NOTES for Heb 10:32-38

"...For yet a very little while..." Sometimes we do not want to believe this, and we say: you are only comforting us, Apostle Paul. But before this Paul says: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!" (Heb. 10:31). And in the Greek text the word is "phoberon," which is somehow clearly associated with the Russian word "phobia." In Russian usage, phobia means precisely an inner painful state when there is no real external danger: just darkness or height, just an enclosed space, and so on. We have this inner state: we both want the End and fear it. Because of this uncertainty, because of our inner confusion, this End does not come.

For the Lord, as the Bridegroom, comes when love has been established. Imagine a bridegroom and bride who are preparing to be married, but the bride is afraid, unsure, wavering; she does not yet have that radiant, happy, calm love that longs to give itself in service to the beloved. Would their wedding be right in that case? Still, it would be premature.

In the same way, even if we speak only about the Church and its members, we do not yet have this deep, quiet, calm love. We still fear ourselves and frighten others. We fear punishment, vengeance, recompense; we simply fear, without ourselves knowing what, because "no one has ever returned from there." What kind of "wedding" (that is, the End) can we speak of?

But this does not mean that we are alone. We can say that we were "betrothed" by Christ's First Coming, and we need to build our relationship with Him. In any case, He is here, He is near. And of course, it is "a little while longer," because when there is love, time flows in a special way: separations are endless, meetings seem to fly by so quickly, and overall there is this feeling that there it is, just a little longer, and eternity will pour into the soul.