Here the evangelist John speaks about the essence of what he witnessed: the earthly life of Jesus Christ. Looking back sixty years after the events described, he sees and names the main thing: the pre-eternal Logos, the One in whom the whole meaning of the universe and the whole design for creation dwell, the One who is God, became incarnate, humbled His life to human life, and dwelt on earth, communicating with John and other contemporaries. Here, into our world, descended the fullness of grace and truth, becoming visible, audible, tangible, revealing to all that human flesh can contain the presence of God, can be pure from sin, can be raised to eternal life. The very word "glory," "the glory of God," means the visible, comprehensible manifestation of the invisible and incomprehensible God, not merely a symbol but the fact of His active presence. And the apostle John bears witness to this manifestation of God Himself in the person, the hypostasis in patristic terminology, of the only-begotten Son: the Son of God and the Son of Man, Jesus Christ.

Here two questions arise. The first: do we believe this testimony? This is not easy, for we are used to having everything proved to us, thereby being forced to agree, while here there is and can be no proof, no coercion. One must make one's own decision, a completely free one...

And the second question: even if all this happened, does it have any relation to my life? If we think carefully, all this reveals to us how high human life can be, how full of meaning and righteousness. More than that: if there is the presence of God in this world, then one can enter into it; and if God was able to enter a human body, then He can enter us as well. Thus a two-way union of our life with God's life, eternal life, is possible. Quite significant, is it not?

In John's Gospel, very little is said about the ministry of John the Baptist. This is especially strange if we remember that its author is a man who, before following Jesus, was for some time a disciple of John the Baptist. On the other hand, perhaps for this very reason the evangelist did not consider it necessary to say much about John's personality: it was evidently well known not only to him, but also to those closest to him, so there was no need to write much about John the Baptist. What had to be brought out was the main thing in his ministry, and the main thing was how John the Baptist himself defined the meaning of his ministry, expressing it in Isaiah's words: to prepare the way of Yahweh. By this the prophet meant that his task was to prepare the people for the Messiah's coming. And to prepare for His coming meant, as John the Baptist himself testified, to wash and be cleansed from sin.

Of course, in the prophet's calls one can see something reminiscent of the many brotherhoods of those whom historians of religion call "hemerobaptists," "constant bathers." Such were the Essenes too, who practiced regular purifying washings. If in traditional Jewish practice washing was always connected with cleansing from a specific sin committed by a person, the Essenes (including the Qumranites, with whom John was evidently connected in his younger years) did this regularly, believing that life itself defiles a person.

But in this case the resemblance was only external: unlike the "constant bathers," John did not think that cleansing was an endless process. He was only convinced that a person could be cleansed completely only when the power of God fully transformed his nature. And he was also convinced that the coming Messiah would be able to do this. The prophet evidently saw his own task as reminding people that religiousness alone is not enough, and that a person who, according to traditional ideas, is considered clean and fully sound is not so in God's eyes. Therefore one must be ready to take the next step on the path of resisting one's own sinful nature. A step that opens the way into the Kingdom.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews often turns to the theme of angels and the angelic hierarchy, comparing them with Christ. Such a comparison is characteristic precisely of the author of this Letter: no one besides him gives so much attention to the theme of angels. Why did it suddenly become so relevant? Perhaps because the letter was written after the catastrophe of A.D. 70, when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed as a result of another anti-Roman uprising.

Before A.D. 70, during the life of the apostle Paul, the most widespread form of messianism among the Jews was political messianism. The Messiah was expected as King and liberator, crushing Roman power and restoring an independent and strong Jewish state. But now, after this monstrous catastrophe, mystical messianism came to the foreground. Many people, and no doubt even some Christians, began to see in the Messiah not the Man who contained in Himself the fullness of God, but someone like an angel, a mediator between God and human beings. In that case the Kingdom was viewed as something mystical, having no relation to our world. This is how some understood the Savior's words about the Kingdom that is "not of this world."

Many were also troubled by the fact that Jerusalem and the Temple had been destroyed, everything the Savior had spoken of as signs of the end times had happened, and yet He Himself was not returning. Perhaps, these people thought, He was not going to return in the way His followers expected. Perhaps He had already come, had come in another world, in His otherworldly Kingdom, while here, in the fallen world, waiting for Him was useless. Then perhaps He would send angels to notify those whom He wished to save and take with Himself.

Meanwhile, in reality, the person of Christ as Savior and mediator between God and the faithful was pushed into the background, while certain "angels," "powers," "principalities," and other real or, more often, imagined entities that replaced and obscured Him moved to the foreground. And the author of the Letter, one of the disciples of the apostle Paul, reminds his readers that, having the Messiah as their Teacher and Savior, the faithful need no one and nothing else. Otherwise, instead of Christ and the Kingdom, there are endless mediators and hierarchies, first "heavenly" ones and then earthly ones. Christianity as life with Christ in His Kingdom disappears. In its place comes a certain religion that promises everything but gives nothing. At least, nothing that Christ can give.