In this respect, when I say that we cannot be saved if we violate the law of life, I am not talking about actions, but about this law of life becoming truly our being, and we cannot act otherwise, because we have already joined the thought, the plan of God. If we share His desire, if we love what He loves, we are one with Him.

And this is very important, because it is very easy to turn the New Testament rules that Christ gives us into the Old Testament law, to become fulfillers, as it were, remaining outside of this experience. I remember a man who received the Gospel in this way. He considered himself a pure, bright Christian. He would never let a beggar pass without calling him and giving him a bowl of soup and a copper coin; but he never let a beggar into the house. He would stop him in the doorway and say, "Don't you dare step with your dirty shoes into my clean corridor.. And when he had finished eating the soup and getting a penny, he would say, "Now go and don't come back to me, I have given you everything you need!"

This is the difference between keeping the law in the legal sense, and becoming a person for whom the commandment is the call of life: becoming a person who cannot do otherwise.

The second concept of sin, which is also very important and related to the previous one, is separation from God. We treat the will of God as an external law only because we are cut off from God in our hearts. This separation of our heart from God, our will from the will of God, our thoughts from the thoughts and ideas of the Divine is our basic sinfulness, that state of half-death, of tarnishment, of which I spoke earlier. But sin still develops further, and from this state of isolation are born its consequences; orphanhood, internal discord, discord with people, enmity with the rest of creation. And in this respect, sin spreads, acquires an infinite number of different shades: hatred, fear, greed, all kinds of self-centeredness, because we have lost God. At the beginning of the Gospel of John it is said (in Russian translation) that the Word of God was to God. The Greek text does not say that this Word is "to God," but that the Word is as if torn, stretched, and wholly directed at God and the Father. This is the real relationship of man to God, of which Christ is a model. But we are torn away from Him and wither, like a twig that is cut off, cut off, torn from the tree.

The third thing I want to say about sin is that one should not be comforted by the thought that there are major and minor sins. Of course, there is a difference; But even a small sin, if it is voluntary, consciously and cynically chosen, can kill the soul. As an example of what a petty sin can do, I will give a comparison. During the war, I was a doctor, and one night a seriously wounded officer, pierced through by a machine-gun burst, was brought to our unit from the front nearby. One would expect that he could only die. But he was lucky: none of the vital organs were affected, he was operated on, treated, he survived. And that same night I was summoned, because a young soldier had been brought. He was in a tavern, quarreled with another soldier, both were drunk, who brandished a small penknife, stabbed his comrade in the neck and cut a large vessel from him; and when they brought him to the hospital, he was near death; He was barely pumped out. Here again: a machine gun can be imagined as a major sin, a murderous phenomenon – what is a penknife compared to a heavy machine gun? And at the same time, a person could die from it...

The same happens if we are careless about our sinful desires, about how we are drawn to sin, how we begin to love and cherish this "small" sin, how we finally reach it. In comparison, a major sin is sometimes less deadly. The first person who came to me for confession was a murderer. His heart was broken by repentance, horror at what he had done. Yes, he then served time in prison, and that time in prison was a time of healing. At the same time, thousands and thousands of people accumulate many small sins, not noticing how these sins fester them, make them powerless, irresponsible. In this respect, we can say: wherever you cross a river, no matter how you cross it – fording, swimming, on a bridge, in a boat, you find yourself on the enemy side, you have betrayed your true calling, you have betrayed yourself, because you have ceased to be a whole person. These are the different approaches to sin.

I will return to this in another context. But now I want to move on to another question: the question of how to get rid of sin, what to do.

The first thing John the Baptist proclaims is repentance. What is repentance? In Greek, this word means turn: the turn of the soul, the turn of life. This is the moment when we become aware of our plight, when we feel disgust for it and for ourselves, when suddenly a determination is born in us, at least rudimentarily, to rebuild, to start anew and live in a new way. You've probably heard the phrase in the New Testament: faith without works is dead (see James 2:17). Crying is not enough, moreover, it is fruitless. Repentance is about coming to consciousness, making a decision, and acting accordingly. And here I can give you an excerpt from the teaching of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk. He advises a young priest to tell people that for the most part one goes to the Kingdom of God not from victory to victory, but from fall to fall, but that he reaches the Kingdom of God who, after each fall, instead of sitting down by the side of the road and weeping over himself, gets up and goes on; And no matter how much he falls, each time he rises and walks. This is what we must always remember: that there is no such thing as complete, instantaneous repentance. Yes, of course, some souls, some giants of the spirit, can suddenly realize their sinfulness and change the whole course of their lives at once, but for the most part we correct it gradually, step by step. Let us remember what St. Tikhon of Zadonsk says: do not weep over yourself, get up and walk, even in tears, even in terror, but walk without stopping.

But what can shake the soul so much that a person decides to change everything in his life? I can give you a few examples. First, when I was a prison chaplain in London, I met a prisoner who, unlike the others, had a joyful face, a kind of hope in him. At first I thought that his term was ending, but it was just beginning. I asked him: "Where did you get such inspiration?" He answered: "You can't understand this. I have been a thief since my youth, and a talented thief; no one could catch me, no one could denounce me. But gradually I began to realize that I was on the wrong path. I began to see the consequences of my actions, to see how the people I had robbed mourned things that were precious to them, even if they were trinkets, but things that were dear to them, such as memories of childhood, of their deceased parents. I decided to change. But I noticed that every time I tried to change, people looked at me with suspicion: if he was changing, then there was something wrong with him... And each time I returned to the past. And then I was captured, I was caught in action, tried, imprisoned, and now everyone knows that I was a thief; And when I come back to life, I can say: yes, I was a thief, but now I have decided to be an honest person, I have nothing to hide from anyone."

This is a rare case, not everyone succeeds. Seldom is there a thief among us; But who among us can say that he does not have such secrets in life that he would like to hide from other people in all areas, not only in the order of honesty, but also in terms of human relations. I do not want to go into this now, we will return to this in connection with some other statement of the Savior Christ. But each of us can ask himself: do I have the courage to denounce myself in front of people? — not even by proclaiming my untruth, but by the fact that people will notice that I am not what I was.

The second example I want to give you is a complicated one. It refers to two people. During the Civil War, a Russian woman with two young children found herself in a city that was at first under the rule of the White Army and fell under the rule of the Reds. She was the wife of a White officer and knew that if she was discovered, she would probably be shot. She hid in a hut on the edge of the city. Dusk was falling, and suddenly there was a knock at the door. With a sinking heart, she approached, opened it, and in front of her stood a young woman of her own age, about twenty-five. "Are you so-and-so?" she asked. "Yes." "You must leave immediately, you have been extradited, they will come for you in a few hours..." The mother looked at her children and said: "Where am I going, they can't go far, and with them they will immediately recognize me..." And this Natalia, a strange woman, suddenly became what the Gospel calls neighbor: that is, the closest person in life and death. She told her: "No, they will not look for you, I will stay here and call myself by your name." "But you will be shot!" - "Yes," said Natalia, "but I have no children." And the mother left with the children. Natalia stayed. Early in the morning, at dawn, she was shot. I knew my mother and two children, who were about my age. They told me: "Natalia's act showed us that we must live in such a way as to be worthy of this sacrifice." Death before the due date, the gift of life, the gift of her life, which was made to them by the unknown Natalia, shook them to the depths, they lived all their lives with only one thought: lest Natalia's death deprive the world of that greatness, that truth, that indescribable spiritual beauty that was in her soul. They were so shocked that a new life began for them.

And those people who met John the Baptist met not only with his power (I have already spoken about this), with his transparency, which made him only the voice of God, or with his humility; They met with uncompromising attitude in his person, with a man of radical integrity. Seeing him, they could compare themselves with what he was, and this was an incentive for them to repent, that is, to see with horror their miserable condition and decide: I can no longer live like this, like this. I saw, I saw something that had already put an end to my past life, now a new one must begin.

Let us continue reading the Gospel of Mark:

And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And as he came up out of the water, immediately John saw the heavens opening up, and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (1:9-11).