NOTES for Luk 13:1-17

Disasters and tragedies have happened in every age. Christ uses one of them as an illustration in His preaching.

We should not look in the fate of the unfortunate for signs of special sins that other people do not have. God does not punish sins in such a primitive sense. But everyone living on earth will be weighed on the scales of eternity: What does he live for? Is he fulfilling his human calling? Does he bear fruit, like a fruit-bearing tree, or not?

"For you, this is the last chance to save the situation," Jesus tells His listeners. "Tomorrow may already be too late." How many such "last chances" have been missed? How many more will be missed? The question "to be or not to be" is not decided theoretically. It is a question Christ asks personally of every disciple able to take it seriously.

When we picture God as this world's executioner, we usually suppose that He deliberately sends specific disasters in order to punish particular people. This idea was widespread in the days of the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ as well. When people told Him about the Galileans killed by Pilate, those who told Him most certainly asked (or implied) the question: why? In the same way, after the healing of the man born blind, the disciples ask who sinned, this man or his parents. Why did people die when no specific guilt is known against them, greater than that of others?

And the Lord has to repeat again and again what had already been said more than once through the prophets of Israel: "unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way." Strictly speaking, the fact that the cause of our disasters lies in our not needing God is fairly obvious, but in our own time, when thousands of ordinary people die as a result of terrorist attacks and catastrophes, it is very important for us to take this well to heart. God is not an executioner, but our Defender, our Savior. But in order to take refuge in that protection, we must trust Him, seek Him with all our heart, and turn to Him.

One of the questions that has tormented thinking people in every age has been the question of the justice or injustice of the world.

Some believed that everyone in life, sooner or later, receives what he or she deserves. Others, by contrast, were convinced that chance rules the world and that a person's fate therefore does not depend in any way on that person's actions.

There was also a position that took into account the law of cause and effect, which in the untransformed world can be considered absolute: its adherents were convinced that everyone reaps the fruit of what has been done, but that there is nothing moral or immoral in this, no ethical dimension at all. It is only a matter of an objectively existing universal law whose action extends to everyone. Such an approach can appear quite balanced, but it does not take one thing into account: the person himself, his spiritual and moral choice. In this case, an accidental mistake can prove fatal, and repentance plays no role: the deed is done, the mechanism has been set in motion, and regret over what was done and pangs of conscience can no longer change anything.

At first glance it can appear that Jesus supports, if not the position based on the idea of the immutability of the law of cause and effect, then at least some nonmoral attitude toward the evil happening in the world. After all, He clearly denies a connection between a person's sinfulness and the troubles and disasters that fall upon that person. With one important reservation: unless you turn, you will all perish in the same way. Of course, this means the kind of turning that involves receiving the Kingdom, for according to the Savior's own words it has "drawn near," and now to turn means to receive not only God but also the Kingdom of God, to receive it in order to enter it and live by its laws. As can be seen, only such reception, only participation in the life of the Kingdom and life according to its laws, can deliver a person from the random and completely unregulated evil of the fallen world.

The fallen world is unjust; evil reigns in it and can fall on anyone's head, whether that person is righteous or sinful. Even the law of cause and effect does not guarantee that the consequences of one person's sin will not affect many. In a world where evil reigns, virtue is not rewarded and sin is not punished. There is neither meaning nor purpose in its existence. But meaning and purpose exist in the existence of the Kingdom, just as there is meaning in the transformation that awaits our world at the end of time.

The only meaning of the untransformed world's existence is that it can become a place where the powers of the Kingdom act, a space where the breath of God is felt. And for a person, the only meaning of existence in a meaningless world can only be participation in this process. There is no other meaning, no other salvation in the fallen world. And the Savior proves quite severe here: either turn and become inhabitants of the Kingdom, or you will all perish as meaninglessly as those about whom you are asking.

The subject turns to the evil and cruelty that exist in the world. The people around Jesus tell Him what has happened, but they do not dare ask the question troubling everyone: “What did they do to deserve this? Why did those particular Galileans meet such a fate?” Similar questions sometimes come to mind, do they not, when we hear of another terrorist attack or disaster? This is not the first time Jesus answers a question asked “inwardly” (see Mk 6:11). Almighty God sees and knows everything, yet leaves people free—to do good or to commit evil deeds. It is precisely freedom that enables a person to love and to give this love to other people and to God, who longs for it so much. The human person was created for a relationship of love with the Creator and the surrounding world. And each person is given time to find the right use for the freedom granted to them—time for their first independent steps, their first falls, and the renewed discovery that they can walk again. But the Lord warns us: this time is not endless, and one day He will come to see in which direction we are going.

Our stereotyped thinking usually assumes that God, as judge and executioner in one, deliberately sends specific disasters to punish particular people. This idea was widespread during the earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ as well. When He was told about the Galileans killed by Pilate, those telling Him most likely asked, or implied, the question: why? In the same way, after the man born blind was healed, the disciples asked who had sinned, the man himself or his parents. Why did people perish when no particular guilt greater than that of others was known against them? And the Lord has to repeat again and again what had already been said many times through the prophets of Israel: “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Strictly speaking, it is fairly obvious that our disasters arise because we feel no need for God, but in our time, when thousands of ordinary people die as a result of terrorist attacks and catastrophes, it is very important for us to grasp this firmly. God is not our executioner, but our Defender, our Savior. Yet to seek refuge in this protection, we must trust Him, seek Him with all our heart, and turn to Him.

Answering the question religious people have asked in every age, "Why has this happened to us?", Jesus points them to an event whose details history has not preserved for us. But even without details it becomes clear that this was, as we would call it today, a technological disaster: the tower of Siloam, about which we have no other information, apparently collapsed unexpectedly, and people died under its rubble, people who, judging by the Savior's words, were by no means the worst in the city.

This is His answer to another question asked at the same time: why did people known for their faith and piety die at the hands of Herod, who then ruled Galilee? Here too it is an event mentioned nowhere else, but everything we know today about Herod and his reign says that there could have been many such episodes under him.

As one can see, Jesus' answer to the question "why?" is clear enough and terrible enough, though in the fallen world it was hard to expect another. In the fallen world there is no reward for the righteous and no punishment for sinners. It is amoral, and evil rules in it. Here anything can happen to anyone, and neither faith, nor piety, nor a person's good qualities can change anything in his position.

There are no guarantees that something horrible will not happen to a good, believing, pious person, and not only at human hands, but simply because of what we are used to calling absurd accident. After the fall, man found himself in a world where there is no place for God, where He is not wanted and where His access is extremely limited, limited by the very free will of man that man loves so much to abuse. And God will not force His way where man does not want to see Him. Yet He can still help a person, but only in His world. In the Kingdom.

There, where He is full master and where therefore there is no place for chance, at least when a person is concerned. There everyone receives not a reward, no, but what he sought and could not find in the fallen world when he walked the path that finally brought him to the threshold of the Kingdom. "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish": it is strange to hear such words from the Savior, addressed to people deeply and sincerely believing, religious, and pious. But Jesus is speaking about the Kingdom.

"Make at last the final step on the path and enter where evil has no place": this is essentially what He calls them to do. Here, in the world where evil rules, nothing can be done. As the Kingdom enters the world, it will change, but in its present state it cannot become good. The answer is completely realistic and frightening in its realism, but it also offers an alternative. The answer of the Messiah, who brought the Kingdom into the world.

In healing a woman who had suffered from a serious illness for 18 years, Christ pays no attention to what day He does it. He acts too quickly to have time to think about it. In some other places in the Gospel, Jesus does not heal the sick right away, but speaks with them, finds things out, asks questions. In this story, however, He acts, one might say, without thinking. Seeing the bent-over woman, He hastens toward her and sets her on her feet, thereby provoking the Pharisees' displeasure.

Their displeasure makes one wonder whether these teachers of the faith were blind. If they had looked not at the law, but at a real person, such severe suffering would hardly have left any doubt about the need for immediate healing. Their reaction speaks for itself. When the Pharisees, encountering a miracle of God, begin checking whether it conforms to the canons, the woman begins glorifying God.

Reading some Gospel stories, one might think that Jesus intentionally violates the Sabbath rest, doing it to spite the traditionalists of religion. But the Savior never wanted scandals and did not like them. He did not need scandalous fame, the fame of a destroyer of foundations. Besides, according to His own words, He came not to destroy the Torah, but to bring it to fullness. Why then does He act as He acts?

In fact, could the healing of the woman mentioned by the evangelist in his story not have been postponed until the next day? After all, she was not threatened with death; she had already lived with her illness, as we can see, for more than one year, and one additional day of waiting would no longer have changed anything for her. And if this had been simply a matter of healing, even a miraculous, supernatural healing performed not by human power but by God's power, the synagogue ruler who condemned Jesus' action would have been right.

But that is precisely the point: this was not simply a matter of healing, even miraculous healing, but of the manifestation of the Kingdom, whose consequence was this healing, just as it was many other healings of the same kind mentioned by the evangelists. And the Sabbath, in view of its original spiritual meaning, was ultimately needed precisely in order to open the Kingdom to a person, to give him the opportunity to establish deep, sincere, full relations with God, without which there is and can be no normal spiritual life. The multitude of ritual prohibitions and restrictions with which the Sabbath later became surrounded is connected with the obvious predominance of religiosity over spirit. Jesus is precisely striving to return the Sabbath to its original meaning as time spent with God.

And where, if not in the Kingdom that He brought into the world, was one to seek the fullness of communion with God? Where could one spend the Sabbath day better than there? But for those who do not notice the Kingdom, religion with its prohibitions and restrictions proves more important. It is hard to condemn them for this: in the absence of spiritual life, religion may really be the best thing a person can find for himself. Yet in the absence of spiritual life, it is precisely religion that separates a person from the Kingdom, from communion with God, and in the end from life. From that fullness of life for which no religion can offer anyone a substitute.

A prayer of praise is a sign of spiritual freedom. We do not praise God for something; praise and thanksgiving are not the same thing. We can praise Him always, because praise is gratitude to God for being God.

We can praise God even in the most terrible circumstances, even when it seems that there is certainly nothing for which to give thanks. We can praise Him in those moments too, because God is still God; He is still glorious and worthy of praise. But often we are bent double. Sometimes we remain bent double for years, absorbed in ourselves, our ailments, and our grievances. We often ask God for something and sometimes even thank Him for something — for example, for granting our request — but we almost never sing His praise simply because He is God.

God also gives us the strength to praise. He can drive out the spirit of infirmity and give us a spirit of joy and praise. Let us ask Him to help us straighten up and begin to praise Him, for this is possible even after eighteen years of a bent and joyless existence.