And how frightening, how sad it is to think that we are so accustomed to reading the Gospel and to the holy, regenerating words that God pronounces for us, how frightening and sad it is that we become so accustomed – and the word Gospel means for us only the name of the book, but does not arouse in us the rapture, the tenderness that this word pronounced by John the Baptist, repeated by the disciples of the Savior Christ, stirred up in the souls of people.

     For the word Gospel in Russian really means only a book that contains a story about the life and miracles of the Savior and His teaching. But in Greek, the word "gospel" means "good news," something utterly reproclaimed, the novelty of which is so wonderful that it can be said of it as good. And the word good is used in the Gospel so reverently! After all, you remember how a man came to Christ and said to Him: "Good teacher, what shall I do to have eternal life?" And the Saviour answered him: "Why do you call Me good? Only God is good."

     And if we say of this Gospel message that it is really good news, then it should signify for us the complete newness of life, the newness that only God can impart to us.

     What is this news about, what is not only new but wondrous in it? – The news that God, Who for all the peoples of the earth and even for the Jewish people was the One Whom the Prophet calls "God afar", that is, a terrible God, a God so great that it is impossible to approach Him, a God about Whom the prophets and ascetics said: "Woe is me! I have seen God, I have only to die...", – that this God has ceased to be God from afar and has become so indescribable, so immeasurably close to us: He has become man. In all things He became like unto us; He bore our flesh; His soul was like any human soul, He had a human mind, and a human heart, and a human will. But beyond that, He was the Living God made man.

     And in doing so, He revealed to us two mysteries, such as no one could have imagined. No one would dare to think that a God who is incomprehensible, holy, a God who is the Very Mystery of existence, could become a man like us. This God, who caused awe in people, now evokes in us tender gratitude: He is the son of man, without ceasing to be the Son of God.

     And the second thing that is revealed to us in the incarnation of the Word of God is that man is so great, so deep, that he is able to unite with God and not be destroyed by the Divine fire – to unite with God without the Divinity being diminished in any way.

     We find the image of this union in the Old Testament in the image of the burning bush, the bush that burned with Divine fire – but did not burn up, because the Divine fire turns everything it touches into flame, but does not incinerate. Divine fire destroys only evil, sin, that which in reality does not exist: and everything that can only have existence, it elevates to such greatness that the Apostle Peter describes to us when he says that we are called to become partakers of the Divine nature.