Maundy Thursday. Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos

The Holy Church now commemorates the Last Supper of Christ the Savior and celebrates the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos – the beginning of Christ's coming to earth. Christ came to reign in our hearts, to save us from our sins. He announced this through the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary.

And on Great Thursday the Lord performed the divine service with the holy apostles and gave them an example of how to behave. He said, "You call Me God and Teacher, and I am truly so, so if I wash your feet, then you should do the same to one another." Then he girded himself with a towel, poured water into a vessel and began to wash his feet with it. Peter was confused: how could it be, Teacher, and suddenly he, a disciple, would wash his feet. The Lord says: then you have no part with Me, because you do not obey. Then Peter said, "Lord, wash my hands and my head." No, the Lord answered, only a foot is enough, because you have already been cleansed by My word.

The Lord cleansed them. He said: "You are clean, but not all." One of them was unclean, Judas. Of course, it was not about the dust that sticks to the feet - there, in the south, they walked in sandals, of course, there were no socks, so the feet were always covered in dust. No, it was about the dust of sin, which is inside the soul. We are also clean, but not all of us, and the Lord washes us in the same way when we come to confession, but again, not all of us. The Lord also washed Judas' feet, but he was not cleansed by this, because he was plotting evil in his heart. And yet the Lord gave us an example of how we should love our neighbor: humble ourselves before him so much that we be ready to wash his feet. This is very important for us to understand.

From the moment a Christian hears the Gospel for the first time, this good news, from the very first annunciation, when the word of salvation touches his ears and it sinks into his soul, from that moment begins to grow in love, because the goal of Christian life is to attain love, to learn the true love of God. God is love, and if man has attained love, then he has attained God. But what love is, we often do not feel, and do not understand, and do not know. And so the Lord gave the disciples a spiritual testament at the Last Supper. In particular, it concerned how people should treat each other. For example, making noise when everyone is listening intensely is a violation of love, because it means that a person cares only about himself - and this is the first sign of a violation of love. And Christian life should be arranged in such a way that we learn this love.

Love is about showing humility to the one you love. This can be seen very easily in the mother-child relationship. Here is a small child, still unreasonable, a suckling child, lying down, something is uncomfortable for him, and he begins to cry. And his mother, though she may be sleepy and tired, she doesn't rush at him with her fists, she doesn't shout, 'Shut up!' because it's useless anyway: he's eight months old, doesn't he understand? He doesn't understand whether you speak Russian or English. And the mother humbles herself, she endures, she is indulgent towards him. Although the child causes her a lot of inconvenience, nevertheless she does not humiliate him, does not scold him, but tries to rock him, tries to somehow propitiate him, to appease him, so that he calms down. "Whatever the child amuses himself with, as long as he does not cry" - so they say.

This is an example from our everyday life, this is what love is. True, there is an important point here: the mother loves the child because it is her own, it is blood. Here are ten babies lying - nine not mine, but one mine - and they are all crying. What desire do I have to rush to the first? To his own. Why? Because it's mine. All the children run in puddles, and my grandson runs in puddles. I don't rush to all the children, I don't try to get them out of there, but only my own. Why? Because if others catch a cold, I don't care, and the main thing for me is to save mine, because mine will hurt, and if mine hurts, I will worry about him. That is, in fact, this love is not complete, it is colored by egoism, since it is love for one's own, love for oneself. My blood, so I love both my child and my grandson, I love my nephew less, I love my cousin even less, and I don't have to think about my great-nephew - I worry about my child, my grandson, my heart hurts for him.

But the Lord wants us to attain love for any neighbor, so that our love does not depend on whether this person is close to us or far away, whether he is good or bad, whether he loves us or, on the contrary, he is our enemy, plotting evil against us. And the Lord gives an image of such love. Here are the disciples before Him, and He knows them thoroughly: this is the most loving and most beloved; this one is the hottest; this very judicious, always doubting everything; But this evil, greedy, loves money and decided to betray it. And the Lord makes no difference between them, He washes everyone's feet, He sits everyone down with Him at the table, everyone takes communion, He rejects no one - He gives an image of Christian love.

That's how we should learn it. Regardless of whether a person irritates us or not, whether he understands us or does not understand us, whether we feel love for him or not, we still need to show love to this person. You need to reach a state of heart where every person, even if he does evil to you, and you know about it, and you know that he is such and such and only harms you, you still have to learn to love him. And this is very difficult, and it takes a long time, you have to put your whole life into it.

The Lord created Adam so that he would multiply on earth and all people would live as one family, all would love each other; so that every mother loves all children, so that all children love their mother; so that there is no enmity between us. But that is why the Lord came to earth, that we are all separated, and everyone has his own life, and everyone lives on his own, everyone is digging into his own sins, and everyone is rowing under himself, and no one cares about anyone. The devil has sown discord between us, so even in church: here we are all huddled together, we all stand, as if we are one family, we have one Father – the Lord, we have one Mother – the Holy Church – but if we look into everyone's hearts, we will see alienation from each other. Everyone who stands here does not think about his neighbor, he is not interested in this neighbor at all, this neighbor even interferes with him, this neighbor pushes him, this neighbor squeezes him, it is hot from him: I am already standing in my coat, it is stuffy in the church, and he is piled up here, it is heavy, and it would be better if this neighbor went somewhere far away. Because here I am, here is God, here is my life, in my head I have my children, my son-in-law, my vanity, my concern - and then there are some other people who interfere with me. It would be better if there were fewer of them.

That is, if you look into our hearts, you can see that we do not have any commonality. We have all come together - but nothing is happening inside of us. And although in such a state of our soul, in such an unloving attitude towards each other, we, of course, are unworthy either to be in church or to receive Communion, the Lord nevertheless does not reject us. For the Lord said, Where two or three shall gather together in my name... And the name of God is love. And we gather in church not to commemorate health or repose, but to learn love - at least in something, even while we are standing here, at least a little. I'm not even talking at home or on the bus - but at least in church, while we stand before God Himself, well, at least in something we will yield to our neighbor. Okay, not in the store - at least in the church, do not go ahead, because the Lord said: whoever wants to be the first, will be the last. Well, yes, you will be the first to break through, but in the Kingdom of Heaven you will be the last. Because if the Lord Himself washed the disciples' feet, it means that He gave us an image of how we should do it, and we do just the opposite, and it turns out that we are either not Christ's disciples, or traitors.

There is, however, a third option that suits us best: we are still just unreasonable children. It's like a mother says: "Vasya, don't get into a puddle, you'll catch a cold," but Vasya doesn't understand, he likes to clap in puddles. And then he caught a cold, lay with a fever, did not go outside, he wanted to walk, but he was not allowed. But how simple: walk past a puddle or, if you really want to go through puddles, put on rubber boots, and that's it, and you will walk every day. But he does not understand, and still climbs, and because of this he gets sick. That's how we are. We do not understand that if we rush forward, we will not get anything here, and if we do not rush forward, then, on the contrary, the grace of God will visit us. Because without humility it is impossible to learn love.

Love is when one person sacrifices something for the sake of another. Here I am sitting comfortably, I feel good, and next to me sits a person who is uncomfortable and not so good. What is love? Love is when I stand up and say: "Sit down, it will be comfortable for you here, and I will sit in your place, let it be uncomfortable for me." Or, let's say, I came to church, saw an icon and wanted to light a candle, but I couldn't go to the candle box because of the people. And I thought: I need to hand over the ruble, and they will pass me a candle here. To light a candle is good, and the income of the church, and my sacrifice to God. But on the other hand, I will distract ninety people from prayer. Is it good or bad? No, it is better for me not to light this candle, that is, I will think first of all not about myself, but about others: people are standing, people are praying, they should not care about my inner worries, it is better for me to come another day to light it.

If a person thinks like this, gives up his own for the sake of others, this is love. And if we do this in life, humble ourselves before our neighbor, renounce ourselves, our own for the sake of love for another, then gradually we will learn to love. That's the only way. And if we stand, sulk, be offended, wish a person evil in our thoughts, get upset, then, of course, we will not achieve love. And the whole Gospel is about that. The Lord tells us that we must forgive. They offended you, insulted you, did not understand - so what? Forgive me. And the Lord also suffered with His disciples: He told them one thing, and they another. He calls them to one thing, and they do the exact opposite. Peter said, "I will never deny you in my life, let them kill me." And the Lord sighed and said, "Tonight the rooster will not crow three times when you deny it." He knows in advance what will happen. The Lord also knows what we are like, but He wants us to be different. Therefore, we come to church in order to save our souls from sin, because sin divides us, and grace, on the contrary, unites us. And today we will partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ in order to receive the grace of God, so that it may unite us all.