September: Day 7: Teaching 1:
Holy Martyr Sozon
(Why Do Sinners Often Prosper, While the Righteous Suffer on Earth?)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
(Why Do Sinners Often Prosper, While the Righteous Suffer on Earth?)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. The Holy Martyr Sozon, whose memory is celebrated today, lived in Cilicia and was a shepherd. But even his occupation as a shepherd did not prevent him from practicing the reading of the Holy Scriptures both day and night. He loved to enlighten others with the light of the knowledge of God, especially the youths, his fellow-laborers. Once, having come to the seaside city of Pompeiopolis, in ancient times Soli, he, in a fit of zeal for the faith of Christ, could not bear the mockery of it at the sight of a solemn celebration in honor of the pagan gods, in which the ruler of the city forced Christians to participate. Having entered at night in a holy fit for the faith of Christ into a pagan temple where there stood a revered golden idol in the form of a man, he took away its hand, broke it into pieces and gave it to the poor.
The whole city was thrown into confusion when they learned of the missing hand of the idol. Saint Sozon came to the ruler and declared that he had taken the hand from the idol and had done so in order to learn the power of their god. "Now I have learned that your god is powerless. And how can he, dumb and soulless, resist? If he were alive and true, he would not have allowed himself to be insulted," said Sozon. Then the ruler ordered him to be tortured without mercy, and he was beaten so severely with iron rods that not only his body but also his bones were crushed, and he died (around 300). The torturers wanted to burn the body of Saint Sozon, but God sent rain that put out the flames. Christians buried the body of the Saint. Many healings took place at his tomb.
II. Reading the life of the Holy Martyr Sozon, who walked in the paths of God's commandments and was zealous for the glory of God, hearing about the lives of other holy saints of God, who, with all their holiness and piety, were often mocked, humiliated, suffered various kinds of misfortunes, sufferings and often ended their righteous lives with a martyr's death, the question involuntarily comes to mind: How does the Righteous One not punish and destroy immediately all unrighteousness and lawlessness? How does the almighty Head of the Church tolerate the mockery and humiliation of His members, subjecting them to the temptations and sins of an adulterous and sinful generation? Lord, how is it that since the way of the wicked is made easy, all who practice lawlessness are satisfied?
This most profound mystery of God's long-suffering is not fully understood, my brethren, even by the most holy angels. Indignant at the malice and sins of men, they ask the Lord for permission to destroy the wicked who offend the majesty and holiness of God with their evil deeds - they ask to pluck out these tares from among the living: "Do you want us then to go and gather them up?" But the most merciful and long-suffering Lord says to them: "No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them" (Matt. 13:28, 30). However, the word of God reveals to us, brethren, a certain part of this mystery of God's long-suffering toward the wicked, as much as we need to know in order to stand firm in faith and piety, not to be tempted by the imaginary triumph of sinners, not to become despondent and not to lose heart amid temptations and trials.
a) The Lord God is long-suffering and merciful to wicked sinners because they too are the work of God's hands, and they have a rational and God-like soul, which is more precious than the whole world - because for all fallen men His greatest, all-holy sacrifice was brought to justice - the death on the cross of the only-begotten Son of God, for all sinners the divine blood of the spotless and most pure Lamb of Christ was shed. Therefore, the very truth of God no longer requires the death of the sinner, but that the wicked turn from his way and live for him. Therefore, the Lord spares both each person and entire nations, until all hope and all possibility of their conversion and repentance are exhausted, until they become hardened in the end and become fit only for the fire of Gehenna.
b) The Lord is long-suffering and spares sinners in this temporal life because this life is only a short time of trial, while the true life is in heaven, and He has all eternity to settle accounts with people, so that the rewards and punishments of the future life are endless. Therefore, justice itself requires us to expect that the saint may become holy again, and that the righteous may do righteousness even amidst all the temptations and trials of the world, so that he may be purified like gold in a furnace, so that he may appear worthy of that highest glory by which the righteous will be illuminated in the kingdom of their Father; on the other hand, to endure that the offender may offend again, and that the filthy may be defiled even in this world, so that he may be worthy of that eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels.
c) The Lord is long-suffering and allows sinners to be blessed on earth so that each of them may receive all his good in his life for that little good which even an ungodly man does, from time to time, to people, so that in eternity only evil will remain for him - condemnation and torment. On the other hand, he allows the righteous to suffer in this world because no one is pure from filth, even for one day of his life on earth; that by these sufferings all their voluntary and involuntary sins are cleansed and blotted out, for even a righteous man falls seven times a day, according to the word of Scripture.
d) But this unsearchable long-suffering of God cannot and should not give cause for carelessness to the sinners blessed on earth, nor cast into despondency the suffering righteous. The time of harvest will come, "and the Lord will send His angels, and they will gather out of the kingdom of God all offenses and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into a furnace of fire, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth; then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matt. 13:41, 42, 43). Then, my brethren, will all the glory of the sons of God be revealed, and all the shame of the wicked. Then will heaven and earth see that the whole world was not worthy of a righteous man mocked, despised, given over to torture and death; that the fate of a sinner, no matter how great he may be and how blessed he may be on earth, is terrible! Then the King will say to those on His right hand: "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matt. 25:34). Then the King will say also to those on His left hand: "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41).
III. Such, my brethren, is the end of the righteous and sinners; such is the final resolution of the mystery of the present long-suffering of God; such is the triumph of the eternal righteousness and truth of God! Let us not be troubled in spirit, beholding the world of sinners, seeing the wicked exalted and towering up like the cedars of Lebanon, and the godly in humiliation and contempt, in persecution and suffering. "Behold, I come quickly, says the Lord, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to his works. But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved" (Rev. 22:12; Mt. 24:13). Amen.
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
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