Main news for 1 September 2025

The evangelist describes Jesus' death on the cross precisely as death. The death of a completely ordinary person. As if there were none in Him of that fullness of God that had revealed itself so often during His earthly ministry. But it could not have been otherwise. He is truly human: human not less, but more, than any of us. His divinity in no way diminished His humanity. On the contrary, it revealed it in all its fullness. It made it Humanity with a capital letter. And a human being in the fallen world is mortal.

Even being free from sin, a human being can in principle die. Although if one is free from sin, dying is not necessary. In this sense Jesus' death is absolutely voluntary. But a person living within the boundaries of this world can always be killed. True, only within the boundaries of this world. Beyond them, death will have no power over the one who lives the life of the Kingdom. And all the more over Him who Himself bears within Himself the fullness of that Kingdom. But the Savior had to walk His path to the end precisely in our still untransfigured world.

In order to make its transfiguration possible. And a path within the framework of this world includes the possibility of death. In the concrete situation of the fallen world, it includes not only the possibility but the practical inevitability of death. Of course, Jesus comes into the world not in order to die, but in order to bring it the Kingdom. Had there been no fall, had there been none of the evil in which our world found itself after the fall, the Savior of the world would not have had to die on the cross. But He came into the world that exists.

He did so, of course, fully understanding where He was going and what awaited Him here. And those who wanted His death saw no farther than our world, limited by evil. They were sure that if He died now, everything would be over. In their favor, of course. When He was dying, they felt like victors. And they really had won, in their limited world that lies in evil. Which of them could have known that there is also the Kingdom, that there is a great world of God where their victory is worth nothing and where they have already suffered complete defeat? Soon they will have to be convinced of this. But for now they are triumphant.