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.

In today's Gospel reading Jesus says, "This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up on the last day." These words are an answer to the classic question asked by people outside the Church: "What will happen to my friend if she died unbaptized?" The will of the Heavenly Father is that no one should perish. But there is one important qualification: "of all He has given Me." What is this that the Father has given Jesus? It is those who have received Him into their hearts, those who believe in Him.

Does that mean, then, that all unbelievers are doomed? There is no single clear answer here, but we know one thing: the meeting with God takes place in the deepest part of the human heart. No one will ever be able to determine what this particular person's relationship with God truly is, no one except God, who sees hearts. Only the Lord, who knows hearts, can say how close a person was to God. And the will of the Father is that no one should perish, and so we can hope that even the smallest spark of faith, the smallest openness, may be enough for Him to raise a person on the last day.

How does Jesus Himself understand the tasks before Him? First of all, it is striking that He does not try to formulate any tasks on His own at all. At first glance, the One who contained in Himself all the fullness of God could have been much more decisive, especially considering the decisiveness with which ordinary people sometimes formulate the goals and tasks of their service to God. But Jesus, being the Messiah, sees the meaning of His messianic ministry in having no goals of His own and setting no tasks of His own before Himself. He relies entirely on the will of the Father, and He has no works of His own. And the Father, as it appears, sets before Him one main task, to which everything else is subordinated: to save as many people as possible. This is not about Judgment, not about condemning some and justifying others. Of course, a person's sins hinder his salvation. But, as it appears, even the righteous cannot count on salvation without the help of the Messiah sent by God into the world.

As in any rescue operation, only the rescue of each and every person can be considered complete success. But there are, it appears, certain obstacles that can hinder complete success. The sins a person commits are one such obstacle. There may be others, but they appear to depend little or not at all on the person. But the measure of sin that complicates the rescue operation depends first of all on the person. And this is no surprise: salvation is evidently connected with the possibility of entering the Kingdom, the door to which Jesus opens.

In its present state the world is doomed, and only the one who manages to enter the Kingdom and become part of it can be saved. Here the question of sin and righteousness becomes decisive, for any sin inevitably becomes an obstacle for a person on the way into the Kingdom. But Jesus allows, of course with the Father's consent, everyone to begin again, with a clean slate, making one more attempt to start life over. On one condition: this attempt will be made not in the fallen world, but in the Kingdom. Then, freed from the undivided power that sin has over fallen man, each person can try to begin a new life in the full sense of the word.