NOTES for Act 13:13-24

Before us are words of Jesus (John 13:16) that can provoke different reactions. On the one hand, how could it be otherwise? Can a servant and a messenger be greater than their masters? But on the other hand, how often pride and the desire to exalt oneself arise in the soul of the one carrying out an assignment. Sadly, this also happens in our relationships with God... These words evaporate from our minds, and we want to act on our own, without remaining under any authority. And what joy it is when the heart agrees with God's will, and the messenger brings not his own message but the message of the One who sent him, and the servant works together with the Master.

Jesus says this very thing: "If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them" (John 13:17). And blessed is the heart that does not wish to exalt itself and thirsts to fulfill the Lord's will. Then the one who receives such a person receives Jesus Himself, since He abides in him (John 6:56).

What is Christianity? Where are its boundaries? For many people today Christianity is associated with followers of Christ who identify themselves as such, and with the church, or more precisely with the many churches that exist in the modern world. Someone will remember the Church with a capital letter, that body of Christ of which the apostle Paul spoke. Yet Jesus Himself never said that He would limit His communion only to His followers. Only to Christians. Strictly speaking, He did not leave any Christians in the world; He left a small community of His disciples, which later grew.

Then, after some time, a small group of these same disciples called themselves "Christians," or in modern language, "messianists." Later all the disciples of Christ adopted this self-designation. But He Himself did not speak about any "Christians." He spoke about His followers, about those who have some kind of relationship with Him. Precisely some kind, even if minimal. Mediated. Even if only through those whose relationship with Him is more conscious and responsible.

Here, of course, the measure of fullness can vary. There are disciples and followers who are closer; there is the closest circle of disciples, the apostles; and even among the apostles there are people especially close to Him. There are those who know Him personally, more or less, better or worse. There are also those who are not personally acquainted with Him, but whom He knows.

He knows them at least, for example, because some of these people are connected with someone among His direct disciples. Connected by friendship, cooperation, a service once rendered, or help given. The Kingdom, after all, the one He brought into the world, is first of all relationships. Ideally, personal relationships with Him Himself as the King of this Kingdom, but at the beginning, at least with one of His disciples. A chain of relationships can indirectly connect a person with the Kingdom and with its King.

Such relationships are not yet everything, but they can become the beginning of a path. If a person is consistent, sooner or later a moment will come in his life when he will need not simply to touch the Kingdom and its life, but also to become acquainted with the King who rules this Kingdom.

Everything, however, has its time. One thing is important: no contact with the Kingdom, direct or indirect, passes without a trace. Each one is a chance that, if used rightly, can become a chance for salvation.

At first glance, what is happening here is the birth of a new religion: the Christian proclamation, not accepted by its mother environment, the Jews, goes beyond it and turns to the Gentiles. Formally, this is indeed so, but the preachers themselves, led by Paul, plainly do not think so (and this is clear from his preaching).

The point, perhaps, is that Christianity (not as a religion, but as a new experience of life with God) first touched those who were seeking not a religious system, but true, eternal life; those who were seeking Christ and finally received His presence in the Spirit. This directly concerns us as well: those who have not yet made up their minds and those who have long considered themselves Christians.

What, after all, was John the Baptist's mission? To remind the Jewish people about the Messiah? But messianic expectations in those days in Judea, and in Palestine generally, were extremely intense, so intense that from time to time messianic uprisings flared up here and there, led by yet another claimant to messiahship.

One might say: to prepare the people for the appearance of the Messiah. Yes, but in what sense? To remind them of the commandments, of the norms and rules of spiritual life? The leaders of the Pharisaic movement handled this quite well, as even Jesus Himself acknowledged when He advised people to do everything the Pharisaic teachers counseled. The main meaning of John's preaching was, as is evident, elsewhere, although of course he, like every true prophet, never tired of reminding people of the need to keep the commandments. Yet the center of his preaching was still the call to conversion. Of course, here too there would have been nothing new or original in John's words if they had been addressed to pagans.

But they were not addressed to pagans at all, but to the Jews themselves. And not to apostates who had forgotten the God of their fathers, but to believing and deeply religious people. John understood what the Pharisees who came to him to perform the washing to which the prophet called them could not and would not believe: it was revealed to him that there were none ready to meet and receive the Messiah worthily, not even among the people of God. Even a deeply religious person needed, in essence, a new conversion for this, for at the threshold of the Kingdom, according to John himself, the Messiah would meet him and wash him "with the Spirit of God and fire."

What was revealed to the prophet was what even the apostles did not understand at once: in the Kingdom everything begins anew, from a clean page. And this page must not be stained. But the Pharisees, deeply religious people who therefore strictly observed all norms and rules of ritual purity, were perplexed: why does this strange prophet call everyone to washing? They, for example, were not pagans and had committed no such sins after which they would need to perform purification rituals.

Some of them, to be on the safe side, did perform the washing to which John called them, but they still did not understand the meaning of what was happening, provoking the prophet's angry rebuke accusing them of hypocrisy. Thus, even before Christ came into the world, the boundary dividing religion and the Kingdom was marked out, the boundary that would later make many Pharisees hate the One who brought the Kingdom into the world. The boundary that marked the path to the cross.