Today's reading helps us better understand what is usually called Jesus' "messianic secret." In speaking of it, people mean the fact that Jesus Himself, until the last days of His earthly ministry, almost never spoke directly about His messiahship, at least not openly. The evangelist's account takes us back to the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves (vv. 1-14). And the reaction to it, as we can see, was an attempt to proclaim Jesus "king," to make Him the leader of a new messianic movement (v. 15). This is no surprise: according to the commonly accepted ideas of that time, the Messiah was to become king, restore an independent Jewish state, and introduce in it laws corresponding to the Torah. But Jesus, of course, was not going to become the leader of any religious-political movement.

But Jesus had another, more important reason to conceal His messiahship. He Himself speaks of it directly to those who went looking for Him in Galilee: most of the people seeking a meeting with Him did so not because they thirsted for the Kingdom, but because they wanted, in time of need, always to be able to receive free bread (v. 26). Jesus, however, speaks with them about eternal life and about the main thing without which one cannot partake of it: trust in the One whom God sent into the world to give people the Kingdom (vv. 27-29).

But they do not understand Him. They ask Him: where are the proofs that Your words are true (v. 30)? And at once they give an example of what proofs would convince them: manna from heaven, as in the days of Moses in the wilderness (v. 31). Jesus again tells them that the Kingdom is greater than any miracle, and that the bread of the Kingdom is more important than manna (vv. 32-33). And again they do not understand Him.

His listeners cannot grasp that with the Savior's coming into the world a new era has begun, and that what happened to them on the shore of Lake Gennesaret was not a miracle in the sense in which manna was a miracle. Simply by being with Jesus, they found themselves in the Kingdom and lived for a while according to its laws, but, as we can see, they did not understand fully what had happened to them. That is why they ask Jesus for bread and expect to receive it just as their fathers once received manna from God (v. 34). And Jesus again and again tries to explain to them that the point is not bread, but the Kingdom and that fullness of God's life which is given there to everyone, so that no manna will be needed there anymore.

A miracle is the Kingdom's invasion of our world, the manifestation of its laws where completely different rules usually operate. But now the Kingdom is entering the world, transforming it, and the times of miracles are passing. The time of the Kingdom is beginning - open to everyone who seeks it and wants to enter.

Jesus' listeners do not always understand Him rightly: into familiar words, long grown customary, He often puts an entirely new meaning. And often the new meaning He puts into them is entirely unexpected, changing what today we would call the paradigm of thought.

For example, they ask Him about the works of God, meaning approximately what today we would call religious obligations. They ask Him about the works of God in the sense in which teachers of the Torah and learned rabbis often spoke about them: in order to keep the Torah fully, one must fulfill the commandments and, in addition, do this and that. But Jesus speaks about trust, about relationship with Himself, as the main work of God. And no wonder: many of Israel's teachers also saw all religious obligations as a means to establish and strengthen relationship with God, considering precisely this to be the main and only work of God.

And now into the world has come the One on relationship with whom depends the possibility not simply of establishing relationship with God, which was possible before, but of sharing in the life of the Kingdom in all its fullness. Yet they ask Him what additional religious obligations one must take on so that, when the Messiah comes, one will be sure to be among the remnant that meets Him.

The same is true of the bread Jesus speaks about. He speaks to them of that breath of life with which the Kingdom is permeated, and they reply: well, once there were times when God gave our fathers manna in the wilderness; what will You give us? Can You show us something that would become convincing proof of Your words for us?

As one can see, the main problem here is that those asking the questions cannot see the main thing for which Jesus came into the world: the Kingdom. Therefore they ask Him about many things that have no direct relation to the Kingdom. He again and again tries to bring them back to the main thing, for the meaning of His mission is precisely to bring as many people as possible into the life of the Kingdom, so that the history of the Kingdom in the world would not end together with His earthly ministry.

Today before us is the first death among Christians, if Ananias and Sapphira are not counted as Christians (see Acts 5:1-11). And the very first dying Christian is a martyr. The world continues to reject Christ and His followers. If the chief priests were afraid to put Christ Himself to death on their own, without the Romans, because He was too beloved by many among the people, then, after dealing with Him, they no longer stand on ceremony with His disciples.

The Sanhedrin, before which Stephen stands, once again hears open accusations directed at it, accusations of the death of the Righteous One. And by now they are thoroughly tired of this: they had already heard it from Peter and John at least twice (see Acts 4:5-12, 5:27-32). But this time they could not hold out. What provoked them was that Stephen honestly told them what he not only knew, but actually saw. He, like Christ, bore witness to the world about objective reality: the world is in sin, but Jesus has brought salvation. And the world has no use for such truth...

When Christ said, "If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you," He also said, "A servant is not greater than his master" (see John 15:20). Stephen, a man filled with "faith and power," a true disciple of Christ, before his death says practically the same words that his Teacher spoke on the cross: he asks the Lord to forgive his persecutors... And the Church, in spite of everything, continues to grow and be strengthened precisely because it continues to act as her Lord commanded her and as He Himself acted.