Great Lent
GREAT LENT - Monday, April 18, 2011

GREAT AND HOLY MONDAY
A Warning Against Jealousy

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St. Nikolaj of Zicha

In today's hymns and messages the Orthodox Church highlights Joseph the all comely as a prefiguration of our Savior in His sufferings. Joseph suffered because of the jealousy of his brothers. The jealous brothers sold Joseph to merchants for 20 silver pieces. But, by God's providence Joseph, in slavery, became great and celebrated. As such he fed his brothers in the years of famine and saved them and their wives and their children from starvation. Thus he literally fulfilled the words of Christ: “Whoever gives you stones, you give him bread,” even though those words hadn't yet been spoken in the world. Afterward he moved his brothers and his father to Misir and through that determined the entire later history of the Israelites. Not he, but God. For the Lord protects the righteous from all miseries and glorifies him at all times.

The descendents of the brothers who wanted to destroy Joseph prepared the destruction of the Son of God. The jealousy the forefathers had towards those who are better than them was inherited by their great-descendents. One of them sold his teacher for 30 pieces of silver. And they all delivered Him to the godless to be judged just as their ancestors delivered the young Joseph to the godless for judgment. The similarity is the great jealousy besides the differences in proportion. Because of those similarities the Church today mentions the judgment of Joseph. To show everyone how long lasting the poison of jealousy is. How that poison is passed on from father to over a hundred generations, from Joseph to the Lord Jesus. Not even all the graces of God which He shown towards those people throughout the thousands of years weren't able to help. Not even all the miraculous wonders of God throughout history did not create goodness in them. All the warnings of God remained in vain. All the crying of the Prophets were suppressed in blood, fathers killed some of the Prophets while their sons built them monuments: again, the sons killed other Prophets and left their grandson the work of the monuments which witnessed to their crimes....

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