Notes for  15 January 2022

The apostle speaks to us about the necessity of trying the spirits, which is the distinction between what is of God and what is of Satan in life. Before these words, the apostle underlines that faith, fulfillment of the commandments and heart opened before God are characteristic of the Christian. And he formulates the famous words, sometimes called "the criterion of the apostle John". Any spirit, says the apostle, who confesses Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. If we gaze attentively at the history of the dogmatic development of Christianity at the time of the ecumenical Councils, we shall see that in the long run all the false doctrines were rejected by the Church particularly according to this criterion. And, on the opposite, conformity with this criterion helps to distinguish the Christian confessions from the quasichristian sects.

But except the dogmatic and historic meanings, these words are also very important in Christians’ practical life. The apostle John speaks first of all about the distinction of the spirits speaking in man’s heart. What is correct and what is incorrect, what is worthy for a Christian, and what is unworthy - to a large extend it is necessary to use exactly the criterion of the apostle John for distinction (discernment) in one’s own life.

When we read the evangelists' accounts of the preaching of John the Baptist, which preceded the Baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ, we easily miss the direct meaning contained in the narrative. Thus the evangelist Matthew tells us about the preaching of the Forerunner by saying that "all Judea" was baptized by him. Of course, this is an exaggeration, and not all the residents of Judea were baptized without exception. Yet it is clear that there were very, very many of these people. That is the truly astonishing fact. To us, on the other hand, for understandable reasons, it looks natural.

John the Baptist, calling people to receive in repentance the Kingdom of Heaven that had drawn near, did not invent a new rite for repentance. He used the washing performed for "second-class" people coming to God: Gentiles and women underwent this procedure, while for Israelite men entrance into the covenant was circumcision. In essence, John's call was like someone calling modern Orthodox Christians to be baptized a second time. For those who came to John at the Jordan, this act meant confessing that they, as traitors and apostates, were unfaithful to God and were approaching Him in repentance not as full descendants of Abraham, but as Gentiles. This was exactly the kind of repentance Israel's prophets had spoken about earlier. Is it not astonishing that there were many people who repented with such humility?

The behavior of the Pharisees and Sadducees can more readily be called natural. Both groups thought that one more pious rite would do them no harm, thereby revealing their unbelief in pious rites in general. Both groups wanted to show off their piety before people; soon after His Baptism, the Lord Jesus Christ would expose them for this.

The fact that the evangelist Matthew emphasizes how many sincere penitents there were in the days of John the Baptist first of all reveals to us what the "fullness of time" is, in which, according to the apostle Paul, God sends His Son. It is the time when many hearts are ready to receive Christ in humility and repentance. Therefore the repentance of some and the hypocrisy of others are not the main point in the ministry of John the Baptist. The Forerunner preaches repentance and baptizes not in order to give people salvation, but so that Christ may be revealed to us.

We live in a world into which Christ has already come, and it is often difficult for us to appreciate how much He did for us by His coming, because we already have everything and are accustomed to it all. But we must understand that the difference between us and the time when Christ came to us in the flesh is quantitative, not qualitative; and as long as this is so, we must strive to hold fast to the Spirit He brought. To do this, we must try to read the words of the Gospel not only against the background of our own day—which is useful too—but also to understand how they could have been perceived then. The Old Testament offers invaluable help with this. Let us recall words from the Psalter: “Early in the morning I will destroy all the wicked of the earth, that I may root out from the city of the Lord all who work iniquity” (Ps 101:8). This is how the sinner is perceived: as an evil that must be destroyed. We must be imbued with this idea to the depths of our soul in order to understand the meaning of the words the Lord speaks to us today: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” To call them to repentance means to call them to Himself. Not to reject them, as people thought, but to accept them. Truly, only the Lord could accomplish such a revolution.

The event described in today's reading has always raised many questions, and many commentators and preachers have reflected and reasoned about it, trying to understand what actually happened then in the wilderness. Usually, when setting out on a journey for several days, travelers naturally took a supply of food with them. But this time the decision was evidently made so hastily that there was no time to get ready (v. 33). Judging by the fact that the disciples later had to cross to the opposite shore of the Lake of Gennesaret in order to get to Bethsaida (Mark 6:45), the events described took place on its eastern shore, in Transjordan, which in Gospel times was not a desert in the literal sense but a dry steppe. The eastern shore of the Lake of Gennesaret was a deserted place, and the nearest villages where food could be bought were not close. That is when the miracle took place, the one usually called the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. Nothing definite can be said about exactly how and at what moment it happened, since the Gospel text gives no details that would reveal, so to speak, the "mechanism" of the miracle. Only the result is described: five loaves and two fish were enough for several thousand people, and more than enough (vv. 41-44). The only explanation can be considered the blessing of the food by Jesus mentioned in the account (v. 41), without which no meal was possible for believing Jews, since during the blessing prayer those sitting down at the table call upon God, inviting Him to join them and bless the table and the food. In describing the miracle, the evangelist draws attention to the fact that Jesus' blessing was not an ordinary blessing, but one that allowed those present to enter directly into the Kingdom of God, where even the laws of nature do not work as they do in the ordinary world. Therefore hunger has no place there, and every hungry person is satisfied.

To describe the relationship between God and the human person, biblical authors often use the concept of a union, or, in biblical language, a covenant between God and the human person. The whole Bible can be read as the history of revelation and the history of covenant. The two are inseparable: before such a relationship can become possible, God must make Himself visible to the human person and stretch out His hand. Otherwise there will be no relationship between the human person and God. No one can reach God by his own powers. Neither theological knowledge, nor intuition, nor mystical illumination will help here. The most a person can learn about God is to sense that there is Something about which nothing can be told and which cannot be described, and that this Something at the same time is above everything that exists in the world. Pagans knew of this supreme Principle, and many of them believed that the source of everything around us and the cause of everything that happens around us had to be sought there. But no one in the pagan world ever tried to address this unknown Something with a request or with gratitude: it was too far away, and no relationship with it was possible. The God of Abraham is different: He not only addresses Abraham first, but also establishes with him a firm and lasting relationship without which no union is possible. Of course, for God these relationships are completely open from the very beginning. In making a union with Abraham, in His eternity He already sees not only the whole history of the people of God, but also the birth of Christ, His death on the cross, the Resurrection, and even the return of the Risen One in glory. But what God has conceived in eternity unfolds in time, and therefore His relationship with His people also develops in time. Then the Covenant that is one in God's eternity breaks up in time into many covenants that succeed one another, so that for several centuries commentators and biblical scholars have argued about how many covenants there are in the Bible after all. In fact, should the promise God gave Abraham already in Palestine (vv. 14-17) be considered a confirmation of the earlier covenant, or its renewal? Or is this yet another, a second covenant with Abraham? There is no unambiguous answer to this question. A covenant is a living, developing relationship that grows like a tree. Just as with a tree it is not always easy to determine where the trunk ends and the crown begins, and still less can the two be separated, so in the history of the covenant it is not always easy to determine where one stage ends and another begins. Only at the end of the path, when God's purpose is fully embodied, does everything become clear.