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As
soon as Great Lent approaches, more and more there appears in the
liturgy special prayers, by which the Church is bringing us, preparing
us, for the lean Great Lenten times of prayer, fasting and repentance.
When
there was the past week of the Publican and Pharisee, on the eve of it,
the Church
sang the song of repentance - "Open to me the doors of repentance, O
Giver of Life", and the next - last - Saturday, then added another
Hymn-Prayer, which was sung today. This
is - one of the psalms of the Psalms of King David, which begins with the words: "By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and we wept, when we remembered Zion".
Even
before the last year, I was then also talking about the importance of
the hymns in
our Orthodox worship from Old Testament biblical sources, but not all
are likely to remember it, and not all have heard it, so I remind you
of it once again.
First of all, in this psalm there is commemorated a certain moment of the sacred history,
which is indicated in the words taken from it: "Remember,
O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem saying: it is
depleted and exhausted, raze it, raze it to the very ground!"
These
words point to the tragedy that the people of Israel survived when the
city of Jerusalem was destroyed by the invader - the Babylonian king
Nebuchadnezzar,
and then when the people of Israel were carried away captive to the
distant rivers of Babylon.
Making ready to meet and repulse the expected conqueror, Israel had enlisted the help of
a kindred tribe, the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, "the sons of Edom." They promised the Jewish nation their alliance, help and support. And
here, in this psalm, is specified how treacherously they changed, how
these Edomite traitors, were these, "sons of Edom in the day of
Jerusalem" - that terrible day that was so memorable for Jerusalem ,
when - its enemies, cruel and merciless, were destroying
the holy city, and "the sons of Edom", instead of the promised aid,
shouted: "deplete it, , level it to the ground!", i.e. destroy it to its foundations
...
To whom then, were the defeated Israelites to complain? To whom
could they tell of their sorrow and suffering? From
antiquity comes to us the old expression "Woe to the vanquished." There was no one
to seek protection and assistance from, for the defeated Israelites. And
now, to the Lord they turned, saying: "Remember, O Lord, the children of
Edom in the day of Jerusalem!" - do not forget, O Lord, in thy justice
that terrible day in Jerusalem, when such a terrible betrayal was
carried out by those who promised to be our allies
...
"Woe to the vanquished." So
it was then, and too this is what also happens now.
When
there was the last terrible war, and some were victorious, while others
were losers,
the winners declared the losers: "war criminals", although those on the
opposing side, vigorously and courageously fought for their country, as
the winners for theirs. It
was not until our modern so-called, "world wars" when the conquerors
[some of them] were able to respect the courage and bravery of the
vanquished, that they did not label them as criminals, and prosecute
the survivors.
This is similar to the fact, in some countries there exits: a "revolutionary mess": one
system is replaced by another, and one party overcomes another. When two parties have fought each other and one of them has won, the winner declares
themselves 'patriots' and their opponents - 'bandits'. It takes only a short time; before
the situations have changed; then- the
'bandits' become 'patriots', and 'patriots' -become 'bandits'. For
- "Woe to the vanquished."
But of course, the basic meaning of the church hymn, "By the rivers of Babylon," as applied
to us Orthodox Christians, is not only regarding this Old Testament biblical historic moment. This psalm reminds us of how the Jews in their Babylonian
captivity, learned to love their holy places, treasure them and to cherish them. Their cruel conquerors ordered them to:
"Sing for us, one of the songs of Zion!," and they answered them: "How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?"
So,
that's us also, [i.e. we Orthodox people living in our world-wide
diasporas] who have
been living on many foreign rivers, far away from our native
earthly homelands, and so we must take to our hearts, the example of the
Old Testament Jewish people, as they learned from their Babylonian
captivity, to protect their sacred holy places, Our
Holy Orthodox Faith, and our immortal souls, and to honor them and to cherish them.
But the main, spiritual meaning of this psalm, has been explained, in agreement with other
sacred writings, and in agreement among the Holy Fathers:
Once the great Elder Ambrose wrote,
In one of his letters of dialectics; this Holy Elder
Ambrose,
referring to himself, said: "Cursed be Babylon!, cursed be my flesh!,
when will I learn to dash my sinful babies on a rock of faith?" When
sin is only first indicated in the soul of man, but has not yet mastered it, the Holy Fathers call it a "sinful baby." This
means that the temptation to sin is first perceived/revealed upon self
inspection, but the man can conquer that temptation, which for him to
accomplish, it is then necessary for him to reflect when it first
appears. So, if
a
person holds/entertains this seduction in his heart and thoughts, but
then stops his attention to it [to root it out], then that seduction,
will with every
moment, become sharper and more attractive, and thus the longer this
temptation remains in his soul, the harder it is to overcome. That
is why the
great elder says that it is necessary: for us to 'break sinful babies
upon a rock of faith', and to fight against sin, throwing it out -
when it first appears to our attention, when it is still weak as a
baby, and when it has not yet mastered but another
captive soul (ours). And this spiritual reality should be remembered by each of us.
Probably many of you have read, as one wise old man taught his pupil, the young novice:
to struggle with sin, and he told him: "My son, uproot it, when it is yet a young sapling." When the sin
was very young, and it was just beginning to grow, and he could pull it out/uproot it, without difficulty. "Now
that's plucking it out," said the old man. Another tree [sin] was much thicker and stronger, because it was allowed to grow longer, and to tear it
from his monastic novitiate, it could only be done with great difficulty. "Now that's hard to pluck up!"- said the old man, as he pointed to a
thick old tree. Of course, the novice, by his own wisdom, did not know what to do, as he thought that there was nothing he could do. But
the old man said: "Remember, sin must be fought at the beginning of its
discovery, otherwise it will grow into a habit, and then it will be
difficult to beat and overcome, and then it will master the soul, so
that the soul will be completely unable to tear itself
away from it."
And
this necessary feat/podvig struggle against sin, is related to us, in
this hymn: "By
the waters of Babylon," which teaches us that it is necessary for
every sinful temptation that comes close to us, for us to
immediately-as soon as it appears, to break it upon the rock of faith,
not allowing it to master our souls. .Amen.
Metropolitan Filaret. Preaching
and teaching. t. I. Issued by the
Russian Orthodox Youth Committee at the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. On the 50th anniversary of the priesthood in 1931 - 1981 s.s.84-87.
Checked against the original
...
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