Therefore, if we want our faith to be alive, we must fulfill God's commandments. And in order to know these commandments of God, one must constantly read the Holy Scriptures. That's when our life will bear fruit, otherwise it doesn't really make any sense. If we do not see God in this life, we will not see Him there either. Do you understand how scary it is? Therefore, you have to try all the time. To learn to put oneself before God in order to revive one's soul. Amen.

Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross,

January 4, 1987

All-Night Vigil for the Circumcision of the Lord and the Memory of St. Basil the Great

Today the Holy Church celebrates the memory of St. Basil the Great and the great feast of the Circumcision of the Lord. In general, every event in the life of the Savior is important for the Church, because in them the salvific meaning is revealed to us. On the eighth day of the Circumcision, according to the law of Israel, the Mother of God brought the Savior to the temple in order to perform this ancient rite. The Creator of heaven and earth was circumcised like a simple, ordinary babe, according to the law that was necessary for all children born in this nation.

Circumcision in ancient Israel was a sign of the covenant with God. Now, in the New Israel, in the Church of God, holy baptism has become the sign of this covenant. Whoever is baptized has a covenant with God, whoever is not baptized does not have this covenant. Whoever is baptized is a communicant of the New Israel, of the Church, and whoever is not baptized is not a communion. And of course, the Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Heavenly Father Himself, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, had no need to have an outward sign of the covenant with God. He Himself said, "I and the Father are one." He was constantly together with God, in Him the Divinity dwelt unchangingly, inseparably, inseparably and inseparably. And yet the Lord did it. What for? If circumcision had no meaning for Him, why was it so arranged by God's providence that He underwent this rite?

This is the meaning of this feast, because here the sign of the Savior's love for us is manifested, another sign. The first manifestation of this love was that the Lord came in the flesh. Being God, He humbled His Divinity to the point that He became a man. We can somehow understand what the Nativity of Christ the Savior in the flesh was like through comparison. Let's imagine that one of us voluntarily became a cockroach or an ant, voluntarily doomed himself to the life of an ant, or even not an ant, but at least a dog's: thirty-degree frost - and he would sleep there in a booth, in the snow, and eat what he was given, and sit on a chain all day or run in an enclosure, only at night, and even for a limited time. The Lord did something similar, He did it with one single goal: to save us, because otherwise we cannot be saved. In order for us to listen to Him, He had to appear in an image like us.

Suppose a herd of deer lives in the forest, and a thunderstorm is approaching them - the hunters are going to surround and exterminate them. And someone decides to save these deer. But it is useless for them to speak in a human way, they will not understand. Therefore, the only way is to become a deer yourself, come to them and somehow try to negotiate in their deer language and save at least those who will listen. That is why the Lord came to earth, became man and began to address people, and not to everyone, but only to those whom He had prepared.

All the nations around Israel lived according to the laws of pagan beliefs. Those were terrible times when, from the Christian point of view, monstrous crimes were committed. People sacrificed each other, lived in terrible fornication, drunkenness, and worship of demons. And now paganism exists in India, for example, or in Greenland; in some places in our Far North it is still preserved in the form of shamanism, in some places in Africa. Recently, in an African country, a president was tried, and he was charged with cannibalism, that is, that he ate people, because this is his faith. And not so long ago, in the Middle Ages, paganism was widespread in America, in the so-called civilizations of the Incas and Aztecs, sacrifices were made - hundreds of thousands of people. That is, terrible, monstrous crimes against humanity were committed. If we had been there, we would not have been able to live in horror - such were the relations between people.

Therefore, it was pointless to turn to the pagans, and the Lord chose a people whom He had more or less morally prepared to receive the revelation of God, gave them commandments through Moses: "Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt honor thy father and mother," in order to protect them from this gloomy sojourn in paganism. And indeed he did: they believed in the One True God, God the Father, and did not worship false gods. And when they departed from the true faith, the Lord tried to bring them back through the prophets, through all kinds of punishments, for example, the Babylonian captivity. The entire Old Testament is a story about how the true faith lived in the people of Israel, how they renounced this faith, then returned again, and so on. And so the Lord appeared to this people in order to give them a new revelation, a higher one, because, it turns out, in order for a person to return to heaven, to the abode of the Heavenly Father, to live as the Lord intended, it is not enough just to be a good person, not to kill, not to fornicate, not to steal, not to envy, not to honor father and mother. This, it turns out, is not enough, because this morality is natural, and something higher is required of man.

And the Lord knew, of course, that not everyone would listen to Him, but only a few, and He knew that He was doomed to death, because the word He would bring to people would not fit into them. He was doomed to die and voluntarily went to it - such a huge sign of God's love. That is why the Lord went to this suffering – circumcision – as if to signify what was to come to Him. And in circumcision God's love for fallen humanity is revealed – in order to teach people this love. Because without love, it is impossible to reach the Kingdom of God.

But in order to have love, a person must first of all understand what it is, because one cannot strive for love without knowing what it means. And since it is impossible to explain this in words – love can only be shown, love can be revealed, manifested, and only then can a person feel all its beauty – therefore the Lord reveals this love in His every action, in His every word, in His deed. And in each person, depending on whether he is capable of love, this fire either lights up or not. Even wood can be impregnated with such a composition that it will not burn. That's how the human heart is - it can freeze so much that it does not perceive love.

All people are born from the mother's womb the same, capable of both love and sin. And in every person from childhood there is a struggle. Love is always directed outward, but in human nature, distorted by sin, it is turned inward. And if this upheaval, which is called repentance, does not take place in a person, then all the forces of love, all the abilities of his soul remain directed towards himself, which from the point of view of the Kingdom of Heaven is destruction. This is what human death consists of: God radiates love, and man who resists God directs it towards himself. Therefore, a person who wants to live with God must necessarily learn to radiate love outwardly, and for this he must overcome his fallen nature, that is, he must fight, he must turn himself completely upside down.