Main news for 29 July 2025

Every person knows that someday he will die. Death is a unique phenomenon: it is completely obvious and completely closed to those who have not yet experienced it. God speaks with a person, and that person remains alive. On the basis of this Gospel passage, one can say that a person who speaks with God, not somehow but face to face, receives both life and death: life full of His presence, the light of revelation for all, and death as the fulfillment of the promise, as the possibility of a full and final encounter.

Why did Christ accept circumcision, and what is the spiritual meaning of this event? Of course, one can say that He was little then. But He allowed this to happen, and therefore, despite the fact that He was little, this event has spiritual content. So what is it? To confirm that "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22)? Or to pass through the whole path of His humility, limiting Himself not only by human appearance but also by all the limitation of human culture?

It is also certain that He knew that after Him the apostle Paul would come, sternly rebuking all who do not understand the full limitation of this rite, as of every rite in general. In the Epistle to the Romans alone he speaks of this more than once; see chapters 2, 3, and 4. For example: "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh" (Rom. 2:28), or "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God" (1 Cor. 7:19).

The Lord knew this and still allowed His circumcision to take place. In this is His humility before the Law, which He came to fulfill (Matt. 5:17), and this is precisely what allows the apostle Paul to say: "In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ" (Col. 2:11).

Today's reading continues the account of the witnesses connected with the Nativity. And if the first witnesses were shepherds, now righteous people and prophets come to take their place. It would seem that these people are not at all like simple shepherds. But there is something common that unites them: all of them are waiting for the Messiah and are ready to receive him as he is. For a prophet, the revelation received from God is most important; he hears God directly, and for him there is no question about whether he can trust what he has heard.

The prophetic experience of direct communion with God is, of course, unique every time, but with all its uniqueness, none of those who had occasion to hear the voice of God raised questions of what modern theologians call theological verification: any prophet receives the revelation given to him as a direct instruction to act. And if God points to the infant brought into the Temple as the Messiah, then that infant truly is the Messiah, whoever may say otherwise and whatever doubts learned rabbis and teachers of the Torah may express on this matter.

Righteousness is a phenomenon of another kind, but a righteous person too is often given the ability to hear God. And if at times his mystical hearing is not as sharpened as a prophet's hearing, the habit of trusting God unconditionally helps the righteous person become certain of the authenticity of the revelation received. What unites these people with simple shepherds is not only the expectation of the Messiah, but also their attitude toward God and toward the will of God. One could say that, unlike the same Pharisees, for example, they are not very religious. Of course, all of them are members of the Synagogue, but there they are apparently not in the front rows: there are people there whose activity makes them barely noticeable, and sometimes completely unnoticeable.

In theological and religious-political disputes, so frequent in the synagogues of the Gospel period, they apparently either take part rarely and unwillingly, or do not take part at all. They do not belong to any religious school and perhaps do not even have what is usually called a religious worldview. They simply trust God, who long ago became the center and meaning of their life, and they live while listening attentively for what he will say to them. Or they pasture their flocks, like the Bethlehem shepherds. Of course, compared with learned theologians they may appear simple people, even, like the shepherds, ignorant. But they will certainly have no problems with the theological interpretation of what they have heard from God. Nor will they have needless doubts about the reliability of what they heard. That is why they are granted to see the Messiah before others. Including those who were sure they would see him first.