"...For yet a very little while..." Sometimes we do not want to believe this, and we say: you are only comforting us, Apostle Paul. But before this Paul says: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!" (Heb. 10:31). And in the Greek text the word is "phoberon," which is somehow clearly associated with the Russian word "phobia." In Russian usage, phobia means precisely an inner painful state when there is no real external danger: just darkness or height, just an enclosed space, and so on. We have this inner state: we both want the End and fear it. Because of this uncertainty, because of our inner confusion, this End does not come.

For the Lord, as the Bridegroom, comes when love has been established. Imagine a bridegroom and bride who are preparing to be married, but the bride is afraid, unsure, wavering; she does not yet have that radiant, happy, calm love that longs to give itself in service to the beloved. Would their wedding be right in that case? Still, it would be premature.

In the same way, even if we speak only about the Church and its members, we do not yet have this deep, quiet, calm love. We still fear ourselves and frighten others. We fear punishment, vengeance, recompense; we simply fear, without ourselves knowing what, because "no one has ever returned from there." What kind of "wedding" (that is, the End) can we speak of?

But this does not mean that we are alone. We can say that we were "betrothed" by Christ's First Coming, and we need to build our relationship with Him. In any case, He is here, He is near. And of course, it is "a little while longer," because when there is love, time flows in a special way: separations are endless, meetings seem to fly by so quickly, and overall there is this feeling that there it is, just a little longer, and eternity will pour into the soul.

The disciples go up after Jesus, become witnesses of His transfiguration, see His glory, and hear the Father's word about the Son. Three evangelists tell of this event, and all three connect it with Christ's words that some of His disciples will see the Kingdom of God come with power. If this really was a "taste of the Kingdom," then how does the disciples' experience differ from ours?

We, like them, try to follow Christ (sometimes successfully, sometimes not, just as they did); we believe in His glory, in His divinity; through His words in the Gospel we hear the voice of the Father... The only thing we lack is the experiential sensation, as vivid as the one that seized the disciples then in the radiance of unearthly light. But have we not been told: "...blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29)? Do we not taste the Kingdom even before death, uniting ourselves by faith with its Source?

Paul calls faith that which, having previously remained invisible, now reveals itself. Of course, if by faith he meant some theological concept or even simply a worldview, this phrase would sound mysterious. But judging by the context, by faith the author of the letter understands, first of all, unconditional faithfulness to God and to the covenant once concluded with Him. With this understanding of faith, much becomes clearer. Of course, if we based our hopes only on something human, even deep faith, these hopes would still hang in the air: for the course of history would hardly change radically because of our faith, even the deepest, and the Kingdom would not draw one iota closer to us.

Faithfulness to relationships with the One on whom both earthly history and the Kingdom depend is another matter. Such faithfulness truly becomes a pledge that everything promised to us by God, everything we hope for on the basis of His words, will one day truly become the reality of our life. And not simply become so in the future, but is already becoming so: for faithfulness to God also means participation in the fulfillment of His plans, those very plans with which the promises He has given are connected. Our faithfulness becomes His instrument, and then it turns out that the formerly invisible designs of God are being fulfilled and becoming visible, including through our faithfulness. And this faithfulness opens the road into the Kingdom for us, becoming the pledge of the fulfillment of our chief hope.