With God There Are No Dead Ends

Sergei Bulgakov on the meaning of Christ’s Nativity

On this day ninety-nine years ago, Dec 28, 1924, Sergei Bulgakov, then in his early 50s, fifteen years removed from the death of his son and return to Orthodoxy, wrote this Christmas reflection in his diary:

We bow down and worship Your Nativity, O Christ! How silent and sure, amidst the daily noise of life, does this sacred feast come down into the soul and reign over it! How joyful it is to love and to rejoice together on this feast! How unfortunate for those who do not enter into this love but remain in the dim and grim working day world! The ear hears the inward singing of angels, and this echoes in the heart. To hear it, we need no marvels, no manifestations of the angels who have already once appeared. For this, it is enough to attend to your heart and to its bright, festal silence. In this clear, transparent light of the heart, angelic wings flutter and the angelic song can be heard. The mind is astonished and the heart grows mute before the mystery of God’s condescension and of God’s love for the world.

And it becomes clear how shot through the world is by Divinity: how nothing can add to this Divinity, nothing can impede it, nothing can obscure it. The Lord took for Himself a manger and a cave from this world, and through them He showed that all the riches of the world are nothing to Him, that He has no need of them. The Lord came to earth under the cover of anonymity for the sake of the world, in order to accomplish in it His cosmic work. Even the most concentrated villainy of the world, in the person of Herod, proved powerless to impede His work—much less to encroach upon the Lord Himself. And the sword of Herod, coming down upon the children of Bethlehem, impotently missed its [intended] victim, whose time had not yet come to be offered up.

What freshness, youthfulness, and cheerfulness does this great feast pour into the soul! It is as if you realize anew and become convinced that evil is illusory and impotent with its Herod-like machinations, that here, in the vanity of the world, God is with us and we are with God.And all that is being done by today’s Herods is similarly ludicrous, pathetic, and powerless against the star of Bethlehem, shining on high. This star is untouchable in heaven and in the heart. Or is the human heart itself heaven? Yes, heaven, for in it the stars shine. Yes, heaven, for in it is born the Christ Child: yes, heaven, for in it angels soar and the angelic hymn rings out: “Christ is born!”

Only two nights later, he wrote this:

“For I walk through many snares...” Invisibly the soul is wounded and made to stumble: a word overheard, an impression , lies on the heart like a heavy stone, crushing it with some kind of fright, exhausting the weak heart. This is the action of Satan, and seldom does a person ever suspect whose instrument he has become. Then God’s light seems dark and joy is extinguished. Then there creeps into the heart unclean fear and the night of despondency. That which you have always known suddenly appears as if dead to you. This is a temptation that one must bravely endure and not surrender to. You must say to your heart: you are a liar if you forget the God who saves [Ps. 68:20]. Through prayer, you must warm up the frozen parts of your soul until this dark cloud dissipates. Now is the time of the antichrist. The antichrist sows his seeds everywhere, in defenseless souls, and calls them to revolt against God. But even more fearful than this coldness is indifference and sloth of heart: deadness of heart. O Lord! Grant me power and authority to awaken the dead, You who were raised from the dead. Before you my heart is aching. Teach me how to gather Your people, how to shepherd them before You. This scattered flock languishes, they imbibe the sands of exile and swallow the little that remains to them of the moisture of life. And I understand their lot and the lot that has fallen to all [of us Russian exiles], and with my human understanding I look upon this hopeless dead end. But in You and with You there are no dead ends: You are the Way and the Truth [John 14:6]. So summon your flock to Your Way, grant me a fiery power, break loose the fetters of my soul. I know You and I hear You, I love You. Allow me to ignite with the flame of Your love these cooled and darkened hearts. You know the affliction of Russia, You know the stream of this godlessness that has flooded our land. Thou knowest all things [John 21:16], You are guiding us, You know the way. I am Yours, I do not desire my own will. But ignite, ignite my heart on this cold, Gethsemane night of the world.

The next night, Dec 31st, 1924, he made his final entry for the year:

Another year has passed, another page in the book of my life, burdened with new sins and temptations, has been turned; it belongs now to eternity and will appear before me, wretch that I am, at the Dread Judgment of Christ. O Lord, my Lord, how long have I angered You, tested Your longsuffering? I see my infirmity, my sin, I languish in it and remain in it. But I praise Your miracles, O Lord, which You revealed to me in this world. All of life is a miracle, Your gifts are miracles: my loved ones, my family, my friends, all my joys. It is a miracle to labor for You, for Your work on earth with which You have honored me, unworthy as I am. Miraculous are Your mercies with which You have crowned me [Ps. 103:4]. You ask for an answer and justification for every year of life that is given to us, and what shall I say? Yet, I see how wonderful and blessed this past year was, how much has been given to me by God, how many hopes and possibilities were planted in it. I commit myself to Your will: whatever pleases You, let it be done—not my will, nor my desires [Matt. 26:42]. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk [Ps. 143:8].

So many variations! Such highs and lows. Deeps and shallows. Is his life that different from yours or mine? No, not really. The question is, am I anything like as self-aware? Am I willing to experience whatever comes as honestly as he did? Do I love God’s will?

Some of what he says strikes me as strange, some of it for merely incidental or superficial reasons. But what impresses me so deeply is his sensitivity to life; his responsiveness to the movements of his own heart and his readiness to take charge of those movements when needed; his confidence in God’s capabilities, his desire to desire the will of God.

His was an open-eyed mysticism, rooted and grounded in the assurance that for God and with God there are no dead ends.

I want to believe that. Now more than ever.