“And the kings of the earth shall bewail her, and lament for her”
For her sins have reached unto Heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities (Rev. 18:5). The sins of this harlot (of this city, this setting) have reached unto Heaven, and the Lord has remembered her iniquities.
Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double (Rev. 18:6). Here he begins to speak about her reward.
How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God Who judgeth her. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men (Rev. 18:7–13). They traded in all these things.
The Fall of Babylon, fresco at Zographou Monastery, 1840s
And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all (Rev. 18:14). You see how perishable and futile all this is, and how impossible it is for someone to find solace in it. Woe to the man who comforts himself with all this, who comforts his soul with such things.
The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, And saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! (Rev. 18:15–16). In one hour, all this vast wealth vanished; nothing remained of it.
For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! (Rev. 18:17–18). All sailors and all those sailing at sea stood a ways off, watching the smoke from the fire. They started shouting: “Has there ever been such a city?” You see, huge destruction is described here: All the riches of this city, its boundless and untold luxury, is destroyed in a single hour (in a very short time). It all burns down, all of it disappears and presents an amazing sight to the whole world. Then what happens?
And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate (Rev. 18:19). Do you know that human affairs, our daily affairs, bear the stamp of the temporal and transitory? All this passes, and they disappear every moment. They’re not eternal; they don’t stick around. Whatever you have, whoever you are, wherever you are, all this can come crumbling down in an instant, which is why the human soul can’t be comforted by temporary, human, perishable, transitory things. If a man allows himself to be comforted by this in some way, then his soul will by itself be filled with various fears, with a sense of a loss of security, with anxiety and stress, because it will sense that where it is now is unsafe. It’s like you’re sitting in a beautiful armchair that is, however, inflated with air. It’s beautiful, comfortable, golden—whatever you can imagine, like thrones at a carnival. I haven’t seen them myself, but I’m picturing what they must be like. And on it sits the carnival king, thinking he’s a real king. And then—a little pin, “pop,” and everything comes crashing down, and the king comes crashing down. That’s what all human things are like. And not simply the human things in our personal lives.
Look at what’s happened with this economic crisis. How many days have passed? Every day we hear: “One bank has closed, another has closed, five banks tomorrow, and ten the day after that.” The whole world is gripped by an economic crisis. We’re all in a position where no one knows whether he exists or not, whether he’s coming or going, what’s happening at all. In the span of five to ten days, the entire picture of the world changed. And even more so in our personal lives. Sit and have fun, eat and drink and be merry—but do you really think these things will comfort you? No way. If your soul wants to find comfort in these things, it’ll have to live in fear that at any moment it’ll all disappear. You sit down on an inflatable throne—beautiful, yes—but in time it’ll deflate. You sit there trembling: “Will it deflate now? Soon? Am I about to hit the ground?”
Our sins are a disgrace to our soul
Rejoice over her, thou Heaven, and ye holy Apostles and Prophets; for God hath avenged you on her (Rev. 18:20). It wasn’t God Who punished them, but their deeds. Our sinful deeds punish us. The wrongs we commit come up behind us and find us—our own wrongdoing, above all. We must know that whoever acts unjustly toward another will pay very dearly for that injustice. You know, it’s better when we commit sins of the flesh (of course, all sins are bad, are death for the soul), but injustice is a great evil. Whoever offends another, whoever is himself unjust, will find all of it waiting for him; it will all come back to him. He’ll pay for everything down to the last penny. Nothing will slip by unnoticed. And all other sins are also a form of injustice, because through them we offend our own soul—we act unjustly toward ourselves.
When we sin, when we wallow in sins, we’re essentially insulting our eternal existence; we wrong our eternal soul. But injustice towards our neighbor contains great difficulties, which is why the Apostle says here: “Rejoice, all saints and Apostles,” because all the saints, Prophets, and Apostles suffered, died, were unjustly wronged, exiled, tortured in this city (in these conditions, in this system of sins and evil); but we know from their lives that a man who offends his brother will pay for it exactly, and many times over. Perhaps not in the same way that you offended someone, but there are many other ways, often even worse.
—Here, or in the other world?
Does it matter for us? You remind me of an old man who once asked Elder Paisios: “Geronda, will the Second Coming take place in the day or at night?”
“Why are you asking that? Does it matter?”
“I’d like it to happen in the daytime so I can see where certain hypocrites will go.”
“Don’t worry, if it happens at night, take a flashlight and you’ll be able to see.”
The peace of forgiveness contains a mystery
You know, we’ve all offended our brothers; there’s no one who hasn’t. We might think we’re not doing anything wrong (ask the most avid embezzler, loan shark, or other fiends). Our conscience says: “You don’t do anything like that.” And not only haven’t you done anything wrong, but you also do much good. You can drink someone else’s blood while thinking you’re not doing anything wrong. And you might think you don’t offend anyone. But that’s just what you think. Meanwhile, you’ve traumatized your brother’s soul and conscience, although you didn’t even notice. You might not even realize it. It doesn’t have to mean taking bread from your neighbor. With a single word, a single glance, a single smile, a single gesture, you can kill your neighbor. You can kill without a word. It would be better to talk to him at length than to treat him the way you do. And we can do all of this without realizing what we’re doing.
But if we think we don’t offend anyone, then we’re definitely offending our own soul: Our sins are a disgrace to our soul. We’ve insulted our eternal, immortal soul that God gave us as a precious gift to preserve for eternity. Let us pray to pay for it in this life and be cleansed of it a little. Otherwise, if we take everything with us, we won’t be able to get inside. Is there no salvation for us? We hope in the Sacrifice of Christ, the Blood of Christ. Whoever is humble and repents has hope of salvation.
And I’ll say one more thing. Everyone used to go to funerals in order to bid farewell to and forgive the deceased. They would say: “May God forgive you.” That’s what they did in villages. And at monastic funerals, when one of the monks dies and we’re going to bury him, before putting his body in the grave, the abbot reads a text on behalf of the deceased monk, saying: “Brothers and fathers! Perhaps, as a man living with you for so many years, I may have offended and upset one of you, whether in knowledge or in ignorance, intentionally or unintentionally, so I ask you to forgive me.” And the abbot says: “Let us all say together: May God forgive and have mercy upon him.” And they all say with one voice: “May God forgive and have mercy upon him.”
And it used to be in the villages, when people knew about each other, when they found out someone was dying, they’d try to go see him and bring those who had a grudge against him to forgive each other. There’s another village tradition—everyone throws a handful of dirt when they bury someone, saying: “May God forgive you.” Not in a bad sense, but it’s not only the person who died who has sinned, but also those who don’t forgive their brother, who say: “I don’t forgive him! Let him go burn in hell. Even if I’m in the next cauldron over, I’ll rejoice seeing him suffer. That will be my greatest consolation.” That’s bad. No matter what happens, let us forgive our neighbors so God will forgive us.
Sometimes resentment starts suffocating us and we start complaining: “He offended me; he did this and that to me; I’m suffering but he’s doing great, and so on. Let him suffer too—it serves him right!” It’s not pretty. Let him justly suffer for what he’s done, but let us forgive him, for we may live far worse lives than he does. He’s enduring punishment, and his soul might be softened by suffering. And he starts saying: “My God, forgive me!” He repents and he’s saved. But if we don’t forgive him, we become worse than him, and there’s no forgiveness for us.
If we don’t forgive our brother, then God won’t be able to forgive us. That’s a dogma. Christ spoke about this in the Gospel: Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors (Mt. 6:12). If we don’t forgive, then God won’t forgive. Let’s not be fooled. If we have complaints about someone (as people, we have complaints against each other of course; we hurt each other; the years pass, and we can be really badly offended, stabbed in the back, and it’s very hard to forgive), we must learn to forgive everyone, otherwise it’s impossible. Sometimes it’s hard even just to pronounce the words.
I’ve been at funerals where the relatives of the deceased then come up to confess, saying: “You know, I still have complaints about my mother-in-law, my mother, my sister, my sister-in-law… I can’t fully forgive them.” Or they say: “Father, she’s dead now, may God forgive her. But I still have something against her.” I say: “Okay, but forgive her.” “I can’t.” “At least say with your mouth: ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, forgive Your servant.’” He doesn’t say it; he doesn’t want to say it. Even if the heart is silent, let the lips at least say it. Right? At least something. Gradually, it will touch your heart. Just like the word “forgive.”
You’ve done something, but go and ask forgiveness for the evil you’ve done. “How can I, when everything’s boiling inside me?” Just say it with your mouth; ask forgiveness. Slowly, you’ll take the next step too. If you don’t overcome the first step, you won’t be able to take the next one. Say: “Lord, forgive this man. Forgive this woman. Forgive this man who’s ruined everything in my life, who traumatized me. Put it into words and forgive yourself three, five, ten times a day.” Gradually, baby step-by-baby step, your heart will soften. But if you hold onto resentment and return to it in your mind, what will this lead to?
It’s like a generator: The more you turn it, the more energy it produces. You burn yourself and others. But the peace of forgiveness contains a mystery. If you cultivate bad thoughts about your neighbor, then he also becomes worse in some mysterious way. Satan comes and ruins everything. But when you struggle to forgive, to let go and love your neighbor—even after a great temptation has arisen between you—it’s as though you cut the connection between communicating vessels, so the poison can’t flow from one into the other to poison and destroy you. This is so important for us: to learn to forgive people and to pray for those who wrong us.
Let us pray for those who torment us, tempt us, who hurt us, who don’t want us, who can’t stand us, who hate us, who get an upset stomach from the very sight of us. That way we’ll help them and free ourselves. But if we keep churning all of this around inside ourselves, it only gets worse for everyone. It becomes a demonic mill, a mill of Satan, where we’ll all end up ground to pieces. Let’s try to settle accounts for our wrongdoings here and leave this world cleansed. Otherwise, if we leave it uncleansed, we’ll be separated from God forever, dwelling in absolute misery and pain.
To be continued…
