NOTES for Mat 24:36-26:2

A wedding. Evening. The bridegroom is nowhere to be seen. The bridesmaids go out to meet him. They take oil lamps with them and wait. He is bound to come. He is late. No one knew that he would be delayed for so long, but some were ready to wait all night, while others were not prepared for it.

This parable was highly relevant when this Gospel was being written: Jesus' promised coming had still not taken place, so many proved unable to wait without losing hope. It remains relevant today, when many people wonder where Christ is. We are so far removed from the events of two thousand years ago, and no one knows when He will come a second time. Where is He? How much longer must we wait? Will there be enough oil? Will there be enough faith and hope?

The meaning of this parable is expressed in the final words: "Watch." But all ten virgins became drowsy! So the point is not simply to avoid drowsiness. Each of us has periods of spiritual relaxation and lack of gatheredness, for not everyone is able to burn in spirit all the time. Rather, the point is that, besides the burning lamp of faith, a person needs to have a certain "reserve of strength," a kind of spiritual resource that will help him, if needed, get up from his knees and trim the fading lamp.

This is not about some special strength, genius, or vigor. All these are gifts that only God can give. But there is something that depends chiefly on us: faithfulness, honesty before ourselves and God, and the desire to be with Him no matter what.

Today's reading offers us Jesus' parable about His coming return. In it Jesus again turns to the theme of His followers' readiness (more precisely, their unreadiness) for this event. At first glance, it was impossible not to be ready for it, because Jesus' disciples really did await meeting Him, as a bride awaits meeting her bridegroom. Only a person born and raised in the East can understand this expectation, where the traditional way of life is still preserved and where a bride cannot meet her bridegroom until the very day of the wedding.

Today, one has to admit, even among Christians few wait for the Savior's return as the main event of their life, but for the first Christian generation such expectation was the norm. Yet the long-awaited meeting falls apart over what, at first glance, is a mere trifle: the young women waiting for the bridegroom did not think to stock up on oil for their lamps (v. 3). And no one had extra oil (vv. 8-9). Meanwhile, the doors to the wedding chamber close quickly; the slightest delay can prove fatal, and for some it truly does (vv. 10-12).

This story recalls the Savior's parable of the withered fig tree: Jesus came up to the tree unexpectedly; there were no figs on the tree and there could not have been any, but the Kingdom comes not when you expect it, and Jesus also appears unexpectedly and not as, by human ideas, He should appear. In such a situation, spiritual collectedness means above all readiness for the unexpected. Of course, while waiting for so significant an event, it is not hard to forget such a small thing as a supply of oil for a lamp. But it was noticed long ago that in spiritual life there are no small things. For a spiritual condition is, first of all, a certain level of awareness of reality, when everything that is done becomes significant, when unconscious, barely noticed, flashing thoughts disappear, along with equally unconscious actions performed automatically. Then every small thing becomes significant: the depth of understanding of this small thing in such a case is no less than the depth of understanding of any "great" deed.

In God's work there are no small things; small things become small things when we stop perceiving the reality around us as the reality of the coming Kingdom. In our world that has not yet been transformed, there are important matters and there are minor matters unworthy of attention; in the Kingdom everything has significance. And if we have not learned to see reality in this way, then we still do not know what the Kingdom is.

Both the wise and the foolish virgins had identical lamps, so at first there was no difference between them. But the wise understood that they had to remain ready, and they kept the necessary supply. Hearing their refusal, the foolish virgins must have thought them greedy, and one can imagine how they may have spoken about the wise after finding themselves outside the gate.

Nevertheless, let us not apply to them those norms of relationships that are perfectly acceptable in our daily life but do not belong to the parable, which reveals what the Lord wants from us. After all, He loves each of us personally and uniquely, and if we hope to slip Him someone else's fire instead of the one we kindled and kept in our own heart, what should that be called?

And so those whose lamps were not filled with love proved unworthy to enter the feast.

Speaking about His purpose, the Lord recalls the episode described in chapter 21 of the Book of Numbers, when the people of God suffered an invasion of serpents as a consequence of their disobedience. Many died from their bites. Then the Lord commanded Moses to lift up a bronze serpent, and whoever looked at it remained alive. In general, the serpent is a symbol of disobedience and departure from the will of God, as we remember from the account of the fall of Adam and Eve. It is a symbol of broken relations with God. Something must therefore restore these relations. Heaven and earth must somehow be joined again. Do you remember Jacob’s ladder? And the angels descending from Heaven and ascending by it to Heaven? It is an astonishing image of communion between earth and Heaven: that for which humanity strives, but which proves impossible because of humanity’s original falling away from God. “No one has yet ascended into Heaven except the Son of Man who descended from Heaven.” Christ is called to accomplish this descent and ascent.

And how will He ascend? He will be lifted up. Lifted up on the Cross. Just as Moses’ lifting up of the bronze serpent saved people from a terrible death by snakebite, the lifting up of Jesus delivers us from the work of the serpent that tempted the first human being and, in him, each of us. “For God so loved the world...”

The vigilance to which Christ calls His disciples is constant readiness to meet the One who comes in the name of the Lord. The "wise virgins," whom the Lord sets before us as an example, prepared for a long wait and so could remain in the appointed place as long as the Bridegroom pleased. That is why they are ready for this meeting at any moment, even if the Bridegroom "was delayed." The "foolish" virgins, however, at the hour when the Bridegroom's arrival caught them, turned out to be occupied not with waiting to meet Him, but with getting ready.

The Lord is saying, then, that we do not have the option of being occupied with ourselves and with our own affairs and problems. The coming of the Kingdom is possible at any moment. From the beginning this thought inspired Christ's disciples to live in righteousness "already today," without putting off the cleansing of the heart until "later." At the same time, it is curious that when the Lord speaks about waiting for the coming of the Kingdom, He still hints to us that the Bridegroom "was delayed," thereby warning us against an excessive fascination with eschatology.

Man gets used to everything. He gets used to danger, to expectation, to inconveniences, to comfort. We can get used to pain (ours and others), to blood at the television screen. Feelings become dull, the conscience keeps silent, the heart beats evenly… breath is deep and rhythmic, dormition. Why not? The Second Advent of Christ, the end of the world? Already two thousand years as we wait, and there is still nothing. It means that even today nothing will be, and we can sleep therefore.

Can we oversleep and miss the Second Advent? It seems so; because Jesus went nowhere. Ascending to the Father He remains with us and He can enter in our life at any time, just as He entered the life of Apostle Paul. But if at that moment our heart will be closed with “another sleep ", then the meeting will not take place and this will be “the second death " before the " first death " – from the spiritual death to the physical death.

That's why Jesus speaks to us, so that we should keep on alert, so that we prepare our hearts for the meeting, in order to hear the voice of our conscience, so that we don’t become stale, for us to wait.

In the Christian community in which the Gospel was created, as among modern followers of Christ, the same question arose: "What should we do?" All of us, in one way or another, have found ourselves in the position of servants of a traveling Master: we must decide what to do in His absence. And here this parable, told by Jesus to His disciples in Jerusalem, stands before us.

Already now He is preparing them for the time when they will live in expectation of the final meeting with Him. And the answer to the eternal question is given in a form that is not entirely familiar: "Do not be afraid! Act! Think! Risk!" Of all human activities, commerce best describes the behavior of faithful disciples. Only instead of money, the disciples received from Christ something else: the presence of the Spirit, the gifts of hope and love. Now it is up to them, that is, to us, to put them to work and multiply them, so that this world may become richer and richer in love.

The parable of the talents given in the Gospel of Matthew suggests a very simple thought: how fruitless fear is as a motive for our actions! Notice: the image of the master formed in the third servant's mind makes him afraid. It would seem that if you are afraid, then work, so as to avoid punishment if the master is the kind who "reaps where he did not sow." But fear spreads farther and leads to fear of taking risks; fear deprives a person of freedom and paralyzes. It is no accident that whenever God meets a person He says: "Do not be afraid." He sets us free. He wants our responsible initiative. He gives us various talents (gifts) in advance so that they may be multiplied - so that there will be more than we need, so that we can share them, growing in brotherly love and thereby bearing witness to God's love.

Some Christians torment themselves trying to understand what talent they have, afraid of accidentally burying it in the ground. Others resent God for gifts that are too small. But if we look carefully at the lives of the saints, it turns out that often in earthly life they suffered most precisely because of what was central in their holiness.

A saint is someone who succeeds better than others at imitating God, someone who is more like Him. It is clear that God gives talents to the saints, but among the saints there are not so many genius artists and musicians. So perhaps by talent we mean the wrong thing?

Instead, the saints imitate Christ in His sufferings; they help Him carry the Cross. Is this not the explanation? Often we do not understand what Cross we are supposed to take upon ourselves. Perhaps the Cross and the talent are one and the same. Then it is clear that the talent is what we have to suffer through most of all. And it is clear that the greater the talent, the greater the responsibility and the greater the suffering, and therefore the greater the reward.

How vivid these "money" parables from the Gospel are. They clarify so much for us, accustomed as we are to spiritual and material consumerism and passivity. We like to speak about "disinterested faith," about "purely spiritual relationships," meaning irresponsibility and superficiality by this. But real life with God truly resembles financial operations. In this parable the master does not simply support his slaves, and he does not simply entrust them with some work that they must do for him. He invites them to "enter the business"; he gives them starting capital so that they can put it into circulation and make a profit.

This opens to us an astonishing message: we are called by God to cooperation. Not simply to obedience, not simply to the work of a courier or secretary, but to become His agents, His hands, His trusted representatives. Will we be able not to be frightened by the responsibility, and to agree to such a high office?

We are used to using the word talent to designate special gifts, whether artistic or scientific and technical. In general, this interpretation is permissible, but it does not exhaust the whole meaning of this parable. After all, many people in whom special gifts have not appeared, as it seems, could say: no talent has been given to me, so this does not apply to me. One can object that such reasoning is at best self-deception, for the Lord has given each of us a great deal; we do not even suspect it, and after accepting a false idea about themselves, many really do bury their talents. Those who do this often act not only because of their own personal fear, but also because they have yielded to the dictates of public opinion, which suppresses initiative.

But talents should mean everything valuable with which the Lord has endowed us. This includes various abilities, qualities of soul, and numerous spiritual gifts. It is time to understand that the Lord has given each of us the opportunity to bear fruit. After all, He wants us to be His co-workers.

Today’s passage includes the parable of the talents, that is, the gold coins that a master, before leaving, entrusts to his servants for safekeeping (vv. 14–15). In those days, however, just as in our own, money could be preserved only by putting it into circulation. Two of the three servants understand this well and act accordingly (vv. 16–17), while the third prefers not to take the risk (v. 18). The result was predictable: two of the three received praise and promotion (vv. 20–23), while the third lost everything (vv. 24–30).

Such a turn of events would be somewhat strange if the issue were the laws of our world, which has not yet been transfigured. Indeed, the servant was given the money for safekeeping, and he managed to return to the master the entire sum entrusted to him. In fact, the master had not required anyone to increase the sum, although he was pleased that his servants proved to be good stewards and found a profitable investment for the money entrusted to them. As a reward, the resourceful servants receive not merely a new and higher position; they become co-owners of their master’s property (vv. 21, 23; “to enter into joy” is not a Greek but a Hebrew expression, and it means something quite material, such as taking part in dividing the spoils after a successful joint hunt or dividing the profit after a successful transaction). The third servant preferred not to take the risk primarily because he considered his master greedy and cruel (v. 24). And that is exactly what the master became for him: he demanded of the distrustful servant what he had not demanded of the others and what the others had offered him of their own accord (vv. 26–27).

From the standpoint of the laws of our world, this logic is strange, to say the least; but different laws and rules operate in the Kingdom. In the Kingdom one cannot preserve anything for oneself, but one can receive everything by multiplying, for the sake of the Kingdom and its Master, what the Master entrusted one to preserve. Here one cannot return His gift to the Master and say, “You are cruel; here is what belongs to you, now leave me alone.” Whoever says this and adopts such a position loses the Kingdom. The principle Jesus has already spoken about more than once operates here: in the Kingdom one can have “life in abundance,” but only if from the very beginning one abandons the thought of one’s own separate and finite life, the thought of tearing a piece from the fullness of the Kingdom and carrying it away. The fullness of the Kingdom can be received, but only in its entirety. And that fullness can be retained only by multiplying and giving it away.

The logic of the Kingdom is strange logic from the point of view of this world. There is no leveling there, which sometimes seems to us like justice. Even when we speak of the old world so familiar to us, we sometimes still understand that there are things that cannot be divided either equally or "fairly."

For example, love. Or talent, not the talent from the Gospel parable, where money is meant, but the talent we mean when speaking of a talented person. Here we submit to the inevitable: there are things that belong only to the one to whom they are given by God, and to no one else.

Why, then, does God act as He acts? Did the one who returned his master's money intact and safe act badly? Reasoning in human terms, he did nothing bad; he fulfilled his duty: he did not increase his master's wealth, but he did not squander it either, returning what had been received for safekeeping intact.

Still, even reasoning in human terms, one can guess that money lying in a hidden store not only brings no income, but sometimes loses value. When the matter concerns spiritual life and the Kingdom, the situation looks even more unambiguous. Spiritual life is always dynamic. When God created the human person, He breathed into his "nostrils," as the Hebrew text reads literally, His breath, the breath of life, and the person became alive. Breath is a process; there can be no stopping here, for stopping is equivalent to death. And the Kingdom, as it opened on the day of Pentecost, is also the breath of God breaking into the world in order to transform it.

Everyone who wants to participate in its life, and even simply in spiritual life, the very life that unites a person with God, must become part of a process where the small becomes great, a sprout becomes a branching tree, one breath becomes a mighty stream of life, in short, a process where one talent gains ten. Such is the logic of the Kingdom, the truth of its life. If one does not participate in it, he will not keep his minimum, even if it was given by God. Because this minimum is only a seed sown by God, which can either sprout and bear fruit or rot, something God, most likely, will not permit. There is no third option.

Still, no teaching places the human being as high as Christ placed him, for if help given by us to anyone around us turns out to be help given to Him Himself, then here we see more than God's love for the human being. Here we rediscover the meaning of the long-known words that the Lord created us in His image and likeness, and even the fact that we constantly defile this image does not cancel the highest purpose He intended for us.

Here too we find an answer to those people who anxiously ask, "What will become of those who were far from faith but did good works?" Of course, none of us can answer with complete certainty the question of who will end up where. And yet, if the deeds really were good, those who did them will not be forgotten. For even without thinking of serving the Lord, they cared for Him. Correspondingly, those who did not give proper help to those around them will be asked according to their deeds, not according to adherence to theoretical positions.

It is interesting that if at the beginning of the parable the subject is the Son of Man, then afterward the story speaks of the King. Christ once again reveals to the disciples who He is, for by justice only the Lord is worthy to be King.

When we read today's Gospel text, we usually become very afraid, because we do not dare to imagine that the Lord will count us among the righteous. And we feel how our reason, with all its strength, demands Purgatory. This is a difficult question; at some point each person resolves it for himself. And although we understand that the line between good and evil runs through the human soul, we must still hold firmly to the Word of God, setting aside, as far as possible, the entire cultural burden of two thousand years, which at times only darkens our perception.

So the Lord speaks about the separation of the righteous from the wicked. Let us not look for our own place in this "icon," but look at it as we usually look at icons, discerning the theological meaning in the depth of the symbolism. The main message of this text, as we understand it, is that there will be no more half measures: good will be completely separated from evil. But what about that share of evil present in everyone whose mother bore him "in sins" (Ps 50), that is, in every human being?

The solution to this difficult problem may be Purgatory, or it may be Forgiveness. We have no right to impose our solution on anyone; each person comes to this himself, provided only that we respect another person's choice.

The Last Judgment may turn out not to be so frightening if we manage to get acquainted with the Judge in advance and secure His support. It turns out that this is possible. For the decisive meeting with Him, no special skill or extraordinary talents are needed, no bribes need to be given, and there is no need to run somewhere urgently. It is enough to meet the one who has most worn out our patience, our neighbor, and to treat him with complete seriousness, because through him our reconciliation takes place with the One on whom everything in our life depends.

In the canon for Meatfare Sunday, or the Sunday of the Last Judgment, as today is called, there are these words: "In his own rank, monk and hierarch, old and young, slave and master will be examined; widow and maiden will be set right; and then woe to all who did not have a blameless life. Your unbribed judgment, Your unconcealed tribunal: no clever speech, no orator's art, no witness's supposition can turn away what is righteous; for in You, O God, all hidden things stand revealed." These words seem more terrible and more saving than all the other words about worms and fire. This is something of enormous importance: only righteous testimony, and not any words, will be accepted for consideration. Very often now, among believing intellectuals, it is common to say that they do not believe in hell. One may not believe in it if one has never been there; but if one has been there, belief is no longer the issue. One of our older contemporaries, a holy martyr, said that hell is when all around there is I-I-I, as in a mirrored room ("no one knocks at my door; only mirror dreams of mirror," A. Akhmatova), and paradise is when all around there is you-you-you. And this is a given: there are two such ultimate points. Either we give to the least of these, or we do not; either "I" exists for us, or "you" does. There is no escaping or getting away from this. And being in such a mirrored room is truly terribly painful; worms and pans of boiling oil hardly compare. Only few people resolve this torment by leaving that mirrored room. Most prefer simply to hang it with various cozy things and live without suffering very much, except sometimes for anxious thoughts that someone will break in and tear it all down again... but it is so easy to push this torment away by thinking about an ever stronger lock.

In what the Lord Jesus Christ tells the disciples about the Last Judgment, three things are important to single out. First, the separation of the justified and the unjustified does happen. The choice of a life position and, as a consequence, the choice of justification or non-justification, is real for us. This is important, because we like to paint everything in rosy colors and think that in the last moment everything will somehow work out anyway. However, the Lord says more than once that there is a real possibility for us to choose hell and death. Strictly speaking, this is the reverse side of the possibility of choosing Christ and life.

Second, the criterion for selection and justification turns out to be the realization of the ability given to us to love and have compassion selflessly. In Christ's parable, after all, the Lord comes to us in those people from whom nothing can be received in return for mercy: the poor, the sick, and prisoners. This can be very displeasing to us, because the "religious psychology of the fallen human being," which the apostle Paul calls "sin living in me," prefers to put forward other things as justification, from outstanding qualities of soul to active and energetic service to what is passing away.

Third, all nations will be gathered for judgment. All of them, regardless of anything. Those who only just "climbed down from the tree" in the savanna fifty thousand years ago, and those who twenty thousand years ago went to America over the ice of the Bering Strait. Those who lived in the Middle East in the first half of the first century, and those who live in the countries of Christian Europe. All, regardless of how much or how little had been revealed to them about God, will be judged by whether we were capable of compassion, of helping people, and of pitying them. This is comforting, because such a judgment gives anyone the possibility of justification. It is frightening, because deep down we know that such people are rare.

It is important, however, to keep in mind that the Gospel speaks of the unique possibility of not coming to judgment, but passing directly from death into life. This path is faith working through love.

Today's reading concludes the cycle of Jesus' conversations about the coming of the Kingdom and about His future return, and it concludes with a conversation about Judgment. It is no surprise that those entering the Kingdom pass through Judgment; what is surprising is something else: the criteria presented to those who enter.

The traditional idea of Judgment assumed that righteousness is determined by whether a person followed the commandments and prescriptions of the Law. Here, however, at the Judgment Jesus asks only one question: did you feed Me, give Me drink, stand near Me in a difficult moment (vv. 34-46)? And in answer to the astonished questions of those entering, He explains: if you did this, or did not do this, for one of My least brothers, count it as having done it, or not done it, for Me (vv. 40, 45).

Commentators traditionally cite this conversation as a basis for works of mercy, understanding "least brothers" to mean all who need help or find themselves in hardship. But Jesus is speaking here specifically about His "least brothers," more precisely, about "these least brothers." In the scene of Judgment as Jesus describes it, there is no one except the King Himself and those who have come to Judgment. In that case, by "these least brothers" Jesus evidently could have meant only the apostles who were listening to Him, of whom He, presenting the King at the Judgment, speaks, evidently, in the third person, thereby drawing His listeners into His story.

But then the point is not the poor or those in need of help, but the community of the faithful who carry the Kingdom into the world, that is, the Church in the form in which Jesus Himself conceived and created it. At first glance such a turn in the story may seem unusual, but in other situations too Jesus had to redirect the listeners' attention from the poor to Himself. Here He directs the listeners' attention to His followers, who will have to carry the Kingdom into the world.

And this is no surprise, because He considers precisely this task the most important. The Church is not needed to satisfy anyone's religious needs, not to promote morality, and not even to help those in need. It is needed in order to carry the Kingdom into the world, and all its other activity can and must be only a consequence, a kind of byproduct, arising from the fulfillment of this main task. That is why the attitude toward those who fulfill it becomes the main criterion determining the possibility, or impossibility, for the one entering to cross the threshold of the Kingdom: the attitude toward them was the expression of his attitude toward the Kingdom at the time when it was only entering the world and had not yet been revealed in all its fullness. It is easy and pleasant to support a triumphant victor; supporting the one who still has to win is far from always pleasant, and sometimes such support involves mortal risk. But the Kingdom is indivisible, and now, while it is only entering the world and therefore sometimes remains hidden, it remains the same as it will be when it is revealed in all its fullness. And the one who turns away now from the Kingdom and from those who live by it will hardly be able at the Judgment to convince the King that his joy over the triumph of the Kingdom is sincere.

The criteria of Judgment described in this parable still surprise and trouble believers and nonbelievers today. It says nothing about faith in the usual sense of the word. Nothing about denominations, parties, or ideology. Nothing about “sins”—again, in the usual sense. Nothing about religious acts, rites, prayer, or the Church. It is not even about Christ as we imagine Him: both the saved and the condemned are sincerely astonished, certain that they have never encountered Him. It is only about those who always hinder us from “believing,” “praying,” and “being saved”—the people around us. And about us as human beings. It is about humanity as revealed in relationships between people. Here, at the Last Judgment, these relationships suddenly grow to unimaginable, truly “religious” proportions: a person’s humanity proves to be the measure of his kinship with God through the Man Jesus Christ.

Perhaps the most important thing Holy Scripture tells us about the end of the world is that it will come. The Lord explains to the disciples in considerable detail that the end will be like a harvest, when creation brings its fruit to the Creator. But what He adds next is also very important: we do not know the hour at which our Lord will come. Later, after the Resurrection, the Savior will say this even more definitely: it is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority. It follows that we need to know the fact that the end will come, since the Lord Himself bears witness to it, but we are not meant to know the time of its coming. Moreover, in His parables Christ calls us always to be ready for that day.

The ancient Christians expected the end of the world to come from day to day, and this expectation, on the one hand, inspired them and gave them strength to withstand persecutions and temptations, but, on the other hand, after two or three centuries had passed, it became the cause of a certain perplexity, disappointment, and rethinking of the Gospel. In our time we have so forgotten the very essence of the coming end that dates and signs of its arrival trouble us more than what we will say at the Last Judgment.

The point is presumably that the news of the end of time is necessary for us not so that we might determine our actions and deeds in some different way. We must live in God’s truth always: on the day after the creation of the world and on the eve of its end. Rather, the fact that history is to be completed is needed so that we may have the right attitude toward this world and its realities. The heavens will grow old like a worn-out garment, and together with them evil and suffering, violence and lies, which we bring into creation, will disappear. This is at once a day of judgment and a day of hope. We will see Christ and we will see His creation in all the beauty He intended. Compared with this, the whole burden of dependencies and illusions that fills our consciousness and from which we will in any case have to part recedes into the background.

The texts for the first Sunday of Advent call us first of all to watchfulness. Not only because we cannot determine the moment when a child will be born. But also because our expectation of seeing Jesus now must be like what parents feel when they have already been waiting eight months for the birth of a child. There is no patience left at all: when at last will we be able to see, to know who this is, what He is like? Life is about to change at any minute, and there are too many of those minutes.

The changes in our life that Jesus gives us are immeasurably greater. He will come to us as a newborn infant, who cannot speak and who will not get anywhere unless we carry Him. In the time left to us before His birth, we must accustom ourselves to the thought that, like any little child, Jesus means cares, constant anxieties, and watchfulness at any time of day or night.

Is He well with us? Is He warm? Will we teach Him to smile? And will we unlearn how to wage war when He appears in our life?

Of course, we believe in the Lord's Second Coming. We believe that He will come in power and glory, victorious over all evil, bringing the history of this world to an end and opening the gates to a new mode of being, with a new earth and a new heaven. And of course, we understand that we are not given to know when this will happen. Christians have believed and waited for two thousand years already, and the Second Coming has still not occurred. It may well not happen in our lifetime either!

But what does that actually change in our lives? That is what Jesus' parable is about. A good servant is one who always works well, for whom the master is always near. But is this not also true for us? Christ did not go away completely; He remained with us. Is He not our King and God? Is He not the victor over our evil? Do we not feel His gracious power? Was our life not entirely renewed when He entered it?

Thus, for us who believe in Him, there is no fundamental difference between the First and the Second Coming, and this is precisely what can and should determine our life.

At first the leaders of the people find it inconvenient to do away with Jesus during the feast. But Judas is ready to hand Him over at any convenient moment, and Christ’s enemies no longer think either of the possibility of popular unrest or of defiling the feast by an execution. Their “principled considerations” proved to be mere conventions, readily cast aside to satisfy their desire.

The disciples’ displeasure at the action of the woman who poured out costly ointment is logically sound and practically justified, yet Jesus unexpectedly approves her unascetic act. Her uncalculated expenditure is a visible expression of love, especially since Jesus is preparing to go to His death. Perhaps, among all those who were near Him, this woman was the only one who, if she did not understand, at least sensed what awaited Him.

This also means that mere outward observance of ascetic rules may fail to win Christ’s approval if it is not an expression of love for Him. Even care for the needy, which the Lord entrusted to each of us, can become formal and hypocritical without love, a form of Pharisaism. This, however, cannot serve as grounds for doing nothing for those whom we always have with us while we wait for love to awaken.

From this moment on, the Gospel narrative begins to move steadily toward its center of meaning - the story of Jesus' death and Resurrection. Christians have always understood these events as the accomplishment of a new sacrifice, which Christ offers for the whole world. The word "sacrifice" has long since fallen out of everyday speech in its original, religious sense. Yet the difficulty lies not only in ancient religious realities, but also in the very character of this self-giving. Christ gives Himself, as it were, in response to the gesture of the disciple who poured precious fragrant oil over Him.

For an outside observer, represented here by Judas, giving the most valuable thing for another is absurd and wild. He would be more satisfied with the "sacrifice" of alms to the poor, when only an insignificant part of what one has is given away. To give everything, to give oneself, is a reality "beyond the limits" for Judas and, perhaps, for many of us.

But an even greater mystery is that the suffering and dying Christ becomes bread and wine for the disciples - food that nourishes their life, which is now inseparably bound to the Teacher.

Symbolically anointed with fragrant oil even before His burial, the Lord, on the night before His death, at the Passover supper, gives Himself as food to the disciples in bread and wine. In this way He shows them and us that His death is not accidental and not in vain. Even during His public ministry He speaks terrible words to the disciples, words that troubled many who followed Him: "Whoever eats (literally - gnaws, chews, a very expressive verb) My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him." His embodiment, His bodily existence, became the inseparable bond between God and humanity, and on this last night the disciples become participants in this bond, receiving in bread and wine the divinity and new humanity of Christ.

Whatever the end described in this Gospel “apocalypse” may be, and whenever it may come, we are unlikely to learn anything about it in advance that would help us prepare for it better. As a model of proper conduct, Jesus offers His disciples the story of a steward in his master's house. This man simply did his work properly, and his master could return home at any time and find everything in good order. Thus, this is not a set of “survival instructions” for the end of the world, whenever that may come. It is a model by which Christ's disciples can “live and work” right now. This is the whole force of the Gospel's words about readiness for Jesus' coming: “Do not sleep; do not grow complacent! Live even now in the reality of the Kingdom that is drawing near!”

Today's passage is the second part of Jesus' account of the end of time, given in the Gospel according to Matthew. Here we find an explanation for the apparent misunderstanding that had already perplexed representatives of the first Christian generation: history had ended, yet Jesus, contrary to the promise He had given, still was not returning. Here He says directly that everything He told the disciples about would happen during their lifetime (v. 34; by "generation" here, according to the meaning of the Greek word, "generation" is meant).

On the other hand, He tells the disciples nothing definite about the timing of His return; more than that, He says these times are known only to the Heavenly Father (v. 36). In that case it becomes clear that the events marking the end of earthly history and the Savior's return could be separated by some time, whose duration could not be determined precisely at that moment. Jesus, in fact, did not promise the disciples that He would return in glory during their lifetime; He only promised them that they would witness the end of that history whose final stage they had reached. After that, all that remains is to wait for the Teacher's return and, as far as possible, not to relax spiritually (vv. 37-51).

It is no accident that Jesus compares His return with the situation described in the biblical parable of the flood: in Noah's days no one seriously believed that catastrophe was possible, and only Noah himself took the danger hanging over humanity seriously. Evidently, Jesus' return can be expected above all when most people are not thinking about that return at all, having sunk into everyday affairs and forgotten Christ, and perhaps spiritual life altogether.

But why do the times remain unknown? In speaking of the times, Jesus refers to the fact that they are known only to the Father. Meanwhile, everything known to the Father is known to Him as well. In that case, one can only suppose that on the day when Jesus told His disciples about the last times, the times were not yet known even to the Father. This would be entirely possible if He had not yet determined the time at that moment. Of course, for God time is not a self-sufficient reality as it is for us, but all His decisions, if they have to do with our world, still fit within the framework of our familiar concepts of past and future. And from our point of view, His decision about the day of Jesus' return was then still a matter of the future. It was still too early to speak about it.

God has no predetermined plan for everyone in which each human step would be known in advance; if that were the case, the day of the Savior's return would also have been known and predetermined from the creation of the world. But God leaves each person his freedom. And He carries out His plans in accord with the free choice of specific people. Here nothing can be predicted in advance, at least for us, people living in a world where past and future remain absolute realities. That is why the day of the Savior's return cannot be predicted in advance. To a certain extent, it depends on the choice made by each of us.

Those who reflect on the times of the Second Coming and the Last Judgment for some reason pay more attention to the cataclysms accompanying those critical times than to Jesus' very clear words that at that expected moment normal everyday life will continue: neither customary labors, nor weddings, nor even the taking of food will stop. The main upheavals will occur not in the earth's crust or in the atmosphere, but in people's lives, in their souls. The choice the Lord offers us is made already now, and it is made quietly and unnoticed by most of those around us. Completely similar people make the choice, but they make it differently. Until a certain time they are side by side, but the hour of parting will come, when each will go along the path he has chosen for himself.

It is interesting that here Jesus again mentions the fig tree, offering it to the disciples as an example of one that can sense the changes of the times. These words once more make us remember another fig tree, the one that gave no fruit. We are called to be constantly ready to bear fruit and place it in the Lord's hands.

Speaking about His return and about the last times, Jesus specifically warns His disciples and followers against being carried away by false prophets and false messiahs. But where could such fascination come from among those who, as it would seem, had already settled the question of the Messiah?

The answer to that question may be found in the traditional ideas of that time about both the Messiah and the Kingdom. In those days, among the Jewish people, it was widely believed that the Temple in which Jesus preached would become the messianic Temple. The ideas about the Kingdom themselves still remained close to pre-exilic ones: in the popular religious consciousness, the Kingdom was perceived as an earthly state, though one ruled by the Messiah who would head it. And the apostles, it must be said, were not free from such ideas either; even on the day of the Ascension they were still sure that now, at last, their Teacher would finally begin building the messianic state whose appearance they had awaited so long.

Yet it was precisely the first, in part, and the second, mainly, generation of Christians who would witness the very tragic events Jesus is now speaking about. The messianic uprising of A.D. 70 and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple became not only a national but also a religious catastrophe for the people. For the Jews it meant that they had not waited long enough for the Messiah after all, and for Christians it meant that He had not returned before the end of time, as He had promised. In such a situation confusion and wavering would be entirely natural. Self-appointed "messiahs" and "teachers" or "prophets" who wanted to "correct" or "supplement" the Gospel would have appeared. Indeed, if the Temple had already been destroyed and the Kingdom had still not come, did this not mean that something had been missed? Maybe the Founder of the Church had left something unsaid or unfinished?

Such doubts could become, and in their time did become, fertile ground for all kinds of theories and concepts that use Christian language but in substance have nothing in common with Christianity. Of course, the chief answer, as usually happens in the Church, was the new revelation received from Jesus about the era that had begun, about the spiritual meaning of the events taking place during that era, and about its completion; it found its embodiment in the Book of Revelation. But Jesus, as we can see, considers it necessary to warn His disciples and followers in advance. After all, the things at stake are too serious: the Kingdom and salvation.