When reading the accounts of the Resurrection, the fact becomes obvious that the apostles, despite everything Jesus had told them during His earthly ministry, were completely unprepared for the meeting with the Risen One. John does not mention the burial garments ("linen wrappings") by chance; they were what first made the apostles think that something unusual was happening (vv. 1-9). Indeed, according to Jewish custom, the body was wrapped in a shroud so tightly that it was practically impossible to unwrap it without damaging the fabric. Meanwhile the apostles saw the shroud in which Jesus' body had been wrapped not only whole, but evidently not even disturbed, so that the head covering with which the head of the deceased was usually bound ("the face cloth," v. 7) remained lying separately, apparently in the place where the Savior's head had been before the resurrection. There was no way to explain what had happened except as a miracle. But the apostles, apparently, still did not understand very well what exactly had happened.

Of course, Mary Magdalene saw the risen Jesus at that same time in the garden and immediately reported this to the apostles (vv. 11-18), but her testimony was probably not enough for them. The real meeting took place that same evening (vv. 19-23), and then the apostles were finally able to be convinced that their Teacher was truly alive. Jesus does not accidentally give them the opportunity to look at His hands, feet, and side (v. 20): the marks of the wounds were meant to convince the apostles that before them was not a ghost, not a shadow that had come out of the tomb, as they might have thought after hearing from Mary Magdalene that the Risen One did not allow her to touch Him (v. 17).

This was extremely important, for the issue was not only the Person of the Risen One, but also the nature of the Kingdom. If it were no different from the world of shadows and spirits, then its influence on the world would be no stronger than the influence exerted on it by shadows and spirits, which can sometimes reveal their presence but are unable to affect the existing order of things seriously, and still less can they change it radically, in the way the world changes when it becomes part of the Kingdom.

But, evidently, for all its objectivity and tangibility, the Kingdom still differs in some essential ways from our world, which is not yet transformed. It is not by chance that the Lord nevertheless places Thomas's desire to feel Jesus' wounds with his own hands below trust in testimony (vv. 24-29). After all, the main thing in the Kingdom is determined by trust - trust in God, trust in Jesus, trust in one another. It is the foundation of everything. Without it there is no Kingdom. And it cannot depend on the possibility of touching with one's hands what one believes in or the one whom one trusts. Not because this is forbidden, but because the main thing in the Kingdom cannot be touched with hands. The main thing in the Kingdom can be touched only with the heart. And everyone who wants to live the life of the Kingdom must be ready for this.

In bearing witness to Christ, John at the same time bears witness to the Kingdom. It cannot be otherwise: they are inseparable. The very appearing of the Son is connected with the fact that God's life, the life of the heavenly Father, formerly invisible and unreachable, becomes visible (v. 2). Visible through a concrete Man and in a concrete Man, whom one can touch with one's hands and examine just as we can examine and touch everything that exists in our world (v. 1). And through this, one can become part of the Kingdom, share in the life by which the Father lives and which the Son bears in Himself in all its fullness (v. 3). This is Christianity. John does not speak by chance of the fullness of joy (v. 4; the Synodal translation calls it "perfect joy"). The point is that joy which is connected with God's presence in the life of a person or a community. This joy, of course, was known even before the coming of Christ.

But no one in pre-Christian times knew its fullness. And the issue here is not that it was never experienced in fullness by anyone, nor even that every joy, together with life, then ended in Sheol, the world of shadows, the kingdom of the dead, which made everyone equal. The issue is that the breath of God, the breath of the Kingdom, could not be contained in fullness in any human heart - and therefore could not be revealed to the world from within, so as to be accessible to every seeker.

From outside, this breath reached people, and in the world at all times there were people who sensed it. But to transform our world completely, to return it to the state in which it could again become part of the Kingdom, as it was before the fall, can be done only from within. And the Savior, coming into the world, brings the Kingdom into it. In all the fullness now accessible to every seeker who is ready to trust Him.

But to share in the life of the Kingdom means not only to touch it outwardly. It also means to let it in. To make our heart become the door through which the breath of the Kingdom enters the world. This is beyond the strength of fallen man. But one can open one's heart to Christ, let Him into one's life, and then He will make our heart the door through which the breath of the Kingdom will burst into the world just as it once burst into it through the open windows of the upper room in Zion. Then our life will become Christian to the end - we will live by the Kingdom and in the Kingdom.

The beginning of the letter echoes the beginning of the Gospel written by John, which in turn recalls the beginning of the book of Genesis. At first glance, there is also a difference: there the foundations of the world's order are narrated, while here John reminds us that he is a witness of what he is writing about. But his witness is not reduced merely to a formal confirmation of facts. It consists in proclaiming that John knows the essence of what he saw: the coming into the world of the Source of life. The purpose of the letter is precisely that people may have fellowship with Him and with one another, not secular socializing or the bustle of "hangouts," but an inexpressibly mysterious union with God and with brothers who have also entered into union with Him and with one another.

The criterion of the authenticity of such union should be the qualitative changes taking place in people, and not only formal membership in the brotherhood. But is there not a contradiction in saying that those who walk in the light cannot remain in darkness, if no one can claim to have no sin?

No, because it is only thanks to the light that one can see one's own sinful darkness. Having seen it, one should not hide back in the darkness, but on the contrary, go boldly with repentance toward the light that delivers from sin.