NOTES for Co1 1:18-24

"We venerate Your Cross, O Christ..." What do these words mean for us? Boundless compassion for the innocent, beaten, naked righteous one hanging on this wood. Love for Him, limitless gratitude. And also the understanding of how infinitely lighter our own cross is. All the problems that seem impossible to carry are nothing compared with the measure of suffering He took upon Himself for our sake. "You, who so loved Your world..."

And there are other words: "Then He says to the disciple, 'Behold your mother.'" On these words the Church is built, the strongest of strongholds. We have all been made sons and daughters, and therefore we can never be orphans. Orphanhood is a word from some other life. We often enter prayerfully into the Passion of Christ, but it is much harder to enter into the passion of Mary. His inconceivable physical pain and her inconceivable pain of soul. The whole world is embraced by this pain.

The image of the two ways of which the apostle speaks, the way of salvation and the way of destruction, has roots that go deep into the Yahwist and then Jewish tradition. The way of righteousness, both in the Torah and in other biblical books, is regarded as the way of salvation, and the way of sin as the way of ruin. And yet the picture turns out not to be so simple.

Already in the pre-Christian and even pre-biblical period, many wondered why the righteous person suffers from the evil in which the world lies, and why his righteousness is not rewarded according to its merits. This theme sounds especially sharply in the biblical books, which is not surprising: the God of the Bible is a good God, who gave His people the Torah and calls them to the path of righteousness. Why then does He so often leave His people at the mercy of the evil with which the world is full?

The Savior's death on the Cross is the answer to this question. Of course, for fallen man with the best intentions it would be simpler to imagine an ideal world where righteousness would be immediately rewarded and evil just as immediately punished. But in such a world no one would have any chance of salvation, for there are no sinless people on earth. Jesus could have entered the world as a triumphant victor, but then He would have had to remain alone in the Kingdom. And His Father's will was not for this. Such a triumph of the Kingdom would not have left the slightest chance to any human being. The will of the Father, expressed through one of the prophets several centuries before Christ's coming into the world, is that the sinner should not die, but turn and remain alive.

That is precisely why the Kingdom enters the world as if unnoticed, not imposing itself on anyone by force and not hanging over anyone as a threat of immediate punishment for the slightest sin. That is why all attempts to create on earth a kingdom of universal justice, whether on a religious or anti-religious basis, have always ended in grand bloodshed having nothing to do with any justice. And Paul points to the way of the Kingdom as the only way on which the triumph of righteousness is possible. A triumph leading not to destruction, but to salvation.

The apostle Paul starts from an anthropomorphic view of God that was common in antiquity and is still common now. It cannot be said that nothing worthwhile can be found along this path: some sound judgments are still possible here. Thus, starting from our own small strength, we think of God's omnipotence; comparing Him with our reason, we imagine His wisdom and omniscience. Comparing Him with our limitations helps us touch the truth of His boundlessness and transcendence.

But this way of thinking about God conceals a serious danger: we think that God is like us and imagine Him as a human being, only a very "big" one. Instinctively it seems to us that where a weak little human can accomplish nothing, God will accomplish everything. Where we suffer and die, God will come out victorious. That is indeed what happens, but not at all as we imagine.

By ordinary logic, it would have been natural for Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane to "mobilize" the very twelve legions of angels He spoke about to Peter, and for the angels to scatter the guards and expose the chief priests. But something completely different happens, something absurd, in the words of the apostle Paul ("foolishness" in the Synodal and Slavonic translations is moria in the Greek text, meaning "folly, absurdity, madness"). Either the power of God does not consist in what we think it does, or His victory is not won by power at all, as the prophet Zechariah says. And the Lord accepts death on the Cross.

The Greeks and the Jews, the apostle Paul's listeners, turned away from him as soon as they heard that God suffered on the Cross. God cannot suffer - this was the common conviction of the entire ancient world, the source of all theological reasoning about the impassibility of the deity. From this point of view, the absurdity of the Gospel events produced a whole series of conflicts and heresies in the New Testament era: Christians could not manage to join the Greek-Jewish certainty about God's impassibility with faith in the crucified Jesus. Not years, as one might expect, but centuries upon centuries were spent on this... Because behind the word of the Cross stands the greatest mystery of God's love, the incomprehensible foundation of biblical Revelation.

Human nature is contradictory. And the point here is not only the features of human thinking or human feelings. The point is above all the weakness of the human will. What is a human being? God's "breath of life," giving life to nature and turning it into that flow of human existence which the Bible calls a "living soul." The "breath of life," God's presence in us, makes us human beings, possessing will and self-awareness.

But God is unobtrusive; He will let us forget His presence altogether if that is what we want. And then He will cease to be the master of our life. We ourselves become the masters of our life, and the flow of life overwhelms us. Nature becomes self-sufficient, beginning to determine our life, if not completely, then predominantly. That is what happened at the fall into sin, and now we, fallen human beings, submit to our nature. Our will has grown weak; it is no longer able to stand against that natural flow which was given to us by God as the environment and building material for our life, but which for us after the fall became an irresistible force, often dragging us where we do not want to go at all. This weak will became the main obstacle to full spiritual life.

That is why, when making decisions vital for us and making a decisive spiritual choice, we make it with reservations. Our "yes" is always accompanied by one "but" or another. And there is an objective reason for this: in our present state we really cannot vouch for ourselves, more precisely, for our human nature, which can fail us at the most unsuitable moment. Nature in the fallen world is often not subject to the spirit, not because of the properties God placed in it, but because of the abnormal position in which it found itself after the fall. In the fall, the human being freed both his own nature and, at least in part, nature as a whole from the authority of the One who alone can govern it, and he himself took hold of controls that he proved unable to manage.

In the Kingdom of God it is not so. There everything is in order with governance. Normal human nature, unspoiled by sin, is completely subject to the spirit; therefore the Savior has only "yes" for His Heavenly Father. And in everyone who has shared in the life of the Kingdom, human nature becomes obedient to the human spirit to the extent that the person's life becomes part of the life of the Kingdom. Therefore such a person also has nothing for God except "yes." For "no" to God in any case means a break in relations with Him. And therefore this "no" becomes at the same time "no" to Christ and to the Kingdom.

It is interesting: why did God not allow the world to know Him through the wisdom that He Himself had given to the world? Why must the witnesses resort to what the apostle calls "foolish preaching" or, in the language of the Synodal translation, "the foolishness of preaching"? And does human wisdom always and inevitably degenerate into empty disputes in which the desire for self-assertion prevails? What is so bad about knowledge that it always leads to such a sad result?

If the wisdom of which the apostle speaks were only knowledge, we would not be able to answer this question. But in the Jewish tradition wisdom was never only knowledge for the sake of knowledge. The corresponding Hebrew word, and Paul, even when writing in Greek, still remains a Jew thinking within the framework of his own cultural and religious tradition, originally denoted not so much knowledge as ability or skill. At first this was skill in practical work, the work of a craftsman or artist; then it was the ability to build relationships with people, the skill of judgment and governance, whether governing one's own household or governing a state. And in the post-exilic period, wisdom came to be associated first of all with the art of righteousness, the skill of righteous living.

It would seem that not very much depends on the human being here, since righteousness comes from God, not from man. And yet the path of righteousness is a divine-human path; in a certain sense it depends on the human being no less than on God. And in order to walk this path, a person needs precisely experience and skill connected with the practice of keeping the commandments. And all the intellectual tools possessed, for example, by a "scribe" or teacher of the Torah are ultimately needed precisely to help the one walking the path of righteousness not to stray from that path. But fallen human nature often turns a useful tool into an obstacle and a burden on the path of righteousness. Instead of making an unambiguous choice in favor of following the commandments, a person begins to look for ways to evade this, either by observing nothing at all or by seeking easy paths that would allow him, so to speak, to fulfill the Torah without fulfilling it. And then the intellect becomes a tool serving not the observance of the Torah, but its violation, and wisdom becomes not so much the art of following the Torah as the art of imitating such following.

In such a situation, the preaching of the Kingdom can no longer rest on the traditional human experience of righteous life, not because it is forgotten, but because it has in fact been devalued. Then there remains only that very "foolish preaching" of which the apostle speaks. Preaching against commonly accepted opinions, contrary to the obvious, preaching that will indeed seem complete madness to any "normal" person. The preaching of the Kingdom that truly, according to the Savior's word, is "not of this world."

In every age of Christian history, missionaries and preachers have tried to answer the question: what prevents people from accepting the message of Christ and the Kingdom? Paul, meanwhile, answers this question briefly but quite concisely and, perhaps, exhaustively. As always, he divides all people into the religious ("Jews") and the secular ("Greeks"), and both have their own reasons for rejecting the witness to Christ and the Kingdom. These reasons are easiest to see if we analyze the attitude of the two named categories of people toward the fact of the Savior's death on the cross. Without speaking of that death, of course, no witness to His resurrection is possible, and therefore no witness to the Kingdom or to Christianity at all is possible.

As we can see, the apostle considers the expectation of signs, "miracles," that would confirm for religious people the truth of the witness they hear to be a distinguishing feature of religious consciousness. In fact, they demanded this kind of sign from the Savior Himself during His earthly ministry. But the signs they expected had to fit the ideas and concepts characteristic of the religious views of those listening. This is exactly the kind of proof many of the Pharisees who listened to Jesus expected from Him: He had to do something that corresponded to their ideas about what the Messiah should be like and how He should behave. Death on a cross, however, in no way corresponded to such ideas, even if one allowed that resurrection followed it. According to the traditional Jewish ideas of that time, and not only that time, the Messiah was supposed to be not a crucified Righteous One, but a triumphant Victor, and moreover a Victor triumphing in our untransformed world, not in some Kingdom "not of this world." Therefore, for the Jews of Gospel times, the messianism of the early Christian Church was something completely unacceptable.

But the Kingdom in general does not fit into any religious framework, and therefore Christianity does not fit into one either. And every religious consciousness, including a "Christian" one, resists the revelation of the Kingdom when it goes beyond that framework, destroying both the framework and religiosity itself. It would seem that secular people should be free from this problem. And they are; but here problems of another kind arise. Every pagan, and "secularity" is nothing other than practical paganism, lives exclusively or primarily according to the laws of the untransformed world. All his psychological and behavioral models, which determine his everyday existence, what is usually called "practical life," and in the Bible the ability to organize everyday practical life is called wisdom, are oriented toward the laws of the untransformed world, not toward the laws of the Kingdom.

This is what usually stops a secular person who hears the witness and begins to think about what he has heard. For him, trying to live according to the laws of the Kingdom is true madness: it is a radical breaking, the destruction of all established and commonly accepted models and ideas, in fact a rejection of the whole former life, and a voluntary rejection at that.

An adventure, an utterly insane adventure. And many pagans, "secular people," refuse any attempt to share in the life of the Kingdom because they are frightened precisely by this seeming madness. As we can see, the reasons religious people and secular people reject the witness are different and unlike one another. But the result is the same: rejection of the Kingdom. And of one's own salvation.

It is hardly possible to give Christ's death on the Cross any more or less coherent and deep rational explanation, because in it we touch the unfathomable mystery of God's mercy. That is why, in the letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul stresses that the efforts of abstract reasoning, however consistent and noncontradictory it may be, cannot explain the Cross.

A rational explanation of this event would make it something that necessarily follows from definite causes, something regular and lawful. But such an explanation is possible only if one looks at the Cross abstractly, from a distance, without discerning the full reality of the sufferings of the Crucified One. For the apostle, however, something else matters: in the Savior's death on the Cross we see the Living God, who surpasses every lawlike necessity.

The Creator of the world does not remain in impassibility beyond the law, as we would say, "beyond good and evil," but comes to suffering humanity. Without changing the course of history, without remaking humanity by mass hypnosis, He tears apart the bonds of logic and necessity. On the Cross we meet not a Lawgiver with whom one can communicate in legal terms of rights, duties, and retribution, but a living Person. The Cross defeats death not because it frees us from its inevitability. But now we are with Jesus, and for that reason alone there is no longer anything to fear.

"We venerate Your Cross, O Christ..." What do these words mean for us? Boundless compassion for the innocent, beaten, naked righteous one hanging on this wood. Love for Him, limitless gratitude. And also the understanding of how infinitely lighter our own cross is. All the problems that seem impossible to carry are nothing compared with the measure of suffering He took upon Himself for our sake. "You, who so loved Your world..."

And there are other words: "Then He says to the disciple, 'Behold your mother.'" On these words the Church is built, the strongest of strongholds. We have all been made sons and daughters, and therefore we can never be orphans. Orphanhood is a word from some other life. We often enter prayerfully into the Passion of Christ, but it is much harder to enter into the passion of Mary. His inconceivable physical pain and her inconceivable pain of soul. The whole world is embraced by this pain.

Today’s reading is dedicated to the feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. At its center is the veneration of the Cross, by which we have been saved “from the bondage of the enemy,” as the magnification for the feast sings.

The Evangelist John bears witness to the Crucifixion and to those standing by the Cross. The foot of the Cross is the only “right” place for each of us, because it is precisely in the Savior’s Death on the Cross that the salvation of the world is accomplished and life is granted to us all, even if it never enters our minds. The world is full of suffering, sometimes explicable but more often inexplicable, and this mystery cannot fail to concern a person. This is hard for us, so our desire to hide from suffering and turn away from it when it does not touch us personally is quite understandable. But the Gospel tells us that every genuine human suffering, not one that is contrived, is a place of Christ’s special presence. It is He who suffers in every person, and it is precisely here that we meet Him.

Who manipulates a person, and how? And what gives manipulators power over souls? Pontius Pilate, it would seem, is not one of those who can be pushed around at will: a high-ranking representative of what today would be called the "center," possessing in Palestine all the necessary authority and all the necessary power and resources, even for military intervention if needed, has no one to fear except Rome. In practice, however, everything turns out quite differently.

Pilate understands perfectly well that the Man whom the Temple leadership has brought to him for confirmation of a death sentence is guilty of nothing, at least He is not guilty under Roman law. Therefore He must be released. But to act this way means entering into conflict with the Temple. Pilate is an experienced politician. He understands perfectly well who stands behind the street crowd demanding the execution of a harmless Preacher. Of course, He calls Himself a King, but if his kingdom is only a "kingdom of truth," then for Rome He is certainly not dangerous. After all, what is truth? That is a philosophical question; it has no relation to real politics. But the Temple does have a relation to it, a very direct and immediate one. One has to stay on good terms with the Temple.

And a vague anxiety creeps into Pilate's heart: if this Man has become an enemy of the Temple and the Synagogue, will he, Pilate, become their enemy too if he supports Jesus? And then there are the unambiguous hints at a possible denunciation to Rome, which will unquestionably follow: the shouts from the crowd are not accidental, for behind them stand people for whom writing such a denunciation would be no trouble, and there, in the center, their letter would certainly receive attention...

And Pilate gives in. After all, he is a practical politician, a man of the system, and he has something to lose. He is afraid. And fear is a lockpick to the human heart. Love is a key, and fear is a lockpick. The key is in God's hand, but He does not enter the heart without asking. The enemy of God, with a lockpick, asks no permission. And he enters those hearts into which God is not allowed. He is not allowed in so that He will not interfere with "real politics." And then another enters the heart of such a "practical politician." The one who cares neither about politics nor about the politician. The one who needs only another's heart in order to settle in it himself.

"We venerate Your Cross, O Christ..." What do these words mean for us? Boundless compassion for the innocent, beaten, naked righteous one hanging on this wood. Love for Him, limitless gratitude. And also the understanding of how infinitely lighter our own cross is. All the problems that seem impossible to carry are nothing compared with the measure of suffering He took upon Himself for our sake. "You, who so loved Your world..."

And there are other words: "Then He says to the disciple, 'Behold your mother.'" On these words the Church is built, the strongest of strongholds. We have all been made sons and daughters, and therefore we can never be orphans. Orphanhood is a word from some other life. We often enter prayerfully into the Passion of Christ, but it is much harder to enter into the passion of Mary. His inconceivable physical pain and her inconceivable pain of soul. The whole world is embraced by this pain.

Today’s reading is dedicated to the feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. At its center is the veneration of the Cross, by which we have been saved “from the bondage of the enemy,” as the magnification for the feast sings.

The Evangelist John bears witness to the Crucifixion and to those standing by the Cross. The foot of the Cross is the only “right” place for each of us, because it is precisely in the Savior’s Death on the Cross that the salvation of the world is accomplished and life is granted to us all, even if it never enters our minds. The world is full of suffering, sometimes explicable but more often inexplicable, and this mystery cannot fail to concern a person. This is hard for us, so our desire to hide from suffering and turn away from it when it does not touch us personally is quite understandable. But the Gospel tells us that every genuine human suffering, not one that is contrived, is a place of Christ’s special presence. It is He who suffers in every person, and it is precisely here that we meet Him.

The mood of the crowd is changeable: only a few days pass from "hosanna!" to "crucify!" But a crowd is a crowd precisely so that a person disappears in it. Dissolves into a large and irresponsible collective "we." Under certain circumstances it can be physically destroyed, but it is utterly useless to try to enter into communion with it. Simply because there is no one there to communicate with: in a crowd there is not a single person.

But a crowd can be manipulated. Sometimes. With certain precautions and usually up to a certain limit. And the high priest, like the whole temple elite, had mastered this art perfectly. His power rested on it in many respects. And, of course, on the political games that he, as the head of Judea, played with Roman authority. He played them by frightening Rome with religious extremists, zealots, with whom he also had his own secret game, one Rome did not know about. Or knew about but turned a blind eye, hoping in the high priest and his circle as the lesser evil. He played them by hinting at the possibility of a great religious war, toward which he himself silently pushed those who were ready to unleash it. And so, on fear that was partly real and partly phantom, he built his politics.

And Jesus was not only not a Person in his eyes; He was not even a person with a lowercase letter. Just a bargaining chip. A chance to prove his loyalty: we have no king but the emperor! And to hand over to execution a troublesome preacher who was completely impossible to control. Barabbas was another matter: a zealot, of course, an extremist, but one of their own, a patriot, a hater of the Romans, and above all someone understandable. The Temple had long been in contact with such people; with them it was clear how to behave and clear what to expect from them. But here there was one continuous surprise, unnecessary and uncontrollable, and therefore dangerous. Better to get rid of this preacher, but not with his own hands. Better with Roman hands: for the high priest, this was an almost no-lose option. And if the procurator became stubborn, the roar of the crowd could hint to him that reports might reach Rome about his indulgence toward dangerous rebels, against whom the high priest was fighting and whom he, the procurator, the emperor's hand and eye, was pardoning.

Everyone plays his own game. Except Jesus alone; He does not play any games with anyone. Such a one is needed by no one. And only one thing remains for Him: the cross. There is no other path for Him.

One common way of reading and understanding the Gospel is to try to find one's own place in one passage or another, to identify what applies to you personally. It is not always possible, or necessary, to do this, but in today's readings it is natural.

The foot of the Cross is the only "right" place for each of us, because it is precisely in the Savior's death on the Cross that the salvation of the world is accomplished and life is given to all of us, even if this never enters our minds. The world is full of suffering, some explainable and more often inexplicable, and this mystery cannot fail to concern a person. It is hard for us, so our desire to hide from suffering, to turn away from it if it does not touch us personally, is understandable. But the Gospel tells us that every genuine, unimagined human suffering is a place of Christ's special presence. It is He who suffers in every person, and it is exactly here that we meet Him.

"We venerate Your Cross, O Christ..." What do these words mean for us? Boundless compassion for the innocent, beaten, naked righteous one hanging on this wood. Love for Him, limitless gratitude. And also the understanding of how infinitely lighter our own cross is. All the problems that seem impossible to carry are nothing compared with the measure of suffering He took upon Himself for our sake. "You, who so loved Your world..."

And there are other words: "Then He says to the disciple, 'Behold your mother.'" On these words the Church is built, the strongest of strongholds. We have all been made sons and daughters, and therefore we can never be orphans. Orphanhood is a word from some other life. We often enter prayerfully into the Passion of Christ, but it is much harder to enter into the passion of Mary. His inconceivable physical pain and her inconceivable pain of soul. The whole world is embraced by this pain.

Today’s reading is dedicated to the feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. At its center is the veneration of the Cross, by which we have been saved “from the bondage of the enemy,” as the magnification for the feast sings.

The Evangelist John bears witness to the Crucifixion and to those standing by the Cross. The foot of the Cross is the only “right” place for each of us, because it is precisely in the Savior’s Death on the Cross that the salvation of the world is accomplished and life is granted to us all, even if it never enters our minds. The world is full of suffering, sometimes explicable but more often inexplicable, and this mystery cannot fail to concern a person. This is hard for us, so our desire to hide from suffering and turn away from it when it does not touch us personally is quite understandable. But the Gospel tells us that every genuine human suffering, not one that is contrived, is a place of Christ’s special presence. It is He who suffers in every person, and it is precisely here that we meet Him.

The apostle stands beside the Most Pure Virgin at the Cross and, by the word of the Lord Jesus, receives her as his mother. From that time, the apostle writes, "this disciple," and it is very characteristic of him not to name himself when possible, took Her to his own. Many Christians, mainly Orthodox and Catholics, are convinced that at this moment the apostle John represents the whole Church, all generations of Christ's disciples. At this moment he is the first of us, and in his person all of us become brothers of Jesus and children of Mary.

This conviction of Christians is deeper than it may seem at first glance. The point is that in the New Testament our connection with the Lord Jesus can truly be so immediate and strong that His family becomes ours. Finishing his Gospel, already aged, he says of himself, his life, and Christ's Gospel: "This is the disciple who testifies to these things... and his testimony is true." Thus the whole life of the apostle is a testimony to the cruciform love of the Son of God, and this too is not only a fact of the personal biography of John, son of Zebedee, but a path for every Christian.

In these key moments, standing at the Cross, Mary's adoption, and witness to Jesus, the apostle John embodies the whole Church, as Peter embodies it in the preaching on the day of Pentecost, as each of us embodies it when he fulfills God's will for himself.

You may have seen Michelangelo's great sculpture "Pieta" ("The Mourning One") in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome or in photographs. Grief, but not complaint; sorrow, but not a cry; tears, but not hysteria. A sword pierced Her soul, according to Simeon's prophecy (Luke 2:35), but the Mother's heart continues to live by love for the Son and for all the sons whom He entrusted to Her (John 19:26-27). One no longer wants to say any words, only to bow in silence before the royal strength of love.

The Gospels in general tell us very little about the life of the Mother of God, which makes the small details they do convey all the more important. The youngest of the disciples, John, the one whom Jesus loved, takes upon himself the care of Jesus' Mother. Even on the cross, Jesus does not forget Her and entrusts Her to His beloved disciple. There is a purely practical meaning in this: women in Israel did not support themselves; they were homemakers, while the means of living were earned first by fathers, then by husbands, and then by sons. With the death of Jesus, Mary has no one left who would provide for Her life, and She had no savings; the Holy Family had always lived in poverty. Therefore Jesus' care for Her in the final moments of His earthly life is very important for both of Them.

But there is another meaning as well. The Church created by Christ is called to continue His work, to do everything that He did. By receiving Mary, the disciples show themselves to be brothers of Jesus, and the Church becomes one family, in which there is a Father, there is a Mother, and there are children, brothers and sisters to one another, living in unity with Christ, in obedience to the Father, and in care for the Mother, who overshadows them with her motherly love.

"We venerate Your Cross, O Christ..." What do these words mean for us? Boundless compassion for the innocent, beaten, naked righteous one hanging on this wood. Love for Him, limitless gratitude. And also the understanding of how infinitely lighter our own cross is. All the problems that seem impossible to carry are nothing compared with the measure of suffering He took upon Himself for our sake. "You, who so loved Your world..."

And there are other words: "Then He says to the disciple, 'Behold your mother.'" On these words the Church is built, the strongest of strongholds. We have all been made sons and daughters, and therefore we can never be orphans. Orphanhood is a word from some other life. We often enter prayerfully into the Passion of Christ, but it is much harder to enter into the passion of Mary. His inconceivable physical pain and her inconceivable pain of soul. The whole world is embraced by this pain.

Today’s reading is dedicated to the feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. At its center is the veneration of the Cross, by which we have been saved “from the bondage of the enemy,” as the magnification for the feast sings.

The Evangelist John bears witness to the Crucifixion and to those standing by the Cross. The foot of the Cross is the only “right” place for each of us, because it is precisely in the Savior’s Death on the Cross that the salvation of the world is accomplished and life is granted to us all, even if it never enters our minds. The world is full of suffering, sometimes explicable but more often inexplicable, and this mystery cannot fail to concern a person. This is hard for us, so our desire to hide from suffering and turn away from it when it does not touch us personally is quite understandable. But the Gospel tells us that every genuine human suffering, not one that is contrived, is a place of Christ’s special presence. It is He who suffers in every person, and it is precisely here that we meet Him.

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.

Continuing the conversation about disputes and about what causes them, Paul, of course not by accident, turns to the theme of human wisdom and its limits. For him it is obvious that this wisdom is unable to understand the mystery of the Savior's earthly ministry and His death on the cross (vv. 18-21). Here the apostle remains faithful to the tradition of the "poor," which had taken shape already in the time of the pre-exilic prophets. Judging by the Book of Psalms, even then it had become clear to those seeking full spiritual life and deep relationship with God that human effort alone was not enough to attain righteousness, and that a person who wanted to follow God had to give up the thought of relying only on himself. The seeker could reach what he desired only by surrendering himself completely to God's will. It is no accident that these people began to call themselves "the poor": they understood that before God they were like beggars even when, by the standards of this world, they could be considered wise and rich. They were the ones who awaited the coming of the Messiah and the arrival of the messianic Kingdom more than others; it is precisely such people whom Jesus calls blessed when proclaiming its arrival. But both in the time of the ancient prophets and in the time of Jesus there were people who preferred their own wisdom to the Kingdom. And Paul says directly that trying to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom by human effort alone is useless.

It would seem that there is no need for this, since Jesus Himself revealed them to everyone who wanted to see and hear, to everyone ready to trust Him and follow Him. But only the one who had experienced what the "poor" experienced could do this: the understanding, despite all his wisdom and knowledge, of his complete helplessness in everything concerning the Kingdom, which no one can understand and into which no one can enter unless he is brought in by the One who brought the Kingdom into the world. It is precisely human wisdom that demands signs and proofs even where everything is obvious (vv. 21-24), for such signs and proofs are needed not in order to be convinced of the authenticity of the reality that has opened, but in order to "fit" it into the framework of human logic, coordinating and connecting it with earthly wisdom, which is powerless here. And only to those who have given up such attempts is the path into the Kingdom opened (vv. 26-31). And together with this, the complete meaninglessness of the disputes that divide people in this world becomes clear to them.

Thus the crucified Christ is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks”... Could the Almighty Lord really not have found some option that would neither cause offense nor seem foolish? He could have. But He did not look for one. For He did not and never does set Himself the goal of being convenient and comfortable... Yes, He loves humankind, but that does not mean that He ceases to be Himself. He acts within His own laws. And even if it seems that He “is not behaving like God,” in reality He is simply not trying to conform to our notions of what God should be like.

In the evangelist's account of the Saviour's condemnation, one striking feature is the desire to evade responsibility shown by representatives of both the Temple and the Roman authorities. It is no accident that Jesus refuses to answer the high priest's question about His teaching and His disciples (John 18:19–21). He understands that there can be no question of a fair trial in this case and that the whole interrogation is intended only to catch Him in His words and find grounds for fabricating a case against Him—one, moreover, on which He could be sentenced to death. In fact, everything had already been decided when Caiaphas considered it permissible to sacrifice One for the welfare of the people as he understood it (John 18:14).

Naturally, however, all those involved in Jesus' trial wanted the decision to be made collectively and with due observance of the legal formalities. Then no particular person could be accused of murder. The representatives of the Temple elite might seem to have had no one to fear, but their religious consciences were probably still uneasy: an ordinary murder would have been a direct violation of the Torah. An execution ordered by the Sanhedrin was another matter. A formally impeccable verdict of that kind would have reassured everyone, since an execution carried out under a court sentence would not, of course, have been regarded as a violation of the Torah.

One very serious obstacle, however, stood in the way of these “judges”: death sentences passed by the Sanhedrin had to be confirmed by the Roman authority, represented in Judea by the procurator. It was to him that they went (John 18:28). The leaders of the Sanhedrin apparently expected the procedure to be a mere formality and at first did not even want to go into detail, assuming that Pilate would sign the sentence without reading it (John 18:29–32).

But Pilate took an unexpected interest in the case and decided to question the accused himself (John 18:33). Jesus, who had remained silent before the Sanhedrin, testified to Pilate about what it was already pointless to tell the Sanhedrin: He answered the procurator's question about His Kingdom (John 18:34–37). Yet while the Kingdom to which Jesus testified seemed hostile to the leaders of the Pharisaic movement and the Temple elite, Pilate was simply indifferent to it, like most pragmatically minded agnostics. Like any agnostic, however, he saw no crime in proclaiming ideas of any kind, even strange or mistaken ones, and proposed that the representatives of the Sanhedrin who had come to him should release an innocent man from punishment (John 18:38–40). When he saw that they would accept no compromise, Pilate apparently decided to limit himself to the punishment prescribed by Roman law for non-citizens who broke local laws, and had Jesus scourged (John 19:1–3).

After this, he considered the incident closed (John 19:4–5). The representatives of the Sanhedrin then had to explain the case to the procurator and tell him what they were accusing Jesus of (John 19:6–7). Their explanation made a great impression on Pilate (John 19:8). The calmness and inner strength of the accused apparently made an even greater impression on him (John 19:9–11). He would probably have released Jesus had the crowd gathered in the praetorium courtyard not accused him of disregarding the interests of the empire by letting Jesus go (John 19:12). The provocation succeeded: unwilling to take responsibility or face possible accusations of sympathising with rebels, Pilate sentences an innocent man to death (John 19:13–16). Thus the cowardice and irresponsibility of some, and the hatred of the Kingdom felt by others, bring the Saviour of the world to the cross.

What lies behind Pilate’s refusal to change the inscription? Was it only a desire to annoy the chief priests, to whose demands Pilate had just yielded and against whom he now wished to regain at least a little ground? Or did he truly sense something and wish, in this admittedly somewhat distorted form, to express at least some respect for Jesus? One way or another, Pilate unexpectedly spoke the truth: the true King had been sent to be crucified...

John, Christ’s beloved disciple, was beside Him during the execution, and it is he who omits from his account many details given by the other evangelists, who wrote from the words of witnesses. John tells of the division of the garments, of how Jesus entrusted His Mother to him, and lists the names of those who stood by the Cross, but he describes the Lord’s torments on the Cross more briefly than the others; only the moment of death does John recount in greater detail. Although the Gospel of John omits many details already mentioned by the other evangelists who wrote before him, it seems that John did not close his lips merely because he did not wish to repeat details recorded earlier. It must have been too painful for him to return to those unbearable memories...

In John's account of the crucifixion, the Saviour's solitude on the cross is striking. The evangelist does not mention the apostles standing at a distance; indeed, he describes nothing except the cross itself and what happens at its foot, perhaps because he himself was standing there at the time (vv. 25–27; many commentators believe that when John mentions the unnamed disciple, he is speaking of himself). But the apostle also says nothing about the conversion of one of the robbers crucified with Jesus or about the Saviour's words mentioned by the other evangelists. Judging by John's testimony, Jesus uttered only two words on the cross: “I thirst!” (v. 28) and “It is finished!” (v. 30). Before that, in two short phrases, He entrusted His Mother and the disciple standing by the cross, probably John himself, to each other (vv. 26–27). Apparently, John singles out in the Saviour's words only what concerns him personally and what seems to him most important. It appears that in these two words of Jesus the evangelist sees the meaning of everything that is happening.

The picture described by John was probably not merely a memory of the events at the cross, but the fruit of many years of reflection upon them. For the evangelist, it seems, “It is finished!” meant more than the mere fact that the Saviour had completed His earthly mission, although when standing at the cross the apostle probably had to understand His words in precisely that way. But later, after encountering the Risen One and receiving the revelation he described in the Book of the same name, John apparently understood that Jesus was also speaking of the end of history, of that end of time for which many were waiting and which very few noticed. John does not mention the signs described by the other evangelists: the storm that turned day into night, the earthquake, or the torn veil of the Temple. For him everything was contained in one word, “It is finished!”, spoken by Jesus at the moment of His death on the cross.

But there was something else that struck the apostle. Jesus was dying on the cross like the most ordinary human being. The One Who, during His earthly ministry, could feed thousands with a few loaves suffered from thirst, from the same ordinary thirst that anyone in His place would have experienced, and could do nothing about it. He could do nothing not because He had ceased to be the One He was born among people to be, but because an ordinary human death was also part of His earthly ministry, just as much as the miracles and manifestations of the Kingdom that were impossible for anyone else in the world.

John does not mention the mocking calls addressed to Jesus to come down from the cross, of which the other evangelists testify. Perhaps he did not hear them, for of all the apostles only he was so close to the crucified Teacher, and it is quite possible that he had no attention to spare for the crowd standing at some distance. But he undoubtedly understood the main thing: everything that was happening became possible only through the free will of the Saviour of the world, Who consented to it all for the sake of those He wished to save. Such was the price of salvation and the price of the Kingdom.

The crucifixion and death of Jesus are not simply a moment in His biography, and therefore the description of this event is not simply one of the stories about His life. It is testimony. The evangelist points several times to the witnesses of the execution: the beloved disciple, Mary, the other women, those who "testified," whose "testimony is true." John wants to bring us to the place of the crucifixion so that we too may stand with him at the cross, confirming the truthfulness of his account to the other disciples.

Why is this testimony needed, why the quotations from the Law and the prophets? Do we really doubt that a Man who lived two thousand years ago died? Of course not. That means John's testimony is not testimony about death, but testimony about a victory that has been accomplished...

In the evangelist's account of the Saviour's condemnation, one striking feature is the desire to evade responsibility shown by representatives of both the Temple and the Roman authorities. It is no accident that Jesus refuses to answer the high priest's question about His teaching and His disciples (John 18:19–21). He understands that there can be no question of a fair trial in this case and that the whole interrogation is intended only to catch Him in His words and find grounds for fabricating a case against Him—one, moreover, on which He could be sentenced to death. In fact, everything had already been decided when Caiaphas considered it permissible to sacrifice One for the welfare of the people as he understood it (John 18:14).

Naturally, however, all those involved in Jesus' trial wanted the decision to be made collectively and with due observance of the legal formalities. Then no particular person could be accused of murder. The representatives of the Temple elite might seem to have had no one to fear, but their religious consciences were probably still uneasy: an ordinary murder would have been a direct violation of the Torah. An execution ordered by the Sanhedrin was another matter. A formally impeccable verdict of that kind would have reassured everyone, since an execution carried out under a court sentence would not, of course, have been regarded as a violation of the Torah.

One very serious obstacle, however, stood in the way of these “judges”: death sentences passed by the Sanhedrin had to be confirmed by the Roman authority, represented in Judea by the procurator. It was to him that they went (John 18:28). The leaders of the Sanhedrin apparently expected the procedure to be a mere formality and at first did not even want to go into detail, assuming that Pilate would sign the sentence without reading it (John 18:29–32).

But Pilate took an unexpected interest in the case and decided to question the accused himself (John 18:33). Jesus, who had remained silent before the Sanhedrin, testified to Pilate about what it was already pointless to tell the Sanhedrin: He answered the procurator's question about His Kingdom (John 18:34–37). Yet while the Kingdom to which Jesus testified seemed hostile to the leaders of the Pharisaic movement and the Temple elite, Pilate was simply indifferent to it, like most pragmatically minded agnostics. Like any agnostic, however, he saw no crime in proclaiming ideas of any kind, even strange or mistaken ones, and proposed that the representatives of the Sanhedrin who had come to him should release an innocent man from punishment (John 18:38–40). When he saw that they would accept no compromise, Pilate apparently decided to limit himself to the punishment prescribed by Roman law for non-citizens who broke local laws, and had Jesus scourged (John 19:1–3).

After this, he considered the incident closed (John 19:4–5). The representatives of the Sanhedrin then had to explain the case to the procurator and tell him what they were accusing Jesus of (John 19:6–7). Their explanation made a great impression on Pilate (John 19:8). The calmness and inner strength of the accused apparently made an even greater impression on him (John 19:9–11). He would probably have released Jesus had the crowd gathered in the praetorium courtyard not accused him of disregarding the interests of the empire by letting Jesus go (John 19:12). The provocation succeeded: unwilling to take responsibility or face possible accusations of sympathising with rebels, Pilate sentences an innocent man to death (John 19:13–16). Thus the cowardice and irresponsibility of some, and the hatred of the Kingdom felt by others, bring the Saviour of the world to the cross.

The crucifixion and death of Jesus are not simply a moment in His biography, and therefore the description of this event is not simply one of the stories about His life. It is testimony. The evangelist points several times to the witnesses of the execution: the beloved disciple, Mary, the other women, those who "testified," whose "testimony is true." John wants to bring us to the place of the crucifixion so that we too may stand with him at the cross, confirming the truthfulness of his account to the other disciples.

Why is this testimony needed, why the quotations from the Law and the prophets? Do we really doubt that a Man who lived two thousand years ago died? Of course not. That means John's testimony is not testimony about death, but testimony about a victory that has been accomplished...

In John's account of the crucifixion, the Saviour's solitude on the cross is striking. The evangelist does not mention the apostles standing at a distance; indeed, he describes nothing except the cross itself and what happens at its foot, perhaps because he himself was standing there at the time (vv. 25–27; many commentators believe that when John mentions the unnamed disciple, he is speaking of himself). But the apostle also says nothing about the conversion of one of the robbers crucified with Jesus or about the Saviour's words mentioned by the other evangelists. Judging by John's testimony, Jesus uttered only two words on the cross: “I thirst!” (v. 28) and “It is finished!” (v. 30). Before that, in two short phrases, He entrusted His Mother and the disciple standing by the cross, probably John himself, to each other (vv. 26–27). Apparently, John singles out in the Saviour's words only what concerns him personally and what seems to him most important. It appears that in these two words of Jesus the evangelist sees the meaning of everything that is happening.

The picture described by John was probably not merely a memory of the events at the cross, but the fruit of many years of reflection upon them. For the evangelist, it seems, “It is finished!” meant more than the mere fact that the Saviour had completed His earthly mission, although when standing at the cross the apostle probably had to understand His words in precisely that way. But later, after encountering the Risen One and receiving the revelation he described in the Book of the same name, John apparently understood that Jesus was also speaking of the end of history, of that end of time for which many were waiting and which very few noticed. John does not mention the signs described by the other evangelists: the storm that turned day into night, the earthquake, or the torn veil of the Temple. For him everything was contained in one word, “It is finished!”, spoken by Jesus at the moment of His death on the cross.

But there was something else that struck the apostle. Jesus was dying on the cross like the most ordinary human being. The One Who, during His earthly ministry, could feed thousands with a few loaves suffered from thirst, from the same ordinary thirst that anyone in His place would have experienced, and could do nothing about it. He could do nothing not because He had ceased to be the One He was born among people to be, but because an ordinary human death was also part of His earthly ministry, just as much as the miracles and manifestations of the Kingdom that were impossible for anyone else in the world.

John does not mention the mocking calls addressed to Jesus to come down from the cross, of which the other evangelists testify. Perhaps he did not hear them, for of all the apostles only he was so close to the crucified Teacher, and it is quite possible that he had no attention to spare for the crowd standing at some distance. But he undoubtedly understood the main thing: everything that was happening became possible only through the free will of the Saviour of the world, Who consented to it all for the sake of those He wished to save. Such was the price of salvation and the price of the Kingdom.

What lies behind Pilate’s refusal to change the inscription? Was it only a desire to annoy the chief priests, to whose demands Pilate had just yielded and against whom he now wished to regain at least a little ground? Or did he truly sense something and wish, in this admittedly somewhat distorted form, to express at least some respect for Jesus? One way or another, Pilate unexpectedly spoke the truth: the true King had been sent to be crucified...

John, Christ’s beloved disciple, was beside Him during the execution, and it is he who omits from his account many details given by the other evangelists, who wrote from the words of witnesses. John tells of the division of the garments, of how Jesus entrusted His Mother to him, and lists the names of those who stood by the Cross, but he describes the Lord’s torments on the Cross more briefly than the others; only the moment of death does John recount in greater detail. Although the Gospel of John omits many details already mentioned by the other evangelists who wrote before him, it seems that John did not close his lips merely because he did not wish to repeat details recorded earlier. It must have been too painful for him to return to those unbearable memories...

In asking for the legs of those crucified to be broken, the Jews display what seems like astonishing inconsistency. To the Roman Pilate, this was yet another sign that the religious zeal of the inhabitants of Palestine bordered on madness. The situation would seem just as strange today. A criminal who had been accused with such difficulty and sentenced to death ought to suffer as long as possible; he ought to bear his prescribed punishment to the very end. Yet for religious reasons that seemed strange and incomprehensible to an uninitiated pagan, they wanted to ease his execution by ending it early. But Jesus turns out to be already dead. Christ dies before the other criminals hanging beside Him. It appears that the Jews’ fears were groundless: the dangerous criminal they had condemned was not a mighty king, but merely a solitary man who did not even have enough physical strength to endure until the end of the execution. For Christians, however, this weakness of Christ reveals the profound mystery of the God-man.

The crucifixion and death of Jesus are not simply a moment in His biography, and therefore the description of this event is not simply one of the stories about His life. It is testimony. The evangelist points several times to the witnesses of the execution: the beloved disciple, Mary, the other women, those who "testified," whose "testimony is true." John wants to bring us to the place of the crucifixion so that we too may stand with him at the cross, confirming the truthfulness of his account to the other disciples.

Why is this testimony needed, why the quotations from the Law and the prophets? Do we really doubt that a Man who lived two thousand years ago died? Of course not. That means John's testimony is not testimony about death, but testimony about a victory that has been accomplished...

In John's account of the crucifixion, the Saviour's solitude on the cross is striking. The evangelist does not mention the apostles standing at a distance; indeed, he describes nothing except the cross itself and what happens at its foot, perhaps because he himself was standing there at the time (vv. 25–27; many commentators believe that when John mentions the unnamed disciple, he is speaking of himself). But the apostle also says nothing about the conversion of one of the robbers crucified with Jesus or about the Saviour's words mentioned by the other evangelists. Judging by John's testimony, Jesus uttered only two words on the cross: “I thirst!” (v. 28) and “It is finished!” (v. 30). Before that, in two short phrases, He entrusted His Mother and the disciple standing by the cross, probably John himself, to each other (vv. 26–27). Apparently, John singles out in the Saviour's words only what concerns him personally and what seems to him most important. It appears that in these two words of Jesus the evangelist sees the meaning of everything that is happening.

The picture described by John was probably not merely a memory of the events at the cross, but the fruit of many years of reflection upon them. For the evangelist, it seems, “It is finished!” meant more than the mere fact that the Saviour had completed His earthly mission, although when standing at the cross the apostle probably had to understand His words in precisely that way. But later, after encountering the Risen One and receiving the revelation he described in the Book of the same name, John apparently understood that Jesus was also speaking of the end of history, of that end of time for which many were waiting and which very few noticed. John does not mention the signs described by the other evangelists: the storm that turned day into night, the earthquake, or the torn veil of the Temple. For him everything was contained in one word, “It is finished!”, spoken by Jesus at the moment of His death on the cross.

But there was something else that struck the apostle. Jesus was dying on the cross like the most ordinary human being. The One Who, during His earthly ministry, could feed thousands with a few loaves suffered from thirst, from the same ordinary thirst that anyone in His place would have experienced, and could do nothing about it. He could do nothing not because He had ceased to be the One He was born among people to be, but because an ordinary human death was also part of His earthly ministry, just as much as the miracles and manifestations of the Kingdom that were impossible for anyone else in the world.

John does not mention the mocking calls addressed to Jesus to come down from the cross, of which the other evangelists testify. Perhaps he did not hear them, for of all the apostles only he was so close to the crucified Teacher, and it is quite possible that he had no attention to spare for the crowd standing at some distance. But he undoubtedly understood the main thing: everything that was happening became possible only through the free will of the Saviour of the world, Who consented to it all for the sake of those He wished to save. Such was the price of salvation and the price of the Kingdom.

What lies behind Pilate’s refusal to change the inscription? Was it only a desire to annoy the chief priests, to whose demands Pilate had just yielded and against whom he now wished to regain at least a little ground? Or did he truly sense something and wish, in this admittedly somewhat distorted form, to express at least some respect for Jesus? One way or another, Pilate unexpectedly spoke the truth: the true King had been sent to be crucified...

John, Christ’s beloved disciple, was beside Him during the execution, and it is he who omits from his account many details given by the other evangelists, who wrote from the words of witnesses. John tells of the division of the garments, of how Jesus entrusted His Mother to him, and lists the names of those who stood by the Cross, but he describes the Lord’s torments on the Cross more briefly than the others; only the moment of death does John recount in greater detail. Although the Gospel of John omits many details already mentioned by the other evangelists who wrote before him, it seems that John did not close his lips merely because he did not wish to repeat details recorded earlier. It must have been too painful for him to return to those unbearable memories...