NOTES for Luk 10:17-24

At first glance, the Savior's call to rejoice not over victory against the spirits of darkness, but over sharing in the life of the Kingdom, since Jesus says in this case that the names of those who share in it are "written in heaven," sounds a little strange. In truth, one thing is inseparable from the other: the powers of darkness flee from those who share in the life of the Kingdom not because the citizens of the Kingdom are frightening in themselves, but because the life in which they share becomes, for the spirits of darkness, a power that kills them. Yet on closer examination it is not hard to see that Jesus has in mind, above all, the priorities that determine the whole pattern of spiritual life. First the Kingdom, and only then everything else, even successes in the spiritual warfare that awaits, in our transforming but still untransformed world, everyone who shares in the Kingdom.

And this may be the hardest thing: not to rejoice in anything by itself. It is not so hard not to be enticed by what one already considers vanity, foolishness, or especially sin. It is much harder to remain calmly detached when thinking about something that clearly testifies to progress on the path into the Kingdom. Yet the spiritual gaze must be directed toward the Kingdom itself and toward the One who brought it into the world, and toward nothing else. It is not for nothing that the Savior Himself says that such a gaze belongs more to children, who have not yet lost the ability to be carried away by what truly interests them, self-forgetfully, to the point of complete disregard for everything around them. If only we could be carried away by the Kingdom with the same self-forgetfulness, our path there would be, if not simpler, at least shorter.

In all known ascetic systems there is a very important rule: the adept's attention must be focused not on the results achieved, but on the very process of ascetic labor. The point here is not that the new possibilities and abilities a person acquires on the spiritual path are received not from God but from dark forces: the devil is barren, he cannot give a person anything, and therefore nothing can be received from him; he can only spoil what was not created by him. The point is something else: by focusing on his newly acquired abilities and possibilities, a person inevitably gets distracted from the main thing, from what constitutes the essence of every ascetic work: the spiritual formation of his own personality, the creation within himself of that inner core without which no qualitative change in one's own life can be discussed.

Meanwhile all ascetic systems without exception have as their goal precisely a change in one's spiritual state, a new spiritual quality of life, and not new abilities or possibilities. Besides, concentration on achievements of this kind easily turns into self-admiration, which in turn just as easily passes into pride, hindering further spiritual movement. It may seem that Jesus too, advising His disciples to rejoice not that spirits are subject to them, but that their names are written "in heaven," means the same thing: to shift the apostles' attention from newly acquired possibilities to the main thing that forms the basis of their spiritual life. But in this case the issue is not simply inner work; in this case the issue is the Kingdom, and this substantially changes the matter.

In any other case, whichever ascetic practice we consider, the issue is a person's own efforts, his path, his achievements. In the case of the apostles, however, there can be no talk of their own successes and achievements, just as there can be no talk of the successes and achievements of any human being when the Kingdom and the possibility of sharing in its life are concerned. And the issue here is not whether a person is bad or good: no one living on earth deserves or merits the Kingdom more or less than any other. Of course, it is harder for a sinner on the path to the Kingdom than for a righteous person, but not because the righteous person by his nature deserves the Kingdom more; rather, it is because it is easier for the righteous person to accept it than for the sinner. But the righteous person too receives it as a gift and in no way deservedly, differing in this respect in principle not at all from the sinner.

Through repentance the sinner by no means earns for himself the right to the Kingdom; through repentance he merely opens the way there for himself, receiving the possibility of accepting an undeserved gift of which he would otherwise be deprived. In such a situation, speaking of Christian life in terms of a Christian's successes or achievements on the spiritual path is self-evidently meaningless. And one can rejoice here in only one thing: that one has a relation to this Kingdom and lives its life, that one's name, in the Savior's words, is "written in heaven."

The first disciples of Christ were simple fishermen, not learned men. Among those who first heard the Sermon on the Mount, there were hardly many educated people. But for some reason it is precisely these unwise and weak ones that Jesus Himself chooses in order to entrust to them His chief mystery.

The Savior's grateful exclamation was prompted by the fact that seventy of His followers came to Him and joyfully reported that "even the demons are subject to us." The childlike simplicity of their faith, with which they receive what the Lord tells them, and the directness with which they express their joy at the greatness of God's works, are simply incredible. If they had been full of clever reasoning and doubts, if they had reasoned "like adults," then the power to work miracles in Jesus' name would hardly have been revealed to them.

The incomprehensible mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God was not revealed to humanity for many long centuries, and the fact that we can now even hear about it is a great mercy. In today's brief Gospel reading, the Lord tells the disciples that many prophets and kings longed to see this and did not see it. Only in likenesses, "dimly," as the apostle Paul puts it, did they describe the coming of Christ, because the incarnation of the Boundless One was impossible for them even to imagine.

Only now and then, in response to agonizing questions about the meaning of life and suffering, do prophets such as Jeremiah or the author of the Book of Job hear from God the message that He Himself will appear to people. Only in the great tension of attention of the human spirit, "on the divine watch," as the prophet Habakkuk and St. John of Damascus put it, is this mystery revealed. And the fact that we have the opportunity to hold the Gospel in our hands and read it is an incomparable gift for which we should give thanks and which we must use.

And the Lord emphasizes to the disciples one more important aspect of this mystery: intellectual effort is not enough for grasping the mystery of God's incarnation, nor for meeting Him at all. It is precisely Revelation, given in a personal encounter with Jesus of Nazareth.

And so Jesus sends His disciples out to preach. See what authority He gives them! A whole chain of “authorized representation” is formed here: the Father sends His Son into the world and gives Him all power and authority; the Son, as He educates His disciples, prepares them to become future messengers and Apostles, and raises up the Church that will later bear witness to Christ, passes His authority on to them.

When we become Christians, we are called to bear witness to Him, and therefore these words of Jesus apply to us as well. Whoever rejects our words and our witness also rejects the Son and the Father! That is remarkable. We might rejoice in such authority being granted to us. But I am more inclined to reflect on our responsibility for our words, and for the substance and adequacy of our witness—and to pray about it...

Several times during His earthly ministry Jesus sent His disciples out to preach. And the chief meaning of this preaching was always witness to the Kingdom, to the fact that it is near and ready to enter the world. Of course, such witness was important for preparing people for what was to happen on the day of Pentecost. But this mission was no less significant for the disciples themselves. They too needed to experience the reality of the Kingdom for themselves. They needed to understand what it is like to be its citizen. Of course, this was not yet the experience of Pentecost; the fullness of the breath of the Kingdom breaking into the world like a whirlwind still lay ahead. Yet those sent out to preach felt the first, still distant and faint, but entirely real movement of that breath.

It was enough that, according to their own words, even demons obeyed them. Meanwhile, the Savior directs their attention to something else. He says: rejoice not in power over spirits, but in the fact that your names are written in heaven. For the Kingdom is not superpowers, not mastery of some secret forces, whether natural or supernatural. The Kingdom is, above all, participation in a new life. A life that does not exist in nature. And that means a new quality of one's own life, inward and outward. This, in fact, is Christianity.

By sending His disciples out to preach, Jesus gave them the opportunity to understand what Christianity is. Of course, later He would say much to the Twelve in words. Especially during the Last Supper. But without this mission, without the experience connected with it, His words would hardly have been at all intelligible even to the Twelve. Words could only describe how to live so as not to lose what they had already partly joined.

The experience of the breath of the Kingdom entering the world through a heart that has joined in that breath is the most precious experience, and nothing can replace it. And the Savior gives this experience to His disciples so that afterward, in the days of Gethsemane, and after the Resurrection, and on the very day of Pentecost, it would become a measure for them. So that they would not be deceived about the new life and would not doubt the reality of what was not at all easy to believe in. And so that, as they joined the life of the Kingdom, they would feel that they were returning home, where they were awaited. And where He Himself was ready to meet them.

All of us, in one way or another, are called to apostleship, to the preaching of the Gospel. Clearly, not everyone must be a missionary, a preacher, or some other "minister of the word"; nevertheless, witness to Christ is the work of the whole Church. Today's passage will help us understand the principles on which such ministry should be built.

First, openness and complete trust in God; second, openness and goodwill toward the people to whom we bring the Gospel; third, the real action of grace through us. It may be expressed not only in healing the sick and those possessed by demons, but also in every good deed, in prayer for these people, in peacemaking, or simply in the presence of a loving heart where love is lacking.

The disciples are glad that they have become heralds and co-workers of God's Kingdom, victors over demons and healers of diseases. But Jesus stops them: "You are rejoicing over the wrong thing"... God gives those who believe in Him many good and amazing things (if they can see them), but the chief value of His Kingdom is not this.

The disciples, and with them the readers of the Gospel, are blessed, happy already because they have seen and heard what the prophets and sages of antiquity only dreamed of: they are witnesses, witnesses not only of miracles, healings, victories over evil, but they are near the very Center of God's Kingdom.

So this is not an abstraction, not paradise, not an afterlife, not gifts and miracles, but God Himself, revealed to people in His Son Jesus.