Notes for  24 July 2026

Jesus is heading to Jerusalem, where His Kingdom must be brought to fulfillment. And the disciples are ready, as those close to Him, to share with Him the glory that belongs to Him: they are ready to recline beside Him at the meal, after first performing a shared ritual washing, and to drink from His royal cup. But He stops them: they have no idea into what depth He is about to be plunged and what cup He is about to drink.

These lines of the Gospel were written not only to show the apostles’ lack of understanding and ambition; they were addressed, and are addressed today, to new disciples of Christ who are just as ready to share with Him the promised triumph, but do not want to remember that the Kingdom of God is established in service and self-sacrifice. For the Son of God came into this world to serve. And why have we come here?

“Elias truly shall first come...” This would seem to be a statement founded on knowledge of Scripture. Yet for some reason it does not enable people to recognize the coming of Elijah in the deeds of John the Baptist. Apparently the issue is that there are different kinds of knowledge of Scripture: knowledge according to the letter and knowledge according to the spirit.

It is noteworthy that Satan also quoted Scripture when he tempted the Savior. “The devils also believe” (James 2:19). This means that demons too can profess everything a good person professes. Yet there is some essential difference. It is immeasurably important for all of us to grasp what that difference is and understand it truly and deeply. For one of our most painful experiences is to encounter people among our brothers and sisters in faith who are in fact terrifying.

If Elijah and John are compared according to the letter, they may indeed seem to be two completely different people. Elijah kills pagan priests; Elijah is all storm and fire. We need only recall how Jesus' disciples James and John ask Him whether, like Elijah, they may call down fire to destroy the ungodly (Luke 9:52-56). John the Baptist, although he certainly speaks stern words of rebuke, nevertheless washes everyone who comes to him. This means that he grants forgiveness and acts through mercy, not violence. These two men would seem to be complete opposites. And yet Christ says that Elijah comes in John...

But consider the spirit of these two men. Clearly they are related and brought infinitely close by their very prophetic nature, with all its anguish over betrayal of God. Something else also unites them: both are human beings, no strangers to the torment of doubt. Elijah asks to die (1 Kings 19:4), while John too, awaiting death, suffers the agony of despair and doubt. If Jesus is not the One, then he must fight for his life, arrange an escape, and so on; if He is the One, then John must accept death. In essence, it is the same question of life and death.

It is noteworthy what Elijah says when he asks to die: “Take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.” Such humility may be compared with the humility that moves John when he says, “whose shoes I am not worthy to bear” (Matt. 3:11). The self-understanding of both prophets can be joined in a single formula: “I am only human.”

For many centuries the ark of the covenant played an enormous role in Israelite doctrine and worship. It was the material testimony to the covenant made between God and Israel—a covenant under which God assumed responsibility for the people's destiny, while the people promised to fulfill God's law given through Moses. The ark confirmed the saving work of God, who brought His people out of Egyptian slavery, and the righteousness of His law. The ark was sacred!

Then Jeremiah prophesies that the ark will lose its significance, that it will even be lost, and that it will no longer be remembered. This will mean not a rupture in the relationship between Israel and God but, on the contrary, its restoration and enrichment. It is revealed to the prophet that a time will come when the symbol of salvation will no longer be the exodus from Egypt but the Messiah-Christ's way of the cross, and when God's law will be borne not by tablets of stone but by human hearts.

We all believe that the Lord, who created this world, has complete power over nature. That is as easy to imagine as an officer commanding soldiers on a parade ground: at his command they all turn right, and at another they all turn left!

But do we believe that the Lord can heal a sick person before our eyes—just like that: He speaks, and the person recovers? “Well,” we might say, “in theory we believe that too...” Do we see the enormous difference between theoretical belief in God's omnipotence and faith in a miracle that directly concerns us? No such gap existed in the military mind of the Roman centurion: his faith was not theoretical but living—and a miracle occurred. Perhaps the Lord would not find such faith not only in Israel...

Jesus' words about His unity with the Father, spoken during the Last Supper, take on a new meaning compared with what they conveyed before. Now Jesus speaks of this unity as the way, the truth, and the life. His life itself proves to be not only the fullness of living truth but also the living embodiment of the path everyone must travel—the path of the Kingdom. In those days, the ideas of way, truth, and life were traditionally associated with the Torah. The Torah was regarded as the way, the way of truth and the way of life, leading the one who walked it to God and to the threshold of the messianic Kingdom. The ideal was a living Torah, which a person could become if his life conformed to it completely.

By calling Himself the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus speaks of Himself as the living Torah. But His way becomes the way of the Kingdom. His relationship with the Father contains a dynamic that is revealed to the world as the dynamic of the Kingdom entering it. He goes to the Father—and the Kingdom enters the world. Such is the path of the Man who revealed the Torah to the world in all its fullness, the living Torah. But it is also the path of every Christian, everyone who wants to follow Christ into His Kingdom and travel that path to the end.

The Savior goes so that there may be a place in His Kingdom for each of His disciples and followers. But to become His disciple in truth, to reach those dwelling places in the Kingdom that He promises to prepare for them, one must repeat His journey. Not imitate it outwardly, but repeat it in essence, travel it oneself—and oneself become a living Torah.

Of course, a person does not remain alone on this path. Otherwise no one could become a living Torah, for without help from above this is impossible for a sinful human being. Yet everyone must still walk for himself. A person can be helped to walk, but only if he is walking rather than sitting on the sidelines. This is the path to which Jesus calls His disciples. He is confident that they know the way, for He Himself is before their eyes as a living example. They do not yet see or understand everything, of course, but what they do not yet see or understand can be understood only through their own experience, which each of them will gain in due course. Words are useless here. Jesus has already told His disciples the essential thing; the rest will become clear once they set out on the path.

We may read this list of animals with bewilderment, since many of them cannot be seen even in a zoo. What is the point of establishing these categories of clean and unclean animals? Will so elaborate a law not later help spread a legalistic kind of religiosity, the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees? The same question can be asked about present-day Christian realities—customs, rituals, rules, and so on.

Most of these questions disappear if we turn to the purpose of these statutes (v. 23). It turns out that all of this was intended to nurture a living religious sense, reverence, faithfulness, and gratitude. What could be more opposed to Pharisaic formalism than a living relationship with God—the very relationship that the statutes of the law were meant to sustain?