The question of evil's origin and nature in the world has long occupied and tormented humanity. Hardly anyone could have told us more about it than Jesus, who was to confront the world's evil. Yet He does not say very much to His disciples about the devil and the world's evil; He tells them only that the devil is defeated and that the day will come when this becomes clearly visible to everyone.

Instead, He speaks to His disciples and followers at length and in detail about how to resist evil in everyday life. One of this life's most serious temptations regarding evil deeds and actions is the temptation to imagine oneself powerless before the evil being done. The issue is not even whether it is possible to stop those who do evil, but whether refraining from evil is pointless. The logic of evil suggests that your participation or nonparticipation will change nothing: if not you, then someone else. By trying to resist evil, even simply by refusing to participate in it, you only make your own life more difficult without accomplishing anything at all, for there will be no less evil in the world.

This logic seems temptingly simple, and it would be conclusive if the untransformed world were the only and final reality. Fortunately, it is not. A person who refuses to participate in evil has good reason to act as he does. The issue here is not only, or even chiefly, the world lying in evil, but the person and his spiritual destiny—whether he will be able to enter the Kingdom or remain in “outer darkness.” Even if a situation in the fallen world is indeed often beyond human control—“it must needs be that offenses come”—a person's own choice is always within his power. Jesus apparently gives no weight at all to what is called environmental influence, social determinism, and other similar justifications for the evil a person commits.

Of course, this does not mean that He fails to take account of the situation in which a person must make his choice. He says only that one must not consent to evil or inwardly surrender to it, accepting it as normal simply because it is normal in the fallen world. The norm of the fallen world is no norm but a perversion, and everyone who agrees to become a conduit for the powers of evil must remember this, for “woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” It may certainly happen that even by refusing to participate in evil, a person will be unable to prevent that evil. But he can keep evil from entering his own heart and thus preserve it for the Kingdom.

Today the Orthodox Church celebrates the Day of the Holy Spirit. The Epistle to the Ephesians reminds us that 'the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth' (v. 9), and calls us to 'be filled with the Spirit' (v. 18). The apostle Paul calls this new state of the human being 'light in the Lord'; the apostle John also turns to this image of light when he speaks of brotherly love among believers (1 John 2:10). In the spirit of love we are called to 'seek those who have gone astray' (Matt 18:10-14), to resolve problems in our relationships (Matt 18:15-18), and, finally, to receive God's grace in unanimous prayer in the name of Christ and in His presence, just as we were promised.

The evangelist connects the words about the children we must become in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven with a small parable about a shepherd and a lost sheep, and this immediately puts everything in its place. The point is not only that we become weak, defenseless, and dependent, although at times we really do need to feel like children before God; Christ is clearly speaking here about a "new childhood," that is, about a second birth - not only about feeling like children in comparison with God, but actually becoming children of the Heavenly Father (and here any childishness is out of place; this calling is too high).

Understood this way, the familiar commandment "be like children" becomes an incomprehensible call to become participants in God's life, to become beloved sons and daughters in the beloved only-begotten Son - the path opened before us in Christ's Resurrection...