Today's reading from the epistle of the holy Apostle Peter says: "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. Cast all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you." These words certainly do not mean that a Christian should, or has the right to, sit with folded hands and wait for the Lord Himself to solve every problem. Rather, they remind us that He takes part in our lives and cares for us, even at those moments when it seems that He is doing nothing. The Lord does not forget His children, but His action is by no means always visible. The result of what He does can often be seen only after many years—and sometimes we never know where or what He has done. It is important to believe, to trust Him, and to do everything we must do: not to shift responsibility for our lives from ourselves onto God, but always to remember that He is near and helps us.
Main news for 1 May 2024
The Jewish traditional greeting sounds in English as “peace be to you”. The Same expression is used when saying "goodbye". Of course, in the daily use of the word, it is rather often used and are using without thinking about the sense, approximately as we say in English "hello", without remembering that by doing so we wish the one we greet health, or "thank you", without thinking that this expression comes from "mercy, grace". But what then, if we think, means the wish of peace? The Jewish corresponding word can mean not only peace, but also health and the prosperity, and then this greeting can be also considered, as the wish of health and prosperity. But "peace in Christ Jesus", as we see, implies in the first place exactly peace. And not only peace in the sense of the absence of enmity or quarrels, but also this peace, about which Jesus Himself said: blessed those who make peace ("peacemakers"). Of course it is here not only about peacemakers in its general or political sense. It is about this peace, which only God can give. In fact, the fallen human nature is foreign to the state of peace; the fallen man aspires for superiority, priority, competition, victory over an opponent. Such an aspiration, certainly, does not still overflow in an open hostility or, especially, in a war, but can always become the source of either. And only God by His influence is capable of changing the human nature, so that the aspiration for superiority stops being the driving force of its existence. The absence of enmities and wars in that case is only a consequence, the first cause, the transformation of the human nature. Jesus, leaving with His disciples and followers His peace, the peace of the Kingdom, thus introduced them to the life of the Kingdom. Here the transformation arrives at the logical completion, and it is only here that peace becomes not a temporary spiritual state, but a norm of life. And that is why the wish of peace means in this case nothing else than the wish to remain from now on the inhabitants of the Kingdom. Wish, which to invent better for a Christian is difficult. |
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