Notes for  29 June 2026

The path Israel, God's chosen people, walks is difficult. Often this path is "against the goads" (to quote the Lord's words to Paul himself), a path of resistance to God's will. The apostle has already said much about this in his letter, and his pain for his kinsmen according to the flesh, for his brothers and sisters, is very great. And yet, speaking about the reasons that led to Israel's falling away from God, Paul persistently reminds us: yes, they fell away, but God did not take His election from them; God calls them, and Christ died for them as well. More than that, it is very important for the apostle to convey to the Roman community, and through it to all other Christians converted from paganism, an essential warning: one must remember the fate of those who fell away from God and draw the proper conclusions from it. And the chief thing from which he wants to protect the newborn Church is the disease of boasting.

Our personal encounter with the Lord is always an immense gift. At first we walk around stunned by grace unexpectedly received. I think we all remember the happiness of realizing divine love and forgiveness, on the one hand, and the undeservedness of this gift, our unworthiness, on the other. Yet human beings are made in such a way that they easily and gladly remember the first, and just as easily forget the second. And when we look at our brothers and sisters who for one reason or another turn away from God and fall away from the Church, we want to say to ourselves: well, that will not happen to me; it cannot happen.

And here it is, the message to us from the apostle Paul: "They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be proud, but fear." Do not look at your brother's path; "before his own Lord he stands or falls" (Rom. 14:4). He has his own relationship with God, and the Creator's design for each of us is completely unique. Look at yourself, watch yourself, and fear falling away from the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Jesus' answer to the people who looked at Him reproachfully does not appear entirely logical at first glance. From the point of view of those around Him, what He was about to do, and did in fact do, was a violation of the Sabbath. And He reminds them that even a domestic animal whose life is in danger is rescued on the Sabbath, and such actions are not a violation of Sabbath rest.

Reasoning in human terms, from the point of view of our untransformed world, healing a man whose main problem was a withered hand is something fundamentally different. If this man's life had been in danger, if medical intervention, in modern terms, had been required for vital indications, no one would have said a word to Jesus. And even if the issue had been a threat to the life of a domestic animal that needed help, no one would have reproached Him. The whole point was precisely that there was no threat to life: the man with the withered hand, with which he had already lived for more than one year, clearly would have lived calmly in the same way for one more day. And then, after the Sabbath ended, he would have received the expected help without violating Sabbath rest. So why hurry?

But Jesus, as we can see, looks at the matter quite differently and does not want to wait. And not because He is a principled opponent of the rules of Sabbath rest accepted in those days. He simply wants to convey to those around Him the true meaning of the Sabbath: this day is given so that it may be spent with God.

If this were simply a matter of medical help, those around Him would perhaps have been right. But this was not about medicine, but about the Kingdom; not about treatment, but about healing, and that changed everything completely. For if the Sabbath is, in fact, the time to be spent with God, then every manifestation of the Kingdom, together with the healings that accompany it, should only be welcomed. In essence, Jesus offers those who are nearby the chance to spend the Sabbath with Him in His Kingdom, and they do not understand Him and do not notice the Kingdom, seeing only a violation of the prohibitions connected with Sabbath rest.

He offers them the fullness of life; hence the mention that even an animal whose life is in danger has a right to help, even on the Sabbath. For without this fullness everyone is doomed to death, and only He, Jesus, can save them from death. But when He does this, joining to the Kingdom at least one person whom He heals, they accuse Him of violating the Sabbath. The spiritual meaning of the Sabbath has moved into the background, while religious formalities, on the contrary, have come to the foreground and obscured the Kingdom, which the people surrounding Jesus do not even notice.

Peter stands out among the other disciples of Christ not only by age and by leadership traits. But all of that is not enough for the astonishing promise that Jesus gives him (Matt. 16:18). Perhaps Peter's most important quality, the one that makes him the second most significant figure in the Gospel, is that he responds immediately and actively to every new situation in his relationship with Christ. He hardly pauses to think and often makes mistakes, but he is not passive; he makes the effort. It is Peter who tries to walk on water, and it is Peter who becomes the first of the disciples to perform miracles of healing and resurrection.

Of course, there are other paths of holiness, but Christ lays Peter's holiness at the foundation of the holiness of the Church.

Today's reading helps us better understand what the biblical authors mean when they speak of "God's punishment." The passage begins with a rather grim spiritual picture: in all Jerusalem there is no one who seriously thinks about such basic things as righteousness ("justice") and faithfulness to God ("truth") (vv. 1-5). This applies, as we can see, not only to the common people, who are not especially versed in the Torah, but also to those who can and should understand such things and know what they are doing. But the most terrible thing here is not even the sin itself, but the attitude toward God that can be called practical atheism: people who know about the Torah everything they are supposed to know are, it appears, breaking the commandments not because they hope for forgiveness, but because in fact they do not believe in God (vv. 12-13).

Such practical atheism, however, did not have to be open; it could even coexist with external, and sometimes perhaps showy, religiosity. But these practical atheists met prophetic preaching at least with hostility, since the prophets always reminded people not of external religiosity but of the living, real God, of whom the violators of the Torah preferred not to think. Even in such a situation God does not desire the complete destruction of His people (vv. 10, 18). It would seem completely futile to maintain any relationship with people who say "no" to God. Even a militant atheist has more opportunities to find God than a cold-blooded cynic: fierce denial of God is still a relationship, and under certain conditions it can change into its direct opposite; cynicism excludes every relationship completely, since a cynic needs and cares about no one except himself. Only one thing can awaken such a person spiritually and bring him to his senses: catastrophe, the collapse of all plans and hopes, in which it becomes perfectly clear that there is no possibility of changing the situation by one's own strength.

Of course, even this in itself does not guarantee that the cynic will reconsider his attitude toward the world, but it is still at least some possibility. Yet in that case the catastrophe must not be final, because then it would be meaningless to speak of any change of life, even in the future. And God allows His people to pass through such a catastrophe, one that could be survived spiritually only by fully surrendering oneself to God's will and becoming part of that remnant of which the prophets spoke.

Everyone - pilgrims who had come for Passover, priests, Pharisees - everyone was satisfied that brisk trade was going on around the Jerusalem Temple. The voices of the sacrificial animals drowned out the hymns? Well, what can be done; at least there is always a chance to buy those animals. Surely a pilgrim would not lead them from home, which could be hundreds of kilometers away... The money changers, bargaining with clients, argue and curse so loudly that it is disgraceful? Sad, of course, but denarii have to be exchanged for drachmas and back again... Strictly speaking, no one approves of all this noise in the temple courts, but everyone puts up with it as an unavoidable evil, a kind of tribute to eastern temperament.

Strictly speaking, devout Jews endured all this not so much from indifference as because they were waiting tensely for the coming of the Messiah. Through the prophets the Lord more than once angrily rebuked Israel for its lack of reverence. The words quoted by Jesus, "My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers," belong to the prophet Jeremiah and were spoken 600 years before the events described in the Gospel. But in Israel there was a conviction that the coming Messiah would order the service in the Temple and, so to speak, "put things in order." In carrying out this cleansing, the Lord acts precisely as the One long-awaited Messiah. This is exactly how the Jews perceive it, and therefore they demand a sign from Him.

Yet one cannot fail to notice that the dialogue between the Jews and the Lord takes place in raised tones: the Jews react to Christ's action with a certain hostility. This happens because the Lord calls things by their names. His words, "Do not make My Father's house a house of trade," do not fit at all within the framework of tolerance and indulgence toward lawlessness and irreverence. It is important to see this, because in our own time, when someone tells us about what we softly call "disorders" in our spiritual and church life, we often react the same way the Jews did then, in April of A.D. 27. Fear and uncertainty about God's love make this kind of truth very offensive to people. It is useful to remember this and notice it in ourselves, so as not to become like those Jews.

In worship a person always strives to come closer to God. And God responds to this striving: He gives Israel a detailed rule for sacrifices and service at the altar. It is very important that He does not allow us, without His participation, to invent a cult for ourselves. Attempts to penetrate His mystery on our own will lead nowhere. God can reveal Himself only by Himself. Therefore all the hope of the Old Testament is directed toward the One who knows the Father and will reveal Him to those who believe in Him.