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.

When a person shows love only to himself, this is not love, it is egoism, anti-love. All our troubles, all our misunderstandings, all our sins come only from the fact that we are incapable of love, and the goal of the spiritual life is precisely to learn this. One can learn only as the Lord says: I have brought fire to earth, and how I would like it to burn already, He speaks precisely of this Divine love. A person, until he meets real, true love in life, cannot understand what it is. Love (I don't want to say this word, but it is the most understandable to our ears) is like a relay race, it is passed on in this way: from Christ to the apostles. He taught them love - and they suddenly turned from faint-hearted, fearful people into fearless lions, who not only willingly went to death, but also showed miracles of courage for the sake of this love. When the Apostle Peter was sentenced to crucifixion, he asked the executioners: please crucify me upside down, because I am a sinful man, and I cannot be crucified like my Teacher. Such was his love and humility. He was condemned to death, monstrous, terrible, very painful, but he did not think about himself - whether it would hurt him to hang or not - he thought only about how not to rise too high, not to dare to be like the Savior in this, and therefore he asked to be nailed upside down. This is the kind of love that is inaccessible to our consciousness. It seems to us that this is a fairy tale, because we have never done such noble deeds in our lives. This is natural - everyone judges for himself. A person who is capable of stealing himself suspects everyone of stealing. And the one who is capable of a noble deed, of love, to the degree of which he himself is capable, understands this in others.

The Apostles lit up the disciples with their love, but centuries passed, two thousand years, and, as it is said in the Scriptures, "because iniquity abounded, the love of many grew cold." This is true, and now, in our lives, we almost do not meet people who show this love. Therefore, we, in fact, have no one to ignite, and this fire is extinguished. Because this fire, this love is holiness, and not just a feeling. But all our concepts of love are corrupted, mixed, we perceive love only through ourselves. Even in our language there is only one word for love: I love cheese, I love sweets - and I love a child, I love my wife, I love my homeland. But everyone understands that loving cheese and loving one's homeland are completely different concepts, although the verb sounds the same.

And that's the whole point, that we still have that love that can be called the word "like": I like cheese. That is, we perceive love only as a feeling that somehow comforts and pleases us. What does it mean: I love her? How does the modern average person understand this? It means that I like her: she is beautiful, she is smart, caring, obedient, affectionate, hardworking, she has beautiful hands, legs, ears, eyes. That is, her appearance, her behavior give me pleasure, so I love. In fact, there is no love here, but there is self-gratification. True love, on the contrary, is regardless of what a person is like in himself, but if I love him, I am ready to do anything for him, whatever my heart commands. I love him, so I am ready to wash, I am ready to clean up after him, I am ready to spend thirty years at his bedside, I am ready to sacrifice myself for him, I am ready to give everything, I am ready to go anywhere. This is what love is, but this is exactly what does not happen, everyone strives to please themselves. Therefore, there are constant quarrels, fights, hatred, ill-will, misunderstanding, mutual suspicion, because no one, in fact, knows what love is, it has become impoverished, and a person does not even know what to do to achieve it.

And the Lord came into the world to gather people together again. If everyone lives for everyone, then everyone will strive for unity, and if everyone lives only for himself, then, on the contrary, for separation. And the more a person tries to bring benefits to himself, the greater this division. And the more self-denial, self-sacrifice a person makes a sacrifice for the sake of love, the more he acquires Divine qualities and the more he tastes this love – this, in fact, is what spiritual life consists of. Therefore, being sinners, being selfish (and these are identical concepts, a sinner is an egoist, loving himself and not loving God, not loving his neighbor), we must gradually force ourselves, our vicious fallen nature, to renounce ourselves, some of our desires and feelings for the sake of our neighbor: I want to feel sorry for myself, I want to lie down, I want something for myself, but I will somehow refuse and do it, on the contrary, for the sake of another person, for whom I have no feelings, but maybe only irritation.

In the Gospel it is said in this way: "Whoever smites you on your right cheek, turn the other cheek to him also" - to try when you are slapped on the cheek, not to be rude in response, but, on the contrary, to accept it with humility and not to get angry, to fight with your feelings - and when we commit such an act, we will see that something will change in us. When we learn to give, and not to take, we will feel the joy of heaven, then we will understand why Basil the Great, being a rich man, gave everything, had only clothes and a few books, he had nothing else. That is why, why does a person do this? Because he, Basil the Great, acquired something more for this, which no money can buy: love cannot be bought. And how do we usually do it? They say: here you are all for her, and she - nothing in return for you; You give everything to your children, and they are so ungrateful. That is, you need to live like this? you to me, and I to you; If you do something to someone, then it is necessary that there is some benefit for yourself. And the Lord says on the contrary, that if you lend and wait for someone to give it back to you, then what is the use? This is what the pagans do. But to do good, not only without expecting an equivalent good in return, but, perhaps, even to receive evil in return, that is, to do it for the sake of the good itself! Like the Lord - He came to earth, did obvious good, humbled Himself so much that He became a man, saved people on the Cross. What is in return for Him? In return, spitting, beatings and a shameful death.

And so, when each of us performs such actions, then he will gradually acquire Divine qualities, he will be a disciple of Christ. As Christ acted, so must we act, even though it is very difficult, because we are sinners. Try to overcome your selfishness, try not to scratch where it itches - how difficult it is! Try to restrain your tongue from evil, and so on. In order to acquire love in one's heart, one needs constant podvig, constant self-denial, and only in this case can it be acquired. It is necessary to fight against every lawlessness, against every sin in oneself. We know from the Scriptures: why does evil increase in the world? Why does love become impoverished? From iniquity, from the fact that a person lives without law, without a king in his head, lives as he thinks or as he sees somewhere. His thoughts are always shaking, he looks like everyone else, that's how he seems, regardless of whether it's good or bad. But there is a Divine law, which is revealed to us by the Lord. What a mercy of God! Indeed: a person does not know what to do, he is in the dark - what to do? Any area of life, whichever you take, is all darkness, you can't see anything. But there is the Holy Scripture. What a beauty: open, read and do! This is what a great grace has been given to us!

And if, in spite of all our desires, aspirations, and opinions, we nevertheless fulfill the law of God in our lives, that is, if we try, being sinners, to live holy, then the Lord, seeing our striving, will gradually cleanse us from sin. And we will gradually scrape off sin after sin from our souls. But we cannot purify ourselves, the Lord Himself will cleanse us. And when we attain in our hearts all the Christian virtues, and above all humility, then the totality of all perfections in our heart will be love.