« Priest Nikolay Evseev: "If the Cross is a weapon of death, how can it be power for those who are being saved?" »
07-04-2021 
“The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God" (1 Cor. 1:18)
If the Cross is a weapon of death, how can it be power for those who are being saved? In other words, how can death be salutary? If one does not believe in eternal life, then this question is not worth asking. But even for believing Christians, sometimes death inspires more animal fear than hope. At the same time, a person comes into contact with the sacrament of death much more often than it is commonly thought. As the apostle James says, “sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15). St. John Chrysostom interprets these words as follows: “while we think and are busy with vicious thoughts, we are cheerful and rejoice; and when we give birth to an evil child, sin, then, seeing the shame of the one born, we suffer. " In this torment, a part of a person dies that would be capable of life if it were not for the accomplished sin. But the animal fear that a person experiences before physical death atrophies when committing daily sins, which leads to a gradual fading of vitality and mindfulness as an ontologically necessary attribute of life.
But the time of life graciously gives new opportunities to look anew at the past life and to revive in oneself the ability to resist evil, to start a new life. So, for example, daily going to sleep can be likened to death, when unresolved problems, damaged relationships, internal mental crises and other undesirable consequences of human mistakes are left behind, and there is hope for a new day ahead, that the future will be better than the past. Or, for example, who of us has not tried to start a new life “on Monday”.
One thing is clear that until the old is left behind, until it dies, the new will not receive its beginning. And with human life and a tendency to constant sinful dying, everything went so far that one’s whole life must end at some point in order for a new one to begin, in which there will not be a shadow of evil, sickness, or sorrow. This is the kind of life Jesus has prepared for us. His death turned out to be necessary, as a demonstration of complete disagreement with sin, as a death sentence to everything that is incompatible with life, but also turned out to be powerless before being born into a new life, which nothing can inhibit.
Venerating the Tree of the Cross during these days of the Great Lent, outwardly looking at the dead body of the Lord, the inner sight of believers in Christ opens the road to a renewed life, filling their hearts with hope, peace, joy and clear meaning.
Priest Nikolay Evseev