“In today’s Gospel we hear a conversation between Jesus Christ and the disciples of John the Baptist. This is a talk about the main questions which John’s pupils ask Jesus: ‘Are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?’ Actually, this question means: Who are You? This is a consolidation of the question about identity,” with such words the Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church began his homily.
According to him, the Old Testament people were awaiting the Messiah by certain signs. Jesus Christ answers this question. “Coming of Jesus Christ means closeness of God to a man. It’s not a man who came to God but the Lord came to a man. It’s not a man who touched God, but He touched a man,” emphasized the Head of the Church.
In His Beatitude Sviatoslav’s opinion, in the person of Jesus Christ we can see the advent of God’s Kingdom to us a real, visible one, – and feel God’s presence among people. “Jesus says: ‘Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me…’ What did He mean? People got used so much that God is far away; that one must shout so He could hear him; one must almost apply force to knock the doors of Heavenly Kingdom so that the Lord would open them for us… So when the Gospel says that He is close, people would not believe it,” said the preacher.
His Beatitude Sviatoslav believes that a man does not always want to accept everything that Jesus wants to give him. He must believe and be with God Who is part of his life. “I think that this uneasy question ‘Who are you?’ every Christian should ask himself. What is a true Christian today?” ponders the Primate and adds: “A Christian is the one who is baptized in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And this is the one who by his own life is preaching the good news that God is close. Christians live with God and He lives in them. This is who the Christians are,” stressed the Head of the Church.
The Primate assured that God is close to us but we, too, must be close to Him. Every day we must try in our soul and heart to be true Christians. “We are living in a not simple world now.
