In today's Gospel reading, the Lord Jesus Christ addresses God the Father with words whose meaning is not immediately clear. Archpriest Konstantin Kamyshanov - about what Christ's prayer means so that everyone is "one, like We."
There are human languages. There are angelic languages. And there is a language in which the Persons of the Trinity communicate with each other.
Priest Konstantin Kamyshanov
The Apostle Paul wrote about the languages of the angels: "If I speak with the tongues of angels, but I have no love …" From the words of the apostle, we learn that the language of spiritual beings not only exists, but is somehow accessible to man.
We also learn from the Gospel that not only the language of God is accessible to man, but also the meaning of the conversation within the Trinity. There are many passages in it in which the Son of God addresses the Father and the Father answers to the Son.
The Apostle Paul also wrote that a spiritual person can judge everything, but no one can judge him. This happens because in order to understand the spiritual area, you need to have experience of life in God. And life in God is very rare for us.
The average Christian today hardly lives in God. The average Christian lives his own life, occasionally remembering God during the day. And most of what Christ said is inaccessible to us, therefore we spend most of our lives outside of God.
Promotional video:
There are places in the Gospel that are more or less clear to us. For example, there was a sick person. He asked God for health and God gave it to him.
I just asked for everything. Dal took it. Everything is humanly visual and accessible. Where there is no give-take, it is much more difficult. And where the subject of the conversation lies in the plane alien to our worldly interests, nothing is clear at all.
Such places, for example, are the readings on Easter, opened by the words of the Apostle John that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was - God.
Even more difficult is the understanding of the passage of the Gospel, in which Christ, talking with God the Father, talks about the Glory of God:
After these words, Jesus lifted up His eyes to heaven and said:
Father! the hour has come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son will glorify Thee, for Thou hast given Him authority over all flesh, and that He will give eternal life to everything that Thou hast given Him.
What do the words “Glorify God” mean: the Son will glorify the Father, and the Father will glorify the Son?
Or Christ's speech about us:
I pray for them: I do not pray for the whole world, but for those whom You have given Me, because they are Yours.
And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified in them.
What does our human glorification of God mean?
Does God really need our glory? Is He jealous that we will suddenly not give him honor? Is this exchange of glory the meaning of Christ's mission?
The misunderstanding comes from terminology. Because there is earthly glory and the glory of God. There is an earthly life and a life in God. Life is life, but it is so different that people living according to the flesh do not understand anything, not only in heavenly life, but even the same words mean different things with us.
Earthly glory is the acceptance of honor.
Earthly glory is the glory of, for example, a movie actor or a special forces soldier.
Earthly glory is even the reward of the sponsor who built the temple. The bishop gives him a medal and a certificate, the choir sings to him “many years,” he is seated at a table by the bishops and fed from their own hands. And even this is earthly glory.
By and large, earthly glory is indulging in the vice of ambition and vanity. It has the desire of selfishness to fill the space.
God's glory is different.
This is the manifestation of Divine properties in the created world.
This is our reflection of divine greatness and omnipotence.
This is the moment of our perception of divine grace.
This is not about honoring God, but about the perception of His greatness and goodness, combined with our gratitude.
The colloquial "Glory to God" means - the form of our response and thanksgiving.
By and large, "the glory of God" is the filling of space with God.
And so Christ does not say that we are with God, and the Son and Father should praise each other, but that we should strive for mutual knowledge and life in each other.
If we judge by human logic, then the Gospel words of Christ do not fall on a single thread of reasoning and taken together are meaningless.
Here is their outline: Come on, Father, let us glorify each other, because You gave me all power over the flesh, but I will give her eternal life.
No causal relationship. And then - more:
This eternal life is that people will know You.
Well, we know about God, so what? And everyone knows about God, and even the devils. Is eternal life given to all who know God? No.
And even more:
I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father! keep them in Thy name, those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are.
But now I am coming to You, and this I say in the world, so that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.
“We were one as we” - how can people be one like God? Why should people who remain in the world rejoice that Christ is leaving them?
The beginning is not connected in any way with the end. We started with glory and ended with joy.
Joy is, of course, good, but how to tie everything together is not clear. Some words are clear, but in general nothing is connected.
And why did a person have to witness this internal dialogue between the persons of the Trinity? It is also incomprehensible because worldly life and worldly vocabulary are inappropriate and inapplicable to Heaven.
Let's go back to the glory of God.
The glory of God does not need a person. Whether a person is or not, God remains the same source of this glory.
In the same way, regardless of whether there is a person in the universe or not, the universe exists as a thing in itself.
But when a person appears, it seems to be cut along the plane of perception of our abilities and … a blue sky appears, which does not exist without human eyes.
A person appears - and he becomes able to perceive the outpouring of the divine essence through the comprehension of God with his mind, spirit and life. Thus, a person becomes a partaker of life in God. Through the glory of God.
Then everything is clear:
Father! the hour has come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son will glorify Thee, for Thou hast given Him authority over all flesh, and that He will give eternal life to everything that Thou hast given Him.
Translated into human language, these words mean the following:
Father, I came into the world and took on earthly flesh. And you gave Me power over her. And now let us accomplish our plans - let us inform this flesh, which has submitted to Me - Your grace. For then it will become perfect, as it was intended by Us.
I have glorified You on earth, I have completed the work that You have commissioned Me to do.
In this connection with us, the transformed flesh receives real life. Because real life is life in God.
This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ sent by You.
Until now, people thought that the world of God and the world of people are two alien and non-connecting worlds. But I revealed to them that they may not be strangers, but relatives to us:
And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified in them.
This is the key phrase.
The Old Testament mankind both knew God and glorified Him. So God had no problem with earthly glory. But the Old Testament did not know that it is possible to praise God through the acceptance of the outpouring of grace by man, that is, the acceptance of a part of God into himself.
Christ's words about the involvement of man in the glory of God are a true revelation, hitherto unheard of on earth:
And the glory that You gave Me, I gave them: that they may be one as We are one.
Therefore, the dialogue between the Son and the Father had to be open to people. And the meaning of the openness of the conversation is that the Lord explains to man that through the acceptance of the glory of God - through the acceptance of grace, a person unites with God according to the Trinity scheme and thereby inherits eternal life with God and even joy - a sign of being in God on earth.
The inner contemplation of the glory of God leads a person to become like his Creator, to gain the Kingdom of God in his soul, to spiritual transformation, for “looking at the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Spirit of the Lord (Apostle Paul).
In fact, these words are another form of presenting the idea that the Kingdom of God is within us, and are revealed in more detail in the Sacrament Canon:
May I be sanctified in soul and body, Master, may I be enlightened, may I be saved, may I be Your house by the communion of the sacred Mysteries, You dwelling with the Father and the Spirit, the Benefactor Many-Merciful.
I specifically did not want to place today's Gospel reading at the beginning of the text, because it would have remained difficult to understand. But now re-reading it again will be another matter.
Help us, Lord, to know Thy glory and enter into it, filled with joy and partaking of real eternal life.
Amen.
After these words Jesus lifted up His eyes to heaven and said: Father! the hour has come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son will glorify Thee, for Thou hast given Him authority over all flesh, and that He will give eternal life to everything that Thou hast given Him.
This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ sent by You.
I have glorified You on earth, I have completed the work that You have commissioned Me to do.
And now, O Father, glorify Me with You with the glory that I had with You before the world was.
I have revealed Thy name to the people whom Thou hast given Me from the world; they were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
Now they have understood that everything that You have given Me is from You, 8for the words that You have given Me, I have given them, and they have received, and truly understood that I came from You, and believed that You sent Me.
I pray for them: I do not pray for the whole world, but for those whom You have given Me, because they are Yours.
And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified in them.
I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father! keep them in Thy name, those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are.
When I was in peace with them, I kept them in your name; those whom You gave Me, I have kept, and none of them perished, except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
But now I am coming to You, and this I say in the world, so that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.