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“Come, God-lovers
all, behold the honorable Cross”
The Most Just Scales
Sermon on the Cross by Archbishop Anthony of Western America
and San Francisco of blessed memory
The Most Just Scales
In the artistically figurative language of our marvelous
Orthodox divine service, the Cross of the Lord is compared with
"just scales." In the Church Slavonic language, this
is expressed by the words "merilo pravednoe" ("just
balance").
"In the midst of two thieves, Thy Cross was found to be
a just balance."
Here before our spiritual gaze is Golgotha on the day of our
redemption from sin, the curse and death.
Our Lord the Redeemer is on the Cross. As a man, He is crucified;
but as God, He weighs everything, He tests everything.
And He is between two thieves, who are crucified on their crosses.
One of the thieves, as a real forerunner of the Bolsheviks,
maliciously blasphemes. But the other thief, who stopped the
first, and himself repented... O, how his image has become imprinted
on the soul of the Christian, in the consciousness of the whole
Church! With what compunction we listen on Great Thursday evening
when this "repentance of the thief" is read about
in the Eighth Passion Gospel, and after that when they sing
about the wise thief. For centuries and centuries they have
been singing about him. The hearts of those singing are humbled,
and in response, the hearts of the listeners are also humbled.
But someone is malevolent and will not want to humble himself;
some unfortunate one will not want _ stubbornly will not want
_ to depart from his malice. And amidst all stands the crucifixion,
as a depiction of that Cross of the Lord on Golgotha, of that
most just balance with which the Son of God, invisible to us,
weighed and weighs everything.
But how does the balance of the Cross act according to the explanation
of the Church' s hymn?!
"In the midst of two thieves, Thy Cross was found to be
a just balance: the one was brought down to hades by the weight
of his blasphemy, while the other was lightened of his transgressions
unto the knowledge of theology; O Christ God, glory be to Thee!"
In the artistically figurative language of our marvelous Orthodox
divine service, the Cross of the Lord is compared with "just
scales." In the Church Slavonic language, this is expressed
by the words "merilo pravednoe" ("just balance").
"In the midst of two thieves, Thy Cross was found to be
a just balance."
Here before our spiritual gaze is Golgotha on the day of our
redemption from sin, the curse and death.
Our Lord the Redeemer is on the Cross. As a man, He is crucified;
but as God, He weighs everything, He tests everything.
And He is between two thieves, who are crucified on their crosses.
One of the thieves, as a real forerunner of the Bolsheviks,
maliciously blasphemes. But the other thief, who stopped the
first, and himself repented... O, how his image has become imprinted
on the soul of the Christian, in the consciousness of the whole
Church! With what compunction we listen on Great Thursday evening
when this "repentance of the thief" is read about
in the Eighth Passion Gospel, and after that when they sing
about the wise thief. For centuries and centuries they have
been singing about him. The hearts of those singing are humbled,
and in response, the hearts of the listeners are also humbled.
But someone is malevolent and will not want to humble himself;
some unfortunate one will not want _ stubbornly will not want
_ to depart from his malice. And amidst all stands the crucifixion,
as a depiction of that Cross of the Lord on Golgotha, of that
most just balance with which the Son of God, invisible to us,
weighed and weighs everything.
But how does the balance of the Cross act according to the explanation
of the Church' s hymn?!
"In the midst of two thieves, Thy Cross was found to be
a just balance: the one was brought down to hades by the weight
of his blasphemy, while the other was lightened of his transgressions
unto the knowledge of theology; O Christ God, glory be to Thee!"
And so, one (the blasphemer of God) is brought down to hades
by the weight of his blasphemy, while from the other the weight
of his transgressions was cast off, so that he came to know
the One about whom he theologized; that is, so that he came
to know more and more the One whom he called Lord.
Thus, malice and blasphemy forced one cup of the scales to go
down, while the faith, repentance, humility and self-condemnation
of the wise thief drove the other cup of the scales upwards.
That is why on our eight-pointed depictions of the Cross of
the Lord the "footrest" or the lower crossbeam of
the Cross is depicted symbolically aslant, as the crossbeam
of scales on which one cup of the scales drops down, while the
other is raised up.
The left side of the Cross from our view is the right side from
the view of the Lord, Who was crucified on the Cross. According
to tradition, the repentant thief was crucified on the right
side, his calling into the Kingdom of Heaven being signified
by the raised end of the footrest of the Cross, while the other
end signified the fall and condemnation of the unrepentant thief.
This action of the Cross, as a most just balance, we may call
divine all-justness, and the fact that Christ the Savior, as
the true Incarnation of Love, on the Cross stretched out his
pierced hands to all people, praying for His crucifiers_-this
is His most divine all-goodness.
He weighs and tests; He also calls.
The mystery of the joining of His all-justness and all-goodness
is the mystery of our salvation and the mystery of the future
life. |
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