And the Lord, seeing them and hearing their weeping, opened His mouth, which had been silent for a long time, and said to them: "Daughters of Jerusalem! Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are coming in which they will say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not begotten, and the breasts that have not nourished. Then they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do this with a verdant tree; then what will happen to dry?" (Luke 23:28-31).

With the verdant tree, full of life, with the Bearer of life, with the Giver of life, what will happen to the dry tree of the Jewish people, who rejected the Messiah, who gave Him over to such a terrible, such unimaginably painful punishment, what will happen to him? We know what happened to him, we know how these prophetic terrible words of Christ came true over Jerusalem. We know how the Roman generals Vespasian and then Titus came and razed all of Jerusalem and the temple of Jerusalem to the ground.

We read in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, contemporary with Christ, what indescribable horrors took place at that time, how terrible was the punishment of the people who crucified their Messiah. This came to pass, as every word of God must come true. Let us leave the women, let them cry pure tears. Let's look at the men, at this great crowd that followed Jesus, at those who surrounded Him close at the end of the narrow Via Dolorosa, and came out on the hill of Calvary. What kind of people are they? What was going on in their souls?

How, how could they rejoice at what they saw? How could the very people who only six days ago greeted the Lord Jesus with great joy and glory at His entry into Jerusalem, shouting, "Hosanna in the highest!" and spread their garments under the feet of the donkey on which He was sitting, how could they, these same people, cry wildly at Pilate, "Crucify him, crucify him!"? What is this?

How can we understand the strange transformation of their hearts, which recently glorified, and now wildly demand crucifixion? I will try to explain this with my weak mind. All those who carefully read the Gospel, and especially the fourth Gospel of John, should know that the Lord amazed and confused people with His words unheard of by the world. They must know that He called Himself the bread of life that came down from heaven, said that it was necessary for salvation that people should eat His Flesh and drink His Blood.

These words deeply embarrassed the people, perplexed them, and aroused the fury of many. When they heard that He called Himself the One who came down from heaven, they grabbed stones to beat Him, considering Him a blasphemer. These words of Jesus did not fit into the consciousness of people so much, they were so unbearable and incomprehensible to them, that even many of His followers, of His disciples, who always followed Him, departed from Him, ceased to follow Him.

And the Lord turned to His closest twelve apostles with the question: "Do you also want to depart?" Blessed Peter answered for all: "Lord! Who should we go to? Thou hast the words of eternal life" (John 6:67-68). Thus, during the entire life of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth, the minds of the Jews were tormented by contradictory thoughts: on the one hand, they saw that He was the greatest miracle-worker, and then, when they heard words about His Divinity that did not fit into their consciousness, they grabbed stones to beat Him, considering these words to be blasphemy.

Thus, the confusion of minds was great and deep. And the people were then led by their religious leaders – the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees, who were considered the bearers of the indisputable truth, whom the people were accustomed to follow and without reflection accepted on faith everything that they heard from them. The minds and hearts of the Jews were tormented, doubled, not knowing what to believe. On the one hand, they saw the greatest miracle-worker, Who commands the waves of the sea, raises the dead, fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread, Who heals the sick.

On the other hand, we have heard the spiteful, hateful accusations of the Lord Jesus by the chief priests that He blasphemes and violates the law of Moses. And so, while the Lord Jesus Christ was in power and glory, the majority of the people followed Him, but when He was arrested, beaten, condemned to death, when they saw Him lose all His power, then a herd feeling flared up in their hearts, similar to that which guides animals that pounce on the weak and defeated and tear them to death with the whole pack.

In the same way, people immediately lose respect and love even for the most worthy and honorable person if he is subjected to ridicule and humiliation. This is what was in the hearts of the people who went to Golgotha for Jesus – they succumbed to the wild herd feeling: Oh, You are beaten, You are defeated! They beat Thee, so we will persecute Thee, we will curse Thee, and we will cry out to Thee with the chief priests and scribes: "Save thyself. If you are the Son of God..." (Matt. 27:40).

This is what happened, this is what great power the leaders of the people of Israel had over this people, who completely succumbed to what these leaders wanted and demanded, who succumbed even to the demand for execution, even to the terrible cry: "His blood be on us and on our children." That is the only explanation I can give you. And so, an indescribable horror took place: the Lord was nailed to the cross, the Lord endured the most cruel, the most terrible of all the plagues that human malice could invent.

The Lord endured these terrible torments for six hours. Six hours later, He gave up His spirit with a cry that the world must never forget: "It is finished!" Why did Christ die so soon? We know that the crucified were often tortured for three, even up to six days, before they died. Why? Because He was sick. Not only because He was torn to pieces by scourging, He could not bear His cross.

On a cold night in the Garden of Gethsemane, and later at the high priests and in the courtyard of the praetorium, he caught a cold and was ill. We even know what He was sick with, but I will not talk about it. Believe this, He was sick. Of course, the ninth hour came, and darkness fell on all the earth. The sun darkened and hid its rays. The veil in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

The people, who had recently demanded His execution, dispersed from Golgotha, bowing their heads low and beating their breasts. Let us also go, lowering our heads, let us also remember that for our sins, as for the sins of all mankind, the Savior endured these terrible torments and sufferings. Let us go, lowering our heads and beating our breasts! March 25, 1951 A WORD ON PASSION.