NOTES for Mar 8:34-9:1

It is impossible to say of which event the Lord Jesus is talking about with accuracy, when speaking about the Kingdom of God which comes with power. It is may be about the forthcoming transfiguration. But the Lord speaks most likely about His sacrifice on the Cross and His resurrection, which the followers will witness. This event was really for them the manifestation of the power of the Kingdom, what defined all their lives. Also, the words of Jesus allow us to believe that it is here about the Descent of Saint Esprit on the apostles - it was also the manifestation of the Kingdom of God with power and glory. But a different thing is more important for us. The power of the Kingdom was mainly expressed for the apostles by the fact that people believed in their testimonies, received the gift of the Holy Spirit and became a part of Christ’s body in the Sacrament of breaking bread. And this manifestation of the Kingdom of God with power spreads out into our life in faith, baptism and Communion.

The Savior's words, "whoever wants to follow Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me," give us astonishingly concrete instructions. The meaning of His words only seems hard for us to understand. The reason is that it is hard to want to fulfill them.

The experience of life among people, which every person has, gives us an inner knowledge of what it means to deny oneself. It means living not for the sake of your own interests, or any other exalted interests, and not giving others your time and strength as though you were doing them a great favor. It means that another person's need for you, for your help, for your attention, is more important than your needs for anything else. It means that people not only give you an opportunity for humility, but imperiously and harshly demand it, extending their claims to rule right to the very center of your personality.

To accept this for Christ's sake is what it means to take up your cross. The human heart knows all this. At times we even have to act according to this commandment, because there is no other way to build healthy relationships with people. But this happiness turns out to be so painful that it is very hard to agree to it for the sake of the Crucified One.

Having revealed to the disciples the mystery of His path, Jesus begins a conversation essential for each of us: what part does a person have in God's design?

It is very important not to forget that our salvation was bought at just such a high price, the death of the Son of God on the cross, and this places very serious obligations on us. In the abstract this looks beautiful, but what does it mean in practice? In the Gospel of Matthew (Matt 25:31-46), Christ gives a very clear practical interpretation of it: what we do to someone else, we do to Him Himself.

And this is already very difficult. When we see suffering -- a poor person asking for alms, a gravely ill child or adult, a person without a roof over his head -- the first and simplest reaction is fear. We are afraid to be near a suffering person because we cannot shut ourselves off from it, because we begin to suffer with him. All the more so because such situations very often seem hopeless; sometimes we really cannot change the circumstances. Then the simple way out seems to be guarding our inner well-being, our peace of soul, and fleeing from the suffering of others; and this is very understandable in human terms.

Yet Jesus calls each of us to let what is divine, not merely human, prevail in us: not our common human fear of suffering, but His love and mercy, which can make us ourselves participants in the mystery of the salvation of the world.

What did the disciples experience when they heard "take up your cross"? For they had not yet passed through that terrible night and the day that followed. Jesus tells them that He will be the first to go to the Cross, but these are still only words, which neither mind nor soul can contain. The words of the apostle Paul sound entirely different: I have been crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:19). These are words "afterward." And though they speak about the same thing, about ascending the cross for His sake and for the sake of people, they already sound different, as if they breathe the light of the Resurrection.

But we must still try, even though at times it feels impossible, to return, as it were, to the darkness into which these words plunged the disciples, so as to share it with them. This is absolutely necessary, because we must walk the whole path from beginning to end.

Even if you gain the whole world, if your soul is being taken from you, you will give all this just to ransom your soul; otherwise, to whom will all this belong? But these words, understandable as they may seem, must be considered far more broadly than their narrow context, because the word "ransom" and the very concept of ransom are very important for both Old Testament and New Testament theology. For the Old Testament this concept was one of the most important factors in people's dealings with one another and with God; see Leviticus. But already in the Christian era, this reality of Old Testament spirituality began to be painfully rethought. The so-called "ransom theory" underwent various modifications over the course of New Testament history. It was accepted by some Holy Fathers and rejected by others. Here is what Saint Gregory the Theologian writes: "For whom and for what reason was the blood poured out for us, the great and glorious blood of God, High Priest and Sacrifice? We were subject to the evil one, sold into slavery to sin, and in exchange for evil received pleasure. If a ransom is paid to no one other than the one holding us in his power, then I ask: to whom and for what reason was this ransom offered? If to the evil one, then away with the insult!" In other words, it is offensive to think that we pay the one who commits evil. "[...] If to the Father, then first, how? For we were not in captivity to Him! And second, for what reason would the blood of the Only Begotten be pleasing to the Father, who did not even accept Isaac when he was offered by his father, but replaced the sacrifice by giving a ram instead of a rational victim?" Quoted from Hilarion Alfeyev, "The Life and Teaching of St. Gregory the Theologian." There is no more convincing argument against every ransom theory. To understand this, let us recall today's world, where people are taken hostage by terrorists. Even the most humane states never pay ransom, because one must not allow a situation in which evil "takes so immeasurable a payment for its tyranny," as Saint Gregory says there too. But what ransom, then, is at issue in today's apostolic reading? None at all. For a person will give no ransom for his soul; he will hand it over entirely freely into God's hands.

Today's reading gives us an opportunity to reflect on the essence of love as the highest type of relationship possible between people and between a person and God. What is most frightening for us in love? That something will happen to the beloved, that he will fall ill or die - this is what is most frightening for us.

But is this not because we identify ourselves with the beloved so strongly that we are afraid and in pain for ourselves? We ourselves are not ready for the feat of bearing all the beloved's pain as our own cross. When the beloved dies, we do not rejoice that at last he has been released and is now with Christ, but we weep because the place he occupied in our life is now empty, and we have not learned prayerful connection. We have not learned to distinguish in our relationships what is not subject to decay.

On the other hand, when we love a person, are we always ready to tell him if he is doing something contrary to the commandments of Christ? We are afraid he will not understand us, will take offense, and so on; in other words, we often place our relationship above God's truth. And nothing is above it. And if the beloved is facing a trial, we must stand beside him, looking that trial in the face. But we want to run away and lead him away with us. And this even appears noble to us, as though we are saving someone. We are saving no one; we are inciting flight.

And one more point connected with today's reading. A person new to the faith may be surprised that in the Synodal translation the words are: "Get away from Me, Satan," while in the translation of Bishop Cassian (Bezobrazov) they are: "behind Me, Satan." It becomes somewhat clearer if one looks at a translation, for example, into English. There, in various translations, both new and old, the same phrase appears: get behind me, that is, stand behind me if translated literally, or do not stand in my way; stand where I cannot see you. We deliberately single out these three translations; from them, everything we have tried to say to you today becomes somehow immediately clear and alive.

"Take up your cross and follow Me..." A childhood, or more precisely half-childhood, story comes to mind. A man found himself in the most desperate situation, whether because of family tragedies and troubles or because of money, which was not enough even for the most basic necessities. So he cried out to God with reproach, saying, in effect, that his cross was too heavy. And the Lord said to him: Very well, have it your way. I will invite you to Heaven, and you yourself will choose the cross that will be within your strength. And so He did. The man walks along, and around him stand various crosses, as in our cemeteries: there are small wooden ones, there are metal ones, and there are huge stone ones, taller than a person. He walks and walks, and he sees a cross that pleases him: this one, he says, I choose. And the Lord, smiling, says to him: but that is your cross.

In fact, something simple is being said here, simple but important. We often complain about our life, but just try making us drag someone else's cross, and we will cry out. Because we are weak and frail. Only the Lord was able to make all our little crosses merge into His one Cross by the power of His all-good might. Therefore: "and I keep repeating: if things go badly for me, they were worse for my God and more painful for the Mother of God" (N.S. Gumilev)

But why should it hurt at all? Why should we have to drag these cursed crosses at all? Why could it not have been done without this? This question has no answer, but is it not joy to be with the Lord, is it not joy to do something so that it may become even a little easier for Him? It is, is it not? If so, we need only see this, realize that by carrying our cross we share in God's suffering and lighten it. How can we see this? Simply pray, and then you will see. Pray, presenting yourself to God not in some particular form, but in all simplicity. Thanking Him for this highest joy in the world: to be needed by someone.

Messianic expectations in Gospel times assumed that the Messiah would lead a movement of His supporters that would end in His complete victory over all enemies and in the restoration of an independent Jewish state, which was to become the foundation of the messianic Kingdom.

It was assumed that God would intervene and support His Chosen One if anything went wrong. Of course, this meant a completely real, physical war, during which the Messiah was also in real danger of dying, but it was assumed that God would not allow that. Of course, the Messiah could suffer in some way during the messianic war, but He could not die, because then His mission would remain unfulfilled. Jesus' disciples shared these expectations too; after all, they were people of their time.

It is no accident that in response to the Savior's words about His death, Peter begins to argue with Him. He was sure that the Teacher's death meant the end, the failure, the collapse not only of their own expectations but also of God's plan, and that was already completely impossible. Jesus Himself had just confirmed that He was the Messiah, so He could not die; that simply could not be. Yet He speaks about His death as something not only possible but directly inevitable.

How could all this be understood and brought together? Jesus, of course, knows perfectly well that all those truths about His death and resurrection that seem self-evident to us today in fact do not fit at all into the consciousness of fallen humanity. They seem self-evident to us today only because they are widely accepted and therefore familiar. That is why He begins the conversation about what true life is and what it is like. Without understanding these basic things, without grasping them, a conversation about death and resurrection - not only of the Messiah but of any person at all - becomes quite meaningless.

Jesus reminds His disciples that life, the "soul," is not the property of an individual person, not his possession. Life is given to a person by God as the stream into which the person is immersed and in which he remains, while that stream also dwells mysteriously within the person. The body is only the outer and passing shell of the stream of life, but to fallen humanity it seems as though the person preserves life in his own body as in a vessel, and if the vessel is broken, life will disappear, spill out, and run away like water into sand.

In reality, death and the destruction of the body are only a transformation, provided, of course, that a person is not truly trying to hold back the stream of life, stop it, and seal it inside his own physical body. In that case, in trying to save his life, or "soul," a person truly loses everything. But if he gives up such attempts, he can receive the life of the Kingdom in all the fullness available to him, like that inexhaustible river of living water of which the prophets spoke.

Peter's confession is a very important moment in the whole Gospel, because here there is an astonishing manifestation of the Holy Spirit, who descends upon a person and speaks through his lips. Yet for all the divine inspiration of this scene, it is at the same time astonishingly human, astonishingly alive. It looks like an impulse of the soul. But at the same time it could not have been merely an impulse of the soul, because these are the words on which the Church is built. This is Revelation.

In biblical culture, however, we are used to revelations of a completely different kind, complex and full of symbolism. And yet the brief and simple words of Peter's confession are also revelation, also a kind of apocalypse, because in the words "You are the Christ" there is the recognition that what is happening all around is the end, the fulfillment of the times. For here He is, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega.

The special significance of this text is also shown by the fact that these words, having become a prayer, are heard at the most trembling moment of the Liturgy. "When at the end of the Liturgy the priest comes out of the Royal Doors with the Holy Chalice, we all together - both the clergy and the laypeople taking part in the service - read the prayer composed in the fourth century by John Chrysostom: "I believe, O Lord, and confess that You are truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first..."," as Fr. Georgy Chistyakov writes in his book "Over the Lines of the New Testament."

If we are bound to Christ by faith and love - and all His disciples are called to this - then the question, "Who do you say that I am?" in a certain sense means, "Who do you say that you are?" For as Jesus is, so His disciples must be; Christians are named from Christ. And here lies our saddest gap between theory and practice. We believe that He was incarnate and became Man for our sake, while we ourselves cannot and do not want to draw nearer to those whom we call our "neighbors." We say that He died on the cross for the sins of humanity, while we ourselves "do not want to lift a finger" for much more modest goals. We teach that He rose from the dead, but we continue to live an old, unenlightened, unresurrected life. Yes indeed, for such Christianity one could well earn the name "apostate," "Satan." Following the example of the apostles, it is time for us, most of whom consider our faith the most correct, to begin bringing our life into conformity with our faith.