Now let's get down to the text itself. The Gospel of Mark begins:

The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets: "Behold, I send My angel (that is, My messenger - M.A.) before Thee, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee" (Mal 3:1). "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight" (Isaiah 40:3). John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and preaching the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judah and the people of Jerusalem went out to him, and they were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. And John wore a robe of camel's hair, and a leather girdle on his loins, and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, "He who is stronger than I am is coming after me, from whom I am not worthy, stooping down, to untie the strap of His shoe." I baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit (1:1-8).

This is the passage of the Gospel that I want to talk about today. But first: what does the word "gospel" mean? The gospel is a Greek word, and it means "good news." The gospel has brought the good news that a new life is coming. They dreamed about it, moreover: they expected it, because the Old Testament prophets spoke about it many times. Malachi, Isaiah, and Jeremiah were all waiting for the One who would bring newness into the world; not the newness that was originally there, at the creation of the world, but another novelty: the renewal of fallen man, and after him, through him, the renewal of all creation that suffered through the fall of Adam, the renewal of our earth, so that not a trace of suffering will remain on it, and everything will be joy and triumph. In the seventh chapter of Isaiah's prophecy, it is said that a Child will be born of a Virgin who will save the world. But the novelty lies not only in the fact that this promise of God has finally been fulfilled, at least in embryo; at the same time, a new idea of God came into the world, not only as the Creator, as the Provider, as the Master of life. Our God is not only "God afar off." Indeed, having become man, having become incarnate, God has become extremely close to us. He is our native. He wears our flesh, He has a pedigree. He has an earthly destiny, He has a name, a face. In the Old Testament it was forbidden to depict God; after the incarnation, God received both the form of a man and the name of a man. In everything He became like us, except sin: sin as separation from God, as a distortion of human form, as ugliness. And one more thing: through the incarnation, we suddenly discover that God can be feared not only by God. Fear, of course, can be different. One can slavishly fear punishment; one can be afraid, like a mercenary who does not want to lose his earnings or reward; You can also be afraid like a son: so as not to upset your beloved. But this is not enough. In the incarnation of Christ, as it were, a new trait in God was revealed: this is the God Whom we can respect. This word sounds strange when applied to God, and I must explain it.

For the most part, people imagine that God created the world, created man, without asking him whether he wants to exist or not, and even endowed him with freedom, that is, the ability to destroy himself, and then, either at the end of our personal life, or at the end of the fate of the world, at the end of time, God seems to be waiting for us and will pronounce judgment. Is this fair? We did not ask for existence, we did not ask for the freedom that He gave us – why should we be unilaterally responsible for our fate and for the fate of the world? Few people pose this question with such sharpness; but I put it, and I find the answer in the Incarnation of the Word of God, the Son of God. God becomes man. He enters the world on the basis of humanity, He takes upon Himself not only our creation, that is, our flesh, human soul, mind, heart, will, and fate, but He takes upon Himself the entire fate of man, who lives in a fallen, disfigured world, in a terrible world, where hatred, fear, greed, and all kinds of vice are at work all the time (sometimes even triumphantly) in one way or another. He enters this world and takes upon Himself all the consequences not only of the primary creative act that brought the world and man out of nothingness, but He takes upon Himself all the consequences of what man has made of this world. He lives, pure from all defilement, in a world where all that is unclean, all that is filthy, all that is depraved, all that is ungodly, all that is unworthy of man will fall upon Him, because He is a challenge to the fallen world. God, Who takes upon Himself such a fate, Who is ready to pay so much for the fact that He gave us existence and freedom – yes, we can respect. He did not let us into life so that we could pay for it, He entered this life and together with us He Himself is ready to transform it, to change it. The whole Gospel speaks of this, and I will not dwell on it now. But if we imagine God in this way, then it is clear that it is not in vain that God speaks of Himself in the Book of Revelation through the mouth of the Apostle John the Theologian: "Behold, I make all things new" (see Revelation 21:5).

And this applies not only to man, not only to society, but also to all creation. Incarnation can be called a cosmic event, and in this sense. The flesh that God put on, the human body that was His body, is made up of the same thing as the whole universe. You may remember that at the beginning of the Book of Genesis we are told that God created Adam, man, taking the finger of the earth, that is, the most basic thing from which one can create. And Christ, having become man, partook of the most fundamental thing that constitutes creation. Every atom can recognize itself in the atoms of His body, every star, every constellation can see itself, know itself in a new way, see what the atom and everything that consists of atoms can become, if only it unites with God, if only it begins to shine not with the natural created light, but with Divine glory. It's so wonderful! Imagine that in Christ all creation, both man and all material creation, can recognize itself in the glory of God. Isn't this new? Is this not good news?

And all this, like the force of the explosion in the atom, is contained in the two names of Christ the Saviour: Immanuel, which in Hebrew means "God is with us," "God is in our midst," and Jesus, "God saves." I can quote to you the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to Titus (2:11-14): ... The saving grace of God has appeared for all men, teaching us that, having rejected impiety and worldly lusts, we should live chastely, righteously, and godly in this present age, awaiting the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for us in order to deliver us from all iniquity and to purify Himself a special people, zealous for good works. This is what we are talking about, this is what God is like with us, and this is what our Lord Jesus Christ is. That is why the Apostle Mark, who himself experienced the change that made him from earthly to a spiritual being, began his book by saying that this is the beginning of the Gospel, the beginning of such good news that cannot be compared with any other.

The Forerunner, John the Baptist, was the first to tell us about this message. His coming has already been announced in the Old Testament, but let us look at him through the eyes of the New Testament, let us look at his person. A young man of thirty years old, a few months older than the Lord Jesus Christ, who renounced all earthly things in order to go into the wilderness from his earliest years, to cleanse himself of all inclination to impurity, to unrighteousness, to give himself to God irrevocably and completely; an ascetic who knows nothing and does not want to know anything except God, His will and the message that he must bring to earth. This personality seems to us to be so amazingly strong. What is this power? In this, it seems to me, that he has become so flexible in God's hand, so transparent to God, that people who met him no longer saw John the prophet speaking to them about Bol. It is called in the Gospel of Mark by the words of prophecy: the voice of one crying in the wilderness... People heard only God's voice in him, it was as if he himself no longer played any role, he was a mouthpiece, he was God speaking through man... That is his strength. The Apostle Paul later also had to speak in the name of God; it seemed to him that he had no strength for this, and he began to pray to God, saying: "Lord, give me strength.. — and God answered him: My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

That's what John the Baptist was. He gave himself wholly to God, and therefore God acted, not he; It was, if you compare, like a well-tuned musical instrument, on which a brilliant composer or performer can play in such a way that you no longer notice either the instrument, or the composer, the performer – you are only permeated by the experience that the sounding melody gives rise to in you.

On the other hand, what humility! I have already mentioned that, according to the Gospel, John the Baptist says about himself: I am not worthy to bend down and untie the shoe strap of Him Who is coming after me – that is, Jesus Christ... Such an incomprehensible, invincible, indestructible force, and on the other hand, there is consciousness: I am only transparency, I am only a voice.

What does this voice mean? Here I want to read to you from the Gospel of Luke the first sermon of John the Baptist. In the third chapter, from verse two to verse eighteen, those of you who have the gospel can read the following:

In the time of the chief priests Annas and Caiaphas, there was a word of God to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. And he went through all the country round about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, as it is written in the book of words of the prophet Isaiah, who says, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight; let every valley be filled, and every mountain and hill be made low, the crookedness straightened, and the rough paths made smooth: and all flesh shall see the salvation of God" (Isaiah 40:3-5). John said to the people who came to be baptized by him: "Offspring of vipers! Who inspired you to flee from the wrath to come? Produce worthy fruits of repentance, and do not think to say in yourselves, "Our father is Abraham"; for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. Already the axe lies at the root of the tree: every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. And the people asked him, What shall we do? He answered and said to them, "He who has two garments, let him give to the needy; and whoever has food, do likewise. The publicans also came to be baptized, and said to him, "Teacher! What should we do? He answered them, "Do not demand anything more than what is determined for you." The soldiers also asked him: "What shall we do?" And he said to them, Do not offend anyone, do not slander anyone, and be content with your salary. And when the people were waiting, and all were thinking in their hearts about John, whether he was not the Christ, John answered everyone: "I baptize you with water, but there comes the One who is stronger than me, from whom I am not worthy to untie the strap of my shoes; He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire. His spade is in his hand, and he will cleanse his threshing floor, and gather the wheat into his garner, and the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. He preached many other gospels to the people, teaching them

Next, I will speak about what is contained in the heart of John the Baptist's preaching: repentance.

You will probably remember that Christ is called in the Old and New Testaments by two names: Immanuel, that is, "God is with us," "God is in our midst," and Jesus, which means "God saves." And John the Baptist clearly indicates from what God saves us and by what way this salvation can be obtained. God saves us from sin, and the way to this salvation is repentance. But what is sin? Often we think of sin as a violation of good relations with people. But there is much more to sin than that, it is more dangerous, it is more terrible. Here are some ideas about what sin is; I take them from the Old Testament and, mainly, from the New Testament.