EASTER FRIDAY

In the Revelation of John, it is said that there is no temple in the New Jerusalem. The Lord Himself is the Temple of all people who dwell in the Heavenly City. This is the word of God.

There is also no temple on earth now, because the earthly Jerusalem Temple described in the Scriptures was destroyed. The churches of God, which are everywhere, are places where the Eucharist is celebrated. The Lord is present with His Body and Blood on the altars of the churches in the Holy Gifts and is present in the believers. The believers are the temples of God, but the temple, as such, no longer exists, and will never exist until the end of history. The Jerusalem Temple was destroyed and cannot be restored.

The Gospel of Bright Friday tells the story of how the Lord Jesus came to the Temple in Jerusalem and drove out the merchants from there (John 2:12-22).

In His Earthly Life, the Lord did many things. The Evangelist John himself writes that all the books in the world would not be enough to describe everything He did. This means that only the most important and exclusive was written down.

Jesus himself prophesied that the Temple would be destroyed. Moreover, by the time the Gospel text was finally compiled, the Temple had most likely already been destroyed by the Romans. Why was this written? Why was the story of the expulsion of traders from the Temple recorded?

Many commentators and preachers interpreted this to mean that trade should not be conducted in Christian churches. For example, that church shops should not be placed in the temple. There should be no disorder or unnecessary talk in holy places. There are many such interpretations. Those who love the Church of Christ understand this as a warning. Those who are critical of it accused the clergy of abusing trade in sacred places. This is the level of popular piety, or polemics. One needs to move to the level of theology.

The Temple of God in the biblical sense is also the entirety of creation. The Temple of God is the planet of people. As the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944) called his work, whose surname bears the name of the ancient Father of the Church and Bishop of Toulouse of the 4th century, Saint Exuperius. The Temple of God is our world.

“There is no salvation outside the Church,” the Holy Fathers said following Saint Cyprian of Carthage. The most beautiful, the most dignified and expensive buildings, built over centuries and the most durable and long-lasting architectural masterpieces were Christian churches and cathedrals.

The cities and villages of the surrounding regions are evidence of this. How amazing it is to look at these wonderful works of such praise to God. In our times, as a rule, even if they look ancient and traditional on the outside, churches are by no means the most expensive of what is usually built.

Nowadays, the most beautiful buildings are banks, if you don’t count stadiums. “There is no salvation outside the market” - this is the new axiom. Man has been turned into an economic unit. Total economization of humanity is taking place. Theology is probably silent about this, but our great contemporary Giorgio Agamben and other thinkers and philosophers speak about it. Man’s salvation, his religiosity, is a personal matter. Man is interesting only as an economic unit that serves as a source of income. Buy, sell, and be sold.

At the level of global ideological tectonics, this manifests itself in such a way that in countries where the construction sector of the economy is thriving, family values ​​are proclaimed. After all, a family needs its own apartment, and a lonely person can live anywhere. “To love, you need a home,” sang our contemporary Yegor Letov.

In the same places where the institution of the family has eroded, and the production of technical industry and trade are going well, individualism and the absence of family forms of community life are “preached”. Because if a person lives alone, she or he needs his own car, his own refrigerator or washing machine, and much, much more. There is no salvation outside the market. The transformation of man into a part of the economy is proceeding at a rapid pace.

The Lord is the Master of the Universe. If there is no repentance, no stop, and no change for the better, everything will be swept away. The merchants will be expelled from the temple of creation.

This is already happening. People, all together, in groups and communities, as well as individually, are losing everything in the blink of an eye. Well-being, peace, and the usual course of things are rapidly disappearing. A new era is coming.

The recent pandemic was evidence of this, when people suddenly lost the most precious thing: freedom, the right to move, lost several years of their lives. Many lost their physical and mental health, countries lost medicine and health care, because it was suddenly rebuilt to the needs of one single disease. Now this continues. All over the world, unrest and conflicts are breaking out, and more and more wars are brewing.

The Lord does not create or provoke conflicts and troubles with His own hands. “For the Hands of God are the Son of God and the Holy Spirit,” as Saint Irenaeus of Lyons wrote. They are gracious and beneficial.

But God’s providence, His invisible and, at the same time, visible will administers this world. This time, divine, not human economy, His Economy, governs the world, prepares the Throne of God before the end of History.

“Myriads of Angels and thousands of archangels” is described in the Eucharistic prayer of the liturgy. Angels are God’s bureaucrats. They carry out His will. According to the Bible, they even can carry out executions. God’s judgment begins with the Church, and if Christians do not show an example of how to live correctly, everything will be swept away, just as the Lord drove out the merchants of the Temple.

On Bright Friday, the Church remembers the Life-Giving Spring. This was a great shrine in Constantinople, from which, in the name of the Theotokos, people drew healing.

After the conquest of the City by the Ottomans in 1453, the Life-Giving Spring and the church near it were destroyed. It was restored only in the 19th century, most likely, through the efforts and intercession of the European powers, which then, as best they could, tried to help the Christians of the East and influence the policy that the Ottoman rulers carried out in the name of Islam. The Orthodox Church remembers this shrine and event on Bright Friday.

The Apocalypse is now. It is near. But these are not the terrible pictures of the artist’s imagination, but the Judgment of God, beginning in the Temple of His Creation. The Church, as a Society of Believers, righteous and sinners, stands before God on Easter days and asks not to subject it to the fate of traders on the planet of people for the sake of the Resurrection of the Only Begotten Son of God. Christ is Risen!