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In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Christ is baptized! In the Jordan river!
As we have heard today in Saint Gospel of Matthew (Matthew IV:12-17), when John the Baptist was arrested, then Jesus left those lands and went to preach into other lands. The people, who were there, saw the great light, which is they heard a true sermon. They saw the great light, but there was no use for them as the spiritually blind men saw the light of God. Do you understand? They could listen to Jesus but they did not follow Him. They could see that light but they did not understand to the end what for they needed it.
Such people resemble men who are now living in Ukraine. They are also spiritually blind, yes? The truth is, we prefer to be deceived and we prefer to listen to some politicians, than to truth. We do not want to listen to truth, it is boring for us. Yes? We enjoy lies, sweet lies, we are fond of it. That is why few persons among all find the truth and follow it. Many people may listen to truth, but only few of them follow the truth. By that you follow our master, Our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, by that you follow God the Father. By that you show that you are His children, the children of the Celestial Father who are now on the earth.
You make mistakes. That is life. It leads us to mistakes by slyness, deceit, meanness. We are irritated, somewhere in our thoughts we even want to revenge, but then we repent and pray. We worry, we ask, we pray and God purifies us and gives us the great reward for our conquering bad wishes, evil, sly, sinful wishes. The main, it is how we reveal ourselves, that is even if it is 20 degrees below zero outside we go to pray to God, to glorify Him. Or we have to stay on a bus stop for more than 20 minutes in such piercing wind that we can easily fall ill after that, despite of this, we go to the church to glorify God and then God helps us, blesses us.
Is it raining or not, we go to pray near the state institutions, fighting for the truth. We go, we find time for this, we ask for leave our work earlier as there will be very few such moments in our life. You see, do not expect you will have special persecution, whatsoever. Who knows? You may think: "Some day I will be persecuted and then I will be already ready to be persecuted". But maybe now it is the time to be active. Maybe it is now the days of the top, the turning point, when the truth begins to win and triumph on the Earth. Do you understand, what I am saying, or not? Justice will start to revive, it has started. If people are saying: "Corruption, we have corruption" - it is good. As some years before no one spoke about corruption in the country. Do you agree? People cry: "Corruptionists, bribetakers!" - it is good. And those are fighting with one another, it is also good.
Let's pray one for another. Let's pray that more people living in Ukraine will see the light in the darkness and follow this light. For that citizens of Kyiv recover their spiritual sight and our number grows and that it will be no space enough for us, here where we are praying. And when we will find more spacious place that it will be again no spacious enough for all us. For that we really feel and glorify God as we are glorifying Him now - in peace, in love. And we do not have to change anything, we have such a nice divine liturgy. Right?
Moreover, we should pray that God gives us more good priests, who would pray sincerely, going deep into each word, then this word will be heard. You understand, when I pray, when we ask God to change wine and bread into Blood and Body of God, when we bring Him sacrifice for His sufferings on the Cross, for His resurrection, you understand these words, don't you? You hear these secret prayers, which I read aloud, don't you? They help us to pray, don't they? And we feel that we have come to ask the Holy Spirit to descend and change bread and wine into Body and Blood of the Lord for the Holy Communion. Then we receive the Holy Communion and having this sanctity we go home: God is in us, we are with Him, we are in Him. It is very important.
It is very important to understand the mystic side of everything that happens. Angels look at us, we become illuminated in this moment, we become lighter. So we, like torches of light, filled with the grace of God, go to our homes, to different parts of the city. each of us lives in different districts of Kyiv, so one torch appears in one part, another part on the contrary part and so on. These torches light up our city to make it blessed again. It seems to us we have problems at home or elsewhere, but in fact Angels of God go with you there, sanctifying these places. So, little by little, the body of Kyiv, the body of Ukraine becomes the body of Christ, it starts to be healed and renovated.
We can continue this topic, but it's enough for you. I wish you remembered these words and tried to understand them. I wish you would not become like John the Baptist in his doubts (Matthew, XI: 2-3). Do you hear, what I'm saying? If you are from high spiritual level and some situation depends on you, if you have influence on other souls, if you influence their salvation - will they be saved or not and if you have doubts of truth - you will be taken from this world very fast (Mark, VI: 27-29), for you do not do harm to yourself and other souls. I wish you did not resemble apostle peter in his betrayal of Jesus, when he denied Jesus (Mark, XIV:72). Do you understand? I wish you resembled apostle Peter in his devotion to service he had. I wish we resembled the service of John the Baptist he had had before fall in doubts (Matthew, III:1-4),to live like him in desert and preach and follow the truth. That is, we should not resemble doubts, lack of faith of people who were close to Jesus, as it was difficult for Him to be with them all.
It was difficult for Jesus to stay with those who were close to them. We know that only apostle John was the one truly devoted disciple of Jesus. He even went to the place, where Jesus was arrested, he followed Jesus when He was examined and later crucified (John XIX:25-26). John followed Jesus everywhere. Do you understand? He never denied Jesus. He was deported to island Patmos, where he wrote Revelations. So he is the person whom you may try to resemble. Resemble his devotion. As the devotion to God is a great quality. Devotion to truth, devotion to God's virtues. Be devoted children of God - sons and daughters of our Heavenly father, then you will inherit the eternal life with God, where you will feel very well. Then you will help many to reach salvation.
Christ is baptized! In the Jordan river!
Glory to Jesus Christ!
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Apostle (Ephesians, 4:7-13):
4
7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the
measure of Christ's gift.
8 Therefore it says, "When he ascended on high he led a host
of captives, and he gave gifts to men."
9 (In saying, "He ascended," what does it mean but that he
had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above
all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists,
the shepherds and teachers,
12to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building
up the body of Christ,
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ,
Gospel (Matthew, IV:12-17):
4
12 Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew
into Galilee.
13 And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the
sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali,
14 so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be
fulfilled:
15 "The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of
the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles --
16 the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light,
and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light
has dawned."
17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
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