The sacrificial love of Christ. Sacrifice (Sacrificial love)

According to the story by N.S. Leskov "Non-lethal Golovan"

"What you have done to one of these little ones, you have done to Me."
(Matthew 25:40-45)

Golovan was given the nickname "non-lethal" due to the general belief that Golovan is a special person, a person who is not afraid of death. He was of enormous stature, swarthy, round-faced. blue eyes, with trimmed hair, mustache and beard. A calm and happy smile always lit up his face, played on his lips and in his intelligent kind eyes. Golovan always walked very quickly, as if in a hurry, but not evenly, but bouncing from his left foot. This was a mystery that could not be explained immediately.

Golovan lived in a huge shed, presented to him for some kind of service, which he was a great hunter and master. Golovan's sisters and his mother lived in one half of the shed, and in the other there were stalls for cows. There were chickens in the attic. Golovan himself slept winter and summer in a stall, near the bull, not afraid of the cold. With the dawn, he drove his herd into the dew, choosing the best grass on the banks of the river. Milk and cream, which Golovan supplied to the inhabitants of the city, were famous for their qualities.

Often, when Golovan sat by the fence and watched the cows, both adults and children approached him, to whom he told many sacred stories. Simple people often turned to Golovan for advice. Most often they came with questions about family troubles or disorder in the household.

Golovan listens and smiles, and then looks at his interlocutor and answers:

- I, brother, a bad adviser! Call on God for advice.

- How will you call him?

– Oh, brother, it’s very simple: pray and do it as if you need to die right now. Tell me, how would you do it then?

The interlocutor will answer, and Golovan will say:

- And I would, brother, dying, that's how I did it better.

And he will tell, as usual, cheerfully, with his usual smile.

His advice must have been very good, because they were always listened to and later thanked very much for them.

The reason for calling Golovan "non-lethal" was the following event. In the city of Orel and its environs, a devastating epidemic began, nicknamed by the people “pimple”. A person had abscesses, fever, the sick died quickly, weakened and fell asleep forever. But before last minute The patient was tormented by terrible thirst. To give water to the dying - this was care, but he was absent. The one who gave drink to the sick soon fell ill himself. At home, two or three dead lay side by side. The last tenant placed a bucket of water at his head and scooped it up until his hand was raised, then sucked a wet rag to death.

In such sad moments of the common disaster, the Lord nominated a fearless and selfless hero from the people - Golovan. He fearlessly entered the plague-ridden shacks and gave the infected not only water to drink, but milk as well. The nearest endangered village was located across the river, and Golovan did not have a boat. He removed the shed gates from their hinges and in the morning before dawn crossed them to the other side, went from hut to hut to moisten the dried mouths of the dying, to give water to those who were no longer able to raise their heads.

If the last member of the family died, Golovan closed the door, putting a cross on it with chalk as a sign that all the inhabitants of the house had already died.

Golovan's deadly ulcer did not concern him - neither his cattle, nor his domestic ones - no one fell ill. Since then, everyone has learned about the hitherto little-known Golovan and he became a legendary local hero, since, according to the common people, he “destroyed the ulcer itself, not sparing his warm blood for the people.” Everyone believed that he had a secret that helped him not get sick.

A certain shepherd Panka shed light on this secret. The people turned her into a legend.

In the morning, before dawn, Panka drove his cows to the river bank. It was still very cold, so Panka wrapped himself up in his holey clothes, lay down and fell asleep, when it suddenly seemed to him that someone on the opposite side of the river was descending from the steep. So a man went down to the river, stood on the water and went. He walks as if on dry land, only props himself up with a crutch. At first, Panka was taken aback. It was beginning to get light, and Panka wanted to go up to the very water through which the mysterious man had just passed. Panka came up and saw a wet gate and a pole. The matter turned out: it means that the non-lethal Golovan was floating, standing on the gate. “That's right, he went to some orphaned children to drink milk, because he always has bottles of drink in his bosom,” Panka decided.

And he wanted to ride on the gate himself. He took a pole, and swam across to the side where Golovanov's shed stands, went ashore, and walked around. Suddenly he hears Golovan shouting from the other side: “Hey, who stole my gate? Come back!”

Panka was a coward and hid in a hole. Then Golovan threw off his clothes, tied them up, put them on his head and swam, even though the water was very cold. He swam across the river, started to get dressed, but suddenly looked under his left knee and stopped. It was already light, a guy with a scythe appeared in the distance. Golovan loudly shouted to him:

- Darling, give me a scythe!

The guy gave him a scythe. Then Golovan, pulling the caviar at his leg with one hand, in an instant cut off a large piece of meat from it and threw the meat into the river.

Golovan pressed his wound with both hands and fell. Panka, forgetting his fear, ran up, took Golovan together with the guy, and they dragged him into the hut. Here Golovan ordered to twist the wound as tightly as possible with a towel so that the blood would stop running. Golovan asked to put a bucket of water near him, and Panke ordered not to tell anyone about what he saw.

The men left, shaking with horror, and told everyone everything. And the peasants who heard the story immediately folded popular belief: “Golovan did this for a reason. He, having suffered in soul for people, sacrificed a piece of his body, thereby suffering for everyone. And he himself will not die, because, apparently, he has a “living stone”, from which he is a “non-lethal” person. (In the Gospel there are such words: “The rock is Christ”, - Ed.)

This act was explained very simply: having seen a plague abscess on his leg, Golovan quickly cut it off along with the leg muscle, which is why he always limped later.

Golovan was a deeply religious person. He often went to the cathedral to Father Peter for confession and asked the priest: “Shame on me, father, I don’t like myself very much.” “His conscience is whiter than snow,” said Father Peter, who understood and loved Golovan.

A righteous and selfless man was Golovan. While his life was surrounded by legendary fiction, everything seemed incredible, and when they learned about his deed for certain, his holy simplicity became clear. The Perfect Love that animated him placed him above his fears and even subordinated nature to him.

sacrifice ( sacrificial love) as a personality trait - the ability to selflessly share love, consciously and voluntarily take on the karma of a loved one, responsibility for his fate, and burn his bad karma in the crucible of his love, receiving unspeakable happiness from this.

There was a sick girl in the hospital. She was very sick. The only thing that could save her life was a blood transfusion from her little brother. After explaining the blood transfusion procedure, the doctor asked the boy if he was willing to give his blood to his sister. The kid turned pale at first, looked at his mother in indecision, but then nodded his head in the affirmative and said: - Yes, I agree, I love Lisa very much, if it saves her, I agree.

During the blood transfusion, he lay on a bunk placed next to Lisa's bed. From time to time he turned his face to her and smiled. Then his expression changed, he looked at the doctor standing next to him and asked: - When will I start dying? - Die? the doctor was surprised. - You won't die. We'll just give Lisa some of your blood.

The kid breathed a sigh of relief and smiled broadly. The poor boy thought that all his blood would be transfused to Lisa. And he agreed to it! He sacrificed his life to save the life of his beloved sister.

Love involves sacrifice. Her very first example is the unconditional, sacrificial love of a mother for a child, when she puts his well-being in the first place. Sacrificial love is a selfless desire to serve the object of love.

One day, two women came to court Solomon, who was known for his wisdom. They lived in the same house and were neighbors. Both recently had a baby. Last night, one of them crushed her baby and put it next to another woman, and took the living one from her. In the morning, the women began to argue, each arguing that the living child was hers, and the dead one was her neighbor. They also argued before the king. After listening to them, Solomon ordered to bring the sword. The sword was immediately brought. Without a moment's hesitation, King Solomon said: - Let both be satisfied. Cut a living child in half and give each half of the baby. One of the women, hearing his words, changed her face and begged: - Give the child to my neighbor, she is his mother, just don't kill him! The other, on the contrary, agreed with the decision of the king. “Cut it down so that neither she nor I get it,” she said decisively. Immediately, King Solomon said: - Do not kill the child, but give it to the first woman: she is his real mother.

Solomon's decision was the result of a test for truthfulness, the power of a disinterested and unconditional maternal love, sacrifice and self-denial.

Sacrifice is a virtue that consists in self-denial for the sake of fulfilling the commandments of love for God and neighbor. higher forms sacrifices are martyrdom and death.

True sacrifice is always based not just on a sense of duty, but on love. “If I give away all my possessions ... and have no love, it does not profit me at all” (1 Cor. 13:3).

Saint Nicholas of Serbia said: “Every virtue gives rise to sacrifice. Perfect virtue breeds complete self-denial. The highest virtue - love - gives rise to perfect self-denial.

What is sacrificial love? In readiness to share love and, thereby, to take responsibility for a loved one in the form of sharing his karma. That is, when taking responsibility, karma arises. Eg, loving wife takes on the karma of her husband, respectively loving husband sacrifices himself, accepting and sharing his wife's karma. Neither he nor she knows what the other's karma is, but voluntarily "subscribe" to it.

Acceptance of someone else's karma is worth a lot, in fact, this is the level of a feat, since another can have very bad karma, that is, an unenviable fate. But only loving person ready for it all. Even without knowing about this philosophy, the lover really feels how he takes karma in the form of responsibility. And this heroic deed purifies him and makes him happy.

Philosopher Vyacheslav Ruzov asks a question: - And how can such a person live, who, loving, takes on the karma of another person, how is he not dead yet, and why is he so happy and inspired to take on even more karma? And now we'll find out main secret. If one who shares karma with another does it with love, then God burns this karma, and this fire turns into happiness. This - great secret sacrificial love.

When we, loving, take on the karma of a loved one, it burns in the fire of our sacrifice and turns into the happiness of a person who has given himself to the service of a loved one. And this happiness is one of the highest in the material world. The one who has experienced it can no longer get joy from anything else.

But remember the other side of this science: if we sacrifice with irritation, with unwillingness, with insults, with envy, with greed or lust, then the karma we have taken upon ourselves will not burn out, but will turn into poison and poison our soul, turning our heart into stone. The one who sacrifices with love becomes happy, and the one who sacrifices with hatred becomes an unhappy person.

In a word, sacrificial love shows the ability to share love, that is, to take responsibility for a loved one by sharing his karma, his fate with him; the ability to reach the heights of happiness through the ability to share your love with others.

The philosopher Plato was right when he said: "Trying about the happiness of others, we find our own."

Petr Kovalev

Love - what can be in that word?
Just the letters in the word, that's all.
And think a little, how much there is native,
And how much tenderness for your heart!

A child is born and immediately - the same love,
It grows, and mothers do not have a soul in it.
They lead by the hands, they are inseparable from him,
Babies give love to parents.

Time passes, got married or got married,
They gave birth to their children, took them to school ...
With love in her heart, a mother is proud of her children,
And he loves grandchildren, children gave birth to happiness ...

Don't love to live...

Love goes where it is expected.
Love goes to those who believe in it.
Larisa Chugunova

Love goes where it's expected.
Love goes to those who believe.
Who is ready to give shelter to the feeling
And he will open the door to the soul.

Love is not a fairy tale, not a game
And it doesn't happen on purpose.
Sometimes fragile, sometimes small
And took up a bit of space.

But still can't stand lies
And selfishness and cynicism.
Love is both truth and life.
Beautiful and uncompromising.

Love has no name
It was not given to her.
But between, between the two
It will come up anyway.

Love has no age
And has no time limit.
But with love, everyone is simple
Will not be alone.

Love has no home
And she has no enemies.
But everyone knows
From infancy.

Though there is no flesh, skin in it,
But death is not terrible with her.
I know what it's like
We all need her.

Love is like a white dove
It has two large wings.
If there is no love, you do it,
To live in every heart.

Love is wonderful and boundless
Like a white feather.
You will be touched very gently
And bring you good.

Love, love, she's like a bird
Like a flock of free pigeons.
Will be able to settle in consciousness
And become your protection.

Love seems to have nothing to do with
this also happens.
And the heart beats hot
and life is torn apart...

But there is one premonition
that he will certainly meet the prince.
No matter how you twist it, it's all the same -
as you can see, it shines to become a princess.

Perhaps he was tempted
and its color is not touched by anyone.
The issue of marriage was resolved
in love, it seemed - both are drowning.

The people are celebrating -
the bride is beautiful.
The prince leads her down the aisle,
she is destined to do so.

And here is the legal wife,
maybe...

I know how to create "Love"
Without superfluous and unnecessary words.

Let's take two liters of respect
Add a spoonful of admiration
A pinch of jealousy - for laughter
Three hundred grams of happiness and success,
Let's add sacrificial grams
And the nobility of a kilogram.
Doubt at the end of a knife...

Come up with a shape for the cake.

In the filling: fidelity kilo
And understanding at the same time.
Trust for a couple of spoons
We will add coquetry too.
Lubricate the whole form with revelation,
Sprinkle everything on top with patience ...

The product is ready for baking
On the...

My love, thank you for the Surprise!
Didn't expect to be reborn
What will come, that I, under the rhymes of the host,
I will fall before her, of course, prostrate ...
And, sounding, with the spring song of birds,
Flowers I will hear the smell of honey,
Herbs and thunderstorms, ozone unbearable cry,
From the nightingales, a newly appeared speech,
I will be struck in the midnight embrace ...

I came out, as if from a doomed coma,
Opening your eyes, feeling the meaning of life,
Rhymed with a meaningful line,
The phenomenon of return, from the underworld,
Singing of Nature harmonious Peace!

Let me tell you two stories that I think will bring us closer to understanding the deepest human desires. The only thing that unites these stories is the tragedy of the situations described in them.

The first story is the story of a song written by American singer Harry Chapin. The song is called "Kittens in the Cradle". It talks about a very busy person who has a son. Weekend work, urgent business trips, unpaid bills - all this does not allow the father to see his son often enough, and then this happens on the run. Ten, fifteen years pass, nothing changes. Another promise to spend the weekend with the family remains unfulfilled. Meanwhile, the boy, who has already become a teenager, never ceases to admire his father and certainly wants to be "like him." Another ten or fifteen years pass, the father retires, calls his son: “Come to me, sit down, talk ...” “I would be glad,” the son answers, “but because of this new job there is not a second of time, and besides, the children got the flu. We will definitely meet - but some other time. Hanging up, the father suddenly realizes: but the dream of his son has come true: he really became like his father!

It can be said that the lines of this song turned out to be prophetic for Chapin. Once, in response to his wife's request to slow down the frantic pace of life and spend some time with his family, the singer promised: "At the end of summer, I will definitely find a few days to be with you." But, alas, Chapin did not have time to fulfill his intention: that same summer he died in a car accident.

Reflecting on the sad story of the singer's life and death, you involuntarily think: here is an example of how you can believe in certain principles, but not follow them in your own life. The way the singer treated his family evokes a feeling of inner protest. The conclusion suggests itself: as soon as a person pursues worldly glory, he goes beyond the framework of relationships with other people established by God.

The second story, or better to say, a parable, has a touch of oriental melodrama, however, it seems to me, it perfectly conveys to the listener one important truth.

The hero of the parable, a young Indian peasant, fell in love with a girl from a neighboring village. His feeling was genuine, and he wanted to marry the girl, but she did not feel any affection for him. Worse than that, the girl decided to take advantage of the young man's feelings for fun - she came up with a game in which he had to provide her with more and more evidence of his love.

In the end, having exhausted her reserve of imagination, she decided on a crazy step. “If you truly love me,” she said, “then you must prove that I completely own your heart. To do this, you need to kill your mother and bring me her heart as proof of my victory over her love. Hearing such a condition, the young man was horrified and for several weeks was completely confused, not knowing what to do. Finally, unable to bear the separation from his beloved any longer, in a kind of frenzy he killed his mother and cut out her heart. Grabbing it, he ran to his beloved, driven by guilt and an unbearable desire to provide the final proof of his devotion. The road to the neighboring village lay through a dense forest and, running through it, the young man stumbled and dropped his heart, which he convulsively squeezed in his hand. Having somehow found it in the grass, he got up to run further, and suddenly he heard a voice coming from the heart that he held in his hand: “Son, are you hurt? Are you hurt?

The meaning of this parable is obvious: maternal love, which causes admiration, is inherent in sacrifice, it embodies the triumph of the spirit over the flesh. Let us ask ourselves: can such great love be a derivative of matter, obviously devoid of meaning and moral orientation? Hardly. Then let us assume that it has its source in God. And in this case, love is God's gift to man. Our very ability to understand love comes from God, as does the inherent sacrifice of love. The Bible confirms this: God is love, and He testified to this by His greatest Sacrifice.

Dr. Stanley Jones, an illustrious missionary who preached in India and was respected by Mahatma Gandhi himself, loved to tell the story of an Indian official who could not understand the meaning of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, and therefore could not understand God's love for man. The conversations that Dr. Jones had with him were deadlocked because of this.

And then one day this official cheated on his wife. His conscience began to torment him, and the longer he hid what he had done from his wife, the stronger his mental anguish became. Finally, unable to endure any more remorse, he confessed everything to his devoted wife. Days of mental anguish gave way to days of anxious expectation: will he forgive or not? After some time, when the first shock of the confession had passed, the wife forgave him and promised to love her husband just as devotedly as before.

And at that moment it seemed to dawn on the official: “Now I understand what sacrificial love means!” he muttered. Kneeling down, he prayed to the Lord, and rising, he warmly embraced his wife.

O relentless love!
In you with a weary soul
I rest again and again.
And I'm off to fight again!

Love has its own laws. To paraphrase a well-known saying, we can say that love requires sacrifice. In this case, none other than the Sacrifice of Christ becomes the true measure of love. It calls us to follow Him and responds to the deep need of the human heart to love and be loved. In His sacrificial love, human existence acquires meaning.

Concepts of love in different religions different, sometimes quite unexpected. The founder of Buddhism, for example, considered it necessary to leave his wife and children in order to find peace of mind. Hindu love in our understanding is more like pity. In Islam, love is adequate to submit to a compassionate God. Only within the framework of Christianity, love is understood as a form of human relationship with the Almighty, enriching believers, filling their earthly love with strength and meaning.

D. Lawrence was right in arguing that the deepest human need cannot be fully satisfied within the framework of earthly love. There is also the need to worship God "in spirit and in truth." Without God, man is doomed to loneliness: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly,” Jesus said (John 10:10). The believer in Christ is delivered from loneliness, for the hunger of his heart is completely satisfied.

If we agree that love creates meaning, we must also recognize that its absence contributes to the loss of meaning in life. Jean Paul Sartre once said that hell is other people, meaning that hell is disagreement with his personal views. On the other hand, F. M. Dostoevsky, through the mouth of one of his characters, proclaimed: “Hell must be the inability to love.” I agree more with the second opinion. In this case, we have to admit that modern Western society is gradually approaching a hellish state. We no longer perceive selfishness as a deviation from the norm, our family foundations are shattered to the limit and are about to finally collapse. If we, as a civilization that once professed Christian morality, do not come to our senses, we will face complete and final degradation. Uncontrolled violence awaits us as the logical conclusion of the irrational path we continue to follow. You can be saved only by being filled with God's love, revealed in Christ Jesus and available to everyone who believes in Him.

Rabbi Zacharias. "Can a person live without God?". Per. from English. - St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Christian Educational Society "Credo", 1999. -240 p.