NOTES for Luk 10:22-24

The incomprehensible mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God was not revealed to humanity for many long centuries, and the fact that we can now even hear about it is a great mercy. In today's brief Gospel reading, the Lord tells the disciples that many prophets and kings longed to see this and did not see it. Only in likenesses, "dimly," as the apostle Paul puts it, did they describe the coming of Christ, because the incarnation of the Boundless One was impossible for them even to imagine.

Only now and then, in response to agonizing questions about the meaning of life and suffering, do prophets such as Jeremiah or the author of the Book of Job hear from God the message that He Himself will appear to people. Only in the great tension of attention of the human spirit, "on the divine watch," as the prophet Habakkuk and St. John of Damascus put it, is this mystery revealed. And the fact that we have the opportunity to hold the Gospel in our hands and read it is an incomparable gift for which we should give thanks and which we must use.

And the Lord emphasizes to the disciples one more important aspect of this mystery: intellectual effort is not enough for grasping the mystery of God's incarnation, nor for meeting Him at all. It is precisely Revelation, given in a personal encounter with Jesus of Nazareth.

The seventy disciples return from the mission on which the Teacher sent them, greatly rejoicing that “even the demons submit to them.” Seeing their enthusiasm, Jesus encourages them, saying that He gives them “authority to tread on snakes.” As the apostles received ever more abilities, they began to resemble superheroes for whom nothing was too difficult and who could do practically anything. And at this very moment, at the height of their strength and power, the Lord shows them what is truly valuable and worthy of joy. It turns out that what should matter most to His followers is not might, authority, or power, but something that does not depend on them at all: having their names written in heaven. He immediately confirms His words by saying that this knowledge has been revealed not to the wise, but to infants, who did nothing to deserve it yet were able to receive it as a gift.

We often try to find abilities within ourselves that would prove to us that we are the finest instruments in God’s hands, able to cope with any task and solve any problem. But Christians do not follow the path of self-perfection; that is not their goal. God generously gives His gifts, and in return He expects us to glorify Him rather than become captivated by our own greatness.

The Lord's disciples were people just like us. They also argued, were afraid, were vain, were proud... But they knew how to trust. They followed Jesus, leaving everything, although they had no idea what awaited them. They cast out demons and healed the sick, believing that in the name of Jesus a demon would leave and the sick would be healed. They rejoiced like children that it worked.

This very ability - the ability to trust - is what we have lost. We need proof that we can do something; it is not enough for us to know that God thinks we can. In response to God's request to do something that we consider impossible for ourselves, and sometimes simply difficult and unusual, instead of trusting and doing what God asks us to do, we say to God, "Prove to me that I can do it." And when it turns out that yes, I can, instead of thanking God who gave us this opportunity, we boast about our abilities.

There is nothing wrong with rejoicing that we do something well, because when God created the world He said, "It is good," and the ability to create something new has been given to us by God, so we too can sometimes say those words. But we cannot say them without adding, "Lord, I thank You," because without God we can do nothing.

And so Jesus sends His disciples out to preach. See what authority He gives them! A whole chain of “authorized representation” is formed here: the Father sends His Son into the world and gives Him all power and authority; the Son, as He educates His disciples, prepares them to become future messengers and Apostles, and raises up the Church that will later bear witness to Christ, passes His authority on to them.

When we become Christians, we are called to bear witness to Him, and therefore these words of Jesus apply to us as well. Whoever rejects our words and our witness also rejects the Son and the Father! That is remarkable. We might rejoice in such authority being granted to us. But I am more inclined to reflect on our responsibility for our words, and for the substance and adequacy of our witness—and to pray about it...

Several times during His earthly ministry Jesus sent His disciples out to preach. And the chief meaning of this preaching was always witness to the Kingdom, to the fact that it is near and ready to enter the world. Of course, such witness was important for preparing people for what was to happen on the day of Pentecost. But this mission was no less significant for the disciples themselves. They too needed to experience the reality of the Kingdom for themselves. They needed to understand what it is like to be its citizen. Of course, this was not yet the experience of Pentecost; the fullness of the breath of the Kingdom breaking into the world like a whirlwind still lay ahead. Yet those sent out to preach felt the first, still distant and faint, but entirely real movement of that breath.

It was enough that, according to their own words, even demons obeyed them. Meanwhile, the Savior directs their attention to something else. He says: rejoice not in power over spirits, but in the fact that your names are written in heaven. For the Kingdom is not superpowers, not mastery of some secret forces, whether natural or supernatural. The Kingdom is, above all, participation in a new life. A life that does not exist in nature. And that means a new quality of one's own life, inward and outward. This, in fact, is Christianity.

By sending His disciples out to preach, Jesus gave them the opportunity to understand what Christianity is. Of course, later He would say much to the Twelve in words. Especially during the Last Supper. But without this mission, without the experience connected with it, His words would hardly have been at all intelligible even to the Twelve. Words could only describe how to live so as not to lose what they had already partly joined.

The experience of the breath of the Kingdom entering the world through a heart that has joined in that breath is the most precious experience, and nothing can replace it. And the Savior gives this experience to His disciples so that afterward, in the days of Gethsemane, and after the Resurrection, and on the very day of Pentecost, it would become a measure for them. So that they would not be deceived about the new life and would not doubt the reality of what was not at all easy to believe in. And so that, as they joined the life of the Kingdom, they would feel that they were returning home, where they were awaited. And where He Himself was ready to meet them.

All of us, in one way or another, are called to apostleship, to the preaching of the Gospel. Clearly, not everyone must be a missionary, a preacher, or some other "minister of the word"; nevertheless, witness to Christ is the work of the whole Church. Today's passage will help us understand the principles on which such ministry should be built.

First, openness and complete trust in God; second, openness and goodwill toward the people to whom we bring the Gospel; third, the real action of grace through us. It may be expressed not only in healing the sick and those possessed by demons, but also in every good deed, in prayer for these people, in peacemaking, or simply in the presence of a loving heart where love is lacking.

The disciples are glad that they have become heralds and co-workers of God's Kingdom, victors over demons and healers of diseases. But Jesus stops them: "You are rejoicing over the wrong thing"... God gives those who believe in Him many good and amazing things (if they can see them), but the chief value of His Kingdom is not this.

The disciples, and with them the readers of the Gospel, are blessed, happy already because they have seen and heard what the prophets and sages of antiquity only dreamed of: they are witnesses, witnesses not only of miracles, healings, victories over evil, but they are near the very Center of God's Kingdom.

So this is not an abstraction, not paradise, not an afterlife, not gifts and miracles, but God Himself, revealed to people in His Son Jesus.

Today's reading brings us back once again to a passage connected with the theme of the apostolic proclamation. Unlike Matthew, Luke mentions a certain wider circle of seventy apostles about whom Matthew says nothing. But this does not change the essence of the matter: the seventy apostles receive from Jesus the same instruction that was given to the twelve closest disciples. Apparently, Jesus allowed no esotericism in His circle and had no special secret teaching for the “initiated.” And when the apostles returned, elated by their victory, and told their Teacher about the healings and exorcisms they had performed, He advised them to rejoice not in these successes, but in the fact that their names were “written in heaven” (vv. 17–20).

The point is, of course, not that the successes of His apostles in proclaiming the Kingdom were unimportant to Jesus. He simply considered it necessary to set the emphasis correctly in His disciples' spiritual lives. Visible successes always attract attention. And the apostles' attention was apparently fixed on the actions and manifestations of the Kingdom that accompanied their proclamation. Here there is always the danger of becoming absorbed in the process and forgetting what matters most. One can bear witness to the Kingdom only when one is rooted in it oneself. Such rootedness does not arise by itself; it is given by God and needs constant strengthening. For a person who physically lives in a world not yet transformed and lying in evil, abiding in the Kingdom is itself a distinct spiritual task.

But something else is important here as well. Bearing witness to the Kingdom is not an end in itself either. At first sight this sounds paradoxical, for Jesus Himself and all the apostles are occupied solely with bearing witness to it in word and deed! And yet bearing witness to the Kingdom is secondary. In the end it resembles an author displaying a work he has created: he himself, and sometimes some of his friends, invites everyone interested to look at what the author has managed to make. But what if such a work needed constant renewal and could exist only in this way? Then the chief task would clearly be not the display as such, but the creative effort directed towards renewing the work itself.

In the case of the Kingdom, the witness finds himself in precisely this position. One can bear witness to it only by manifesting it, and one can manifest it only by renewing one's own spiritual life through contact with it, a life that cannot be renewed in any other way. It then turns out, paradoxically enough, that the witness's chief work is not to bear witness to the Kingdom, but to live in it, and to live openly, in full view of everyone. This is how the chief task Jesus gives His disciples is accomplished: the growth of the Kingdom, which after His return will embrace the whole world.