen from meeting with God in silence, in silence of nature. This can happen the most different ways - but whoever met us after that, everything is clear to everyone: we saw something through the eyes of the heart, we pierced with some kind of light, and this light can now be seen in our eyes, on our face.
How does it happen that since since we are communionable - some of us dare out of a week a week, others with great fear of God, less often - and however, no one around us sees this divine radiance on our face, in our eyes? How does this glory of God are not emitted from each of our words, from deep silence of the soul, not revealed by the beauty of each of our action, when every our movement is worthy of God himself?
And as many as it is how it is coming over so many years, do we hardly pay yourself a report that something inexaledable is made with us? Remember the words of St. Simeon of the New Theologian, already in old age His: On Sunday, he met the Holy Tain and returned to himself in the celia, in a clay hut, where nothing was except wooden bench; And, sitting there, looking at her hands, on his whole body, he exclaimed: As a mysteriously, it is a body: it holds the most living God! God came to the world to pour his deity to our human nature, and, taking bread and wine, I join him and his holy humanity and his deity. And now these hands and this body, senile and stray, - the hands and body of the embodied God! And this hut, so small and so wretched, - wider than heaven, because all God is in her through my presence! ..
Did any of us happen to catch something from this to at least understand this experience? Survive what he worried, may be too much for us - but at least understand what he is talking about? Have we ever touched the edges of this mystery? And if not, why, why?
Is it because you can go to the communion differently? Some go "in the order of things": because today is a holiday, because Sunday; Or believing that the words spoken by the Apostles: "Take, do, drink from NEY DSI", belong without parsing to any of us calmly living in the comfort of the Sleepy, the Christianity telescled ...
Other people are commucorated, having risen in God, worrying out of her restlessness from him, unable to reach out, unable to seal to God; And then, the knee-free spirit, in the real gifts of bread and wine, lasted by him in his risen body, they take from God what we do not achieve otherwise: God, descending to us, pouring out of us in response to our desperate hunger, The cry of our soul and body, on the scream of our whole life, on our eminent crying in the world where not to find, not to meet God.
Even otherwise, the saints were started - with trepidation, with a sacred fear: "There is an entrance of the body and blood fire," says one of the prayers before communion - "Oh, I will not be burned!" Do we understand this? Do we know, knowing that we get to God, which is the fire-based fire? Can I say with the prophet Isaiah, and behind him - with Pavl, that "It is scary to fall into the hands of the god of the living" ()?
What is the matter why we come to pass again and again - and do not know anything about the experiences of Simeon, we do not know anything about the unattricible hunger and about the range of this meeting?
According to our heavyweight, according to our blindness, this is happening. Remember the words of the Russian Saint, Pafnutia Borovsky; He lived her own hermit, and once he was called Liturgy, because there was no priest in the monastery; And after Liturgy, he said to brethren: Never no longer call me to make a liturgy, even in the most acute need! See what I saw, survive what I survived, you can only once; Another time I will die from it! .. Do we know what it is? Suspect whether we are what it happens that this can happen? We need to carefully think about what we do! God accepts us, but what price for yourself? Saint Seraphim Sarovsky spoke to one of his loved ones: when you pray when you get to God, then God fulfills your prayer in Christ; But do not ask for trifles, remembering what price he applies to you asking: the incarnation, the life of earthly, passion, crucifixion, the descent to hell - this is the price that he paid for so that we could contact him! Therefore, with what a thrill, with some reverence and a sense of responsibility we would have to start it!
But then, how does it happen that, touching the fire, we are not burned in ashes? And here's another thought that always fills me with horror: the same Simeon New Theologian says that God does not allow His Holy Body and Sacred Blood to be disassembled by us and because of us; And if we start carelessly, sinful, unworthy - he retreats from a particle of consecrated bread and the drops of holy wine, which we accept, so that we are not burned, they were not destroyed and did not become with his killers responsible for pouring blood and crucified Body. But how terrible to think that in our unnecessary it can happen!
Let us remember these warnings that we hear from the saints, and from those who applied sinners, and set themselves the question: how do I proceed to the communion? In desperate whether the need - or careless self-confidence? With a heart crushed, because I need more than life need or what is different, - or "in cheap": because I have a member of his church, even if I am not a living member of his body?
We think about it and, as the Apostle Paul says, will try to judge myself, so as not to be tried - and convicted! Amen.
To communion
Every time we proceed to the communion, we say the Lord that we come to him as the Savior of sinners, and we also say that we consider themselves the greatest of all sinners. How much truth is what we say? And how can we say this about yourself? Is it true? Can we really say that - yes, do we really consider themselves the sinful of people? John Kronstadtsky speaks about it something in his "notes", which seems to me very important: he says that, by placing this very question, he can answer him with all honesty; Because, he says, if anyone else was given so much love, so much grace, so much divine revelation, how much he got, they would bring the fruits whom he had not been able to bring.
In the same way, we can experience ourselves when we proceed to the communion and say these words: Do we repeat them simply because they are printed in the book? Or are we really aware - but what do you know? What are we sinners? Yes, we are more or less challenged, we are experiencing that we are sinful; But are we aware of how much we are given from God and how little fruit we brought?
And only if we are with all the sharp and clarity see the contrast between everything that was possible - everyone, what else is possible now! - And what is, we can honestly pronounce these words.
We think about these words, because God in prayer we cannot speak polite words, words of empty goodness. What we say to him should be true, and each of our should be a trial of truthfulness and our conscience and our lives.
We will live with these thoughts until the next communion so that someday maybe, not yet at the next communion, but after a long life of the search, prayers, self-advanies and self-seen, we will be able to say with all the truth: "God, oh god! How much did you give me, and how little fetus I brought, I brought! If someone else would be given so much, he would be already sainted by God! " Amen.
Nothing colded my dust to ministry so much, nothing focused on my impulse "good feat to work," as the need to preach at the funeral ....
I did not sleep for days and nights, staying in Borie. And the problem was not only in what to say, but in how to say it. If, for example, in my life there was a rise, if I am full of energy and vigor, how can I enter the suffering and pain of other people? Who am I, to try to reflect in your preaching the pain of loss, which is worried about the family killed by grief? Will I choose the right words to relye to honor the deceased?
But one day, when I preached at the funeral of my father, God opened me some truths in this context - not only as a preacher, but also as a member of a family who grieves the loss.
Of course, the sermon at the funeral should not be superficial or frivolous. We need great support for the Holy Spirit, we encouraging us. We must ask God for help, but this does not cancel our duty carefully and carefully select words. People crushed people are very wounded, so our words can have an impact on them. Thus, our speech at the funeral should be thoughtful and wise.
I want to offer you five tips, what should be avoided if you are invited to sermon at the funeral.
1. Do not talk about the deceased only in the past time.
One of the responsibilities of the preacher at the funeral is to glorify the Lord's testimony about how the late brother (the late sister) loved him how he lived for His Fame. However, describing the pious life of the deceased, we sometimes talk so much about "what was" that we forget to mention that "what is." If we believe that the deceased is now with Christ that in the afterlime world it is alive, it means that it is necessary to emphasize this by speaking of him in the present and future times. By this we remind a mournful family and other listeners about the hope of the Gospel.
2. Do not forget to look at the death of a believer with God's point of view.
This teaches PS. 115: 16 - "The road in the eyes of the Lord death of His Saints!" God is glorified when his children come back to him home. Contembating no hidden face of God is the greatest joy, which believer can only have. To be in his presence in heaven is the final achievement of our aspirations and the beginning of the Great, the infinite era of the glorification.
3. Do not ignore the fact of loss.
There are always those who survived a heavy loss around us. Under the loss, I mean not only those who lies in the coffin, but also those who are dead in their sins. The loss of people close to us reminds us that death is a realization of life that one day we all move into the world of others. If there is the most suitable place for preaching about the severity of sin and the importance of God's grace, then it is near the body of the saint, in the face of the reality of death. Be implore those present repeating so that it can then rejoice in eternal life in Christ. At such moments the dead holy - "Live all living", he is more alive than it can be imagined, he is in the presence of who himself has a life.
4. Do not try to idealize well.
People inspires an example of only real lives. And the real life is full of joy and sadness, success and failures. Deserving respectfully, the saints were pregnant with a kind feat of faith. An example of them real life Can encourage living.
5. Do not forget to indicate the reality of heaven - proclaim this reality.
The church needs to hear sermons about our heavenly house and study this topic on the basis of Scripture. Insufficient attention to this topic exposes the weakness of our faith, hope and joy. Dear God's child, which now enjoys God and all the wealth of the heavenly kingdom. We should, as often as possible, at least for a few minutes, to pull people out of the earthly reality "now and now" - reality, which drags our spiritual joy - and raise them over the earth, so that they have the opportunity to see everything from the point of view of God and Eternity. Remind those present that Christians are always surrounded God's gracethat in front of them is waiting for the sky - only the sky.
I will tell you the most helpful advice About how to preach at the funeral of a stranger to me, who I heard: "Do not preach about the dead in heaven and do not preach about him in hell, but preach for those who listen." This principle allows us to not forget our main task on any funeral. Although we focus on the memory of the dead, the funeral is all the same for those who come to them.
During the sermon it is important to clearly proclaim the gospel. Only if we personally are confident that the deceased was a revived person, then we can calmly talk about the award that the deceased received in heaven. If you even doubt you - and it will be almost always when you preach at the funeral of a person unfamiliar to you - the most important thing is to set out the gospel for your listening and not to succumb to the temptation to give them confidence in something that you are not sure.
The sermon at the funeral should not be longer than 20 minutes, and should reveal each of the following topics, it is desirable to reinforce them with the texts from Scripture:
1. Advance the need for sorrow of the dead
The 11 head of the Gospel of John is very helpful here, in which the author tells how Jesus Rassed Lazari from the dead. If Jesus cried about a dead friend, then it is necessary for us. I often tell the story of how my dad sat with me and my wife, when we learned that we had a miscarriage: he said that it was important for us to mourn our child, and taught how to do it.
Do not assume that people know that sorrow is appropriate, or that they know how to survive sorrow, just talking about the dead. In fact, many do not want to talk about the dead because of the pain of loss. But many pastors know that often people only years later, with the help of pastoral dies, aware of the value of the experience of sorrow.
2. Explain the hope that the Gospel gives us
When we grieve, we cannot have any hope, except the hope we have in the Gospel. Therefore, it is important for the second and third third of the sermon to devote to Christ and his ministry. It doesn't matter what text you will preach, but discover the main components of the Gospel: the holiness of God, the sin of man and the well-deserved punishment for sin, the perfect life of Christ and his redemption of us from sin, and our duty to repent of our sins and believe in Christ.
3. Call your listeners to submit to the Gospel
To do it so that it does not arise an awkward situation, and that it was effectively, you need to learn more about your listeners as much as possible about your listeners. You must be prepared for the fact that both Christians and unbelievers will be there. You must assume that those present already have some kind of opinion about how they get eternal life. For example, I drove some funeral, on which 90% of the listeners were serious Catholics, one more, in which most were Mormons, and another on which there was not a single person, at least once in the church.
For each of these funerals, I clearly explained the gospel, called for listening to repent of their sins, believe in Christ and rely on him. But in each of these situations, I did it in different ways, depending on how they imagined the good news. Call them to mourn the dead. Simply and clearly preach the gospel. Help them see how they need Christ, especially when death is so close. Call them repent and believe.
The initial text of the article was published on the 9Marks website: link. Translated and used with permission of the author.
I will tell you the most useful advice on how to preach at the funeral of an unfamiliar person to me, which I heard: "Do not preach about the dead in heaven and do not preach about him in hell, but preach for those who listen." This principle allows us to not forget our main task on any funeral. Although we focus on the memory of the dead, the funeral is all the same for those who come to them.
During the sermon it is important to clearly proclaim the gospel. Only if we personally are confident that the deceased was a revived person, then we can calmly talk about the award that the deceased received in heaven. If you even doubt you - and it will be almost always when you preach at the funeral of a person unfamiliar to you - the most important thing is to set out the gospel for your listening and not to succumb to the temptation to give them confidence in something that you are not sure.
The sermon at the funeral should not be longer than 20 minutes, and should reveal each of the following topics, it is desirable to reinforce them with the texts from Scripture:
1. Advance the need for sorrow of the dead
The 11 head of the Gospel of John is very helpful here, in which the author tells how Jesus Rassed Lazari from the dead. If Jesus cried about a dead friend, then it is necessary for us. I often tell the story of how my dad sat with me and my wife, when we learned that we had a miscarriage: he said that it was important for us to mourn our child, and taught how to do it.
Do not assume that people know that sorrow is appropriate, or that they know how to survive sorrow, just talking about the dead. In fact, many do not want to talk about the dead because of the pain of loss. But many pastors know that often people only years later, with the help of pastoral dies, aware of the value of the experience of sorrow.
2. Explain the hope that the Gospel gives us
When we grieve, we cannot have any hope, except the hope we have in the Gospel. Therefore, it is important for the second and third third of the sermon to devote to Christ and his ministry. It doesn't matter what text you will preach, but discover the main components of the Gospel: the holiness of God, the sin of man and the well-deserved punishment for sin, the perfect life of Christ and his redemption of us from sin, and our duty to repent of our sins and believe in Christ.
3. Call your listeners to submit to the Gospel
To do it so that it does not arise an awkward situation, and that it was effectively, you need to learn more about your listeners as much as possible about your listeners. You must be prepared for the fact that both Christians and unbelievers will be there. You must assume that those present already have some kind of opinion about how they get eternal life. For example, I drove some funeral, on which 90% of the listeners were serious Catholics, one more, in which most were Mormons, and another on which there was not a single person, at least once in the church.
For each of these funerals, I clearly explained the gospel, called for listening to repent of their sins, believe in Christ and rely on him. But in each of these situations, I did it in different ways, depending on how they imagined the good news. Call them to mourn the dead. Simply and clearly preach the gospel. Help them see how they need Christ, especially when death is so close. Call them repent and believe.