A SERMON BY SAINT METROPOLITAN PHILARET
Holy and Great Friday
April 14/27, 1973
In the Name of the Father and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Yesterday in the reading of the Ninth Gospel concerning the suffering of the
Saviour, and this morning, when the Gospel of Saint John was read during the Ninth
Hour, we heard the exclamation made from the Cross, the exclamation of the conqueror
of Hades, death and the devil, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
What is finished? That was finished which was known to the Lord Omnipotent at
the time of the creation of the world. Finished was that which the whole world was
awaiting; finished was that which was prophesied even in Paradise to the forefathers
who had sinned; finished was that which was foretold to the Prophets, that to which the
Old Testament prefigurations pointed; finished was the redemption of the human race,
its salvation from sin, death and condemnation. Christ the Saviour made this
exclamation, I repeat, already a Conqueror Who had fulfilled the purpose for which He
had been sent.
Before this there was heard from the Cross an exclamation of an entirely different
nature: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46). This
exclamation was still that of a sufferer and not of a conqueror. This exclamation tells of
boundless torment and agony, and indicates to us with what terrible sufferings the act
of our redemption was accomplished. But, as the God‐inspired Holy Fathers of the
Church tell us, and our great father of the Church Abroad and renowned theologian,
His Beatitude Metropolitan Anthony, expresses with particular precision, our
redemption consisted of two parts, so to speak: first, the Lord Saviour accepted upon
Himself all the weight of our sins, then He nailed them to the wood of the Cross on
Golgotha.
When He walked with the Apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane, they, who were
accustomed to seeing Him immovably calm, the Master of all creation, the King and
Conqueror of the elements and the Master of life, heard with horror words unheard
from Him before: “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death”. The Saviour
then asks His disciples, His beloved spiritual children, during those unbearably difficult
and decisive moments of the Passion, “Tarry ye here, and watch with Me” (Mt. 26:38).
Here the prayer in Gethsemane begins. In this prayer we see that the Lamb, which
was ordained at the time of the creation of the world for the salvation of mankind, steps
back as if terrified before what is approaching Him and what He has been asked to
accept and suffer. Is He so much afraid of the physical suffering? Is it that which makes
Him step back? No!
From the narration of His suffering we see how calmly, how majestically and with
what wonderful, and of a truth Divine, patience He endured the terrible physical bodily
torments. One has to keep in mind that He was pure and sinless. Suffering is
characteristic of sinful human nature. He did not have to suffer because there was no
sin in Him. Therefore, suffering was for Him unnatural, and consequently,
incomparably sharper and more difficult than for us. And yet, how did He endure the
physical torments?
Let us consider one moment of these torments: He is laid on the Cross, His most
pure hands and feet are pierced by terrible nails. What a dread moment! But He does
not think of Himself. The Saviour of sinners Who came into the world to save sinners,
thinks of them even here and prays to His Father for His slayers. “Father forgive them,
for they know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34). At that moment He does not think of
Himself; He forgets His own suffering; He only prays that the Father would be
merciful, would forgive the sin of His own crucifiers. This is the way in which He knew
how to fulfill His act of serving and saving sinners. Later on, a few hours will pass and
He will yet lead another soul to salvation; the soul of the wise thief.
But here we see that He is so struck with awe at the horror that He prays to His
Father, “Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me” (Lk. 22:42), and even
more sharply according to Saint Mark, “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee”
(Mk. 14:36). All things are possible to Thee; Thou mightiest yet find another way. Let
this cup pass from Me. So terrible was it, He prays that it might pass from Him.
The Church tells us that Christ the Saviour is the Lamb of God Who takes upon
Himself the sins of the whole world. Yes, He took upon Himself, He accepted as His
own, all our sins. And please remember that this is not a simply a phrase written on
paper, this is not a vibration of the air which we call a sound; this is very truth.
In the Garden of Gethsemane during this terrible struggle, He received into His soul
the whole of humanity. The all‐knowing God for Whom there is no future and no past
but only one act of the Divine omniscience and understanding, He knew each one of us,
He saw each one of us, and every one of us did He receive into His soul with all our
sins, our cold unwillingness to repent, with all our weakness and moral defilement.
And what does He see? In order to save us, whom He loved so much and whom He
received into His own soul, He takes upon Himself all our sins as if He Himself had
committed them. And in His holy, sinless and pure soul every sin burned worse than
fire. It is we who have become so accustomed to sin that we sin without hesitation. As
the prophet said, man drinks “unrighteousness as a draught” (Job 15:16), and does not
count his sins. But in His holy soul every sin burned with the unbearable fire of Hades,
and here He takes upon Himself the sins of the entire human race.
What a torment, what a searing torment it was for His all‐holy soul! But on the other
hand, He sees that if He does not accomplish it, if He will not receive upon Himself this
weight of human sins, then humanity will perish for all ages, forever, for endless
eternity. Here His human nature, stricken with horror, steps back before this fathomless
abyss of agony, but His endless, His boundless, His inexpressibly compassionate love
will not consent that humanity should perish; there occurs within Him a terrible
struggle.
Finally, exhausted from this struggle, He goes to those from whom He was seeking
compassion and whom He asked to tarry and watch with Him, but instead of
commiseration, He finds them sleeping.
He addressed them—according to one of the Evangelists, He addressed Simon
directly—Thou sleepest, thou who but a short while ago swore that thou wouldest
follow Me everywhere, even unto death; thou sleepest, thou couldest not watch with
Me even one hour? “watch and pray,” He tells them, for “the spirit truly is willing, but
the flesh is weak” (Mk. 14:38). He steps away and again begins His lonely prayer. And
at the last His boundless love prevails and He takes upon Himself the sins of all
humanity.
But we see how much this struggle cost Him. The heavenly Father sent an angel
from Heaven to support Him because His human strength had reached its limit, and we
see that He is exhausted and covered with a frightful bloody sweat which, as medicine
states, occurs as a result of inner spiritual struggles which shake the whole being of a
man.
Saint Demetrius of Rostov, meditating on the sufferings of the Saviour says, “Lord
Saviour: why art Thou all in blood? There is no terrible Golgotha, no crown of thorns,
no scourging, no Cross, nothing like this as yet, still Thou art all stained with blood.
Who dared to wound Thee?” And the saintly bishop himself answers his question:
“Love has wounded Thee.” Love brought Him to torment and suffering; from this
struggle He is covered with blood but comes forth as Conqueror. And in His
redeeming, heroic deed, He took upon Himself our sins and carried them on the Cross
to Golgotha, falling under its weight. And there began that other, central part of our
redemption, when He suffered all those sins which He took upon Himself in
Gethsemane, in the torments of the Cross.
The Holy Gospel lifts up a little of the veil covering His suffering on the Cross by the
exclamation concerning which I spoke before, “My God, My God, why hast Thou
forsaken me?” (Mt. 27:46). For this was the principle terror for Him. Probably from this
He stepped back terrified in the Garden of Gethsemane in that He realized what was
awaiting Him: He knew that the Father would forsake Him, all covered with the stains
of human sins. Through this exclamation uttered from His lips, the abyss of this
measureless suffering is partly revealed to us. Were we able to look into this abyss, not
one of us would remain alive, because from this incalculable suprahuman suffering our
soul would melt, perish.
But lo! at last through His suffering He achieved everything for which He came. As
the New Adam, He becomes the forefather of the new, renewed, spirit‐filled humanity,
and then as Conqueror He exclaims, “It is finished.” The suffering is ended for Him
now, and He surrenders His spirit unto His Heavenly Father.
During the suffering on the Cross, He called unto Him as the least of sinners who is
immersed in his sins, saying, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” and
now He again calls him Father: “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit” (Luke
23:46).
As one of our great Russian preachers said, “The suffering is finished, let the
wounds be healed, let the blood stop flowing; approach now ye Josephs and ye
Nicodemuses, and also ye reverent Magdalenes, come to the Deceased in order to show
Him the last honors.”
Let us remember well, beloved brethren, the subjects I lightly touched upon in my
sermon.
Blessed is the man who knows how to read the Holy Gospel, who understands it
and meditates upon what it tells us.
And now, while worshipping the Saviour entombed, let us remember that the lord
suffered for our sins, that these wounds were inflicted by us; and reverently kissing the
wounds of the Crucified with repentance and gratefulness, let us pray to Him that by
His grace He will teach us to be faithful to Him in all the paths of our lives. Amen.