Sunday

Matthew 25:31-46  (Parable of the last judgement with the sheep and goats on the right and left)
This passage is read on the second Sunday before Great Lent, called Meat Fare Sunday, or Sunday of the Last Judgment. Christ uses sheep to illustrate the righteous, for they follow His voice and are gentle and productive. Goats indicate the unrighteous, for they do not follow the shepherd and they walk along cliffs, which represent sin. Inherit is a term used with regard to sons and daughters rather than strangers or servants, for the righteous become children of God by adoption
 
To see Christ in everyone is the fulfillment of the great commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. That the fire was prepared for the devil shows that God did not create hell for man; rather, people choose this torment by their coldness of heart.
Monday

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God”. Or, in other words, it is insufficient to be a Jew by birth. There must be the complete moral rebirth, which is given to a person from above, from God, and one should as if be born again, become a new being (which is the essence of Christianity). For the Pharisees imagined the Messiah’s Kingdom as the physical and earthly kingdom, there is nothing surprising in the fact that Nicodemus also took the Lord’s words in a physical sense, i.e. that in order to enter the Messiah’s Kingdom, it is necessary to have the second carnal birth, so he expressed his bafflement, emphasizing the absurdity of such a demand: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus then explains that the conversation is not of the physical birth, but of the special spiritual birth, which is distinguished from that bodily both in purpose and fruits.

Tuesday

This birth is “of water and the Spirit”. Water is the means or weapon, and the Holy Spirit — the Power, which brings about the new birth and the Cause of the new existence: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God”. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” — when a person is born from the earthly parents, he inherits from them the primal sin of Adam, nesting in the flesh, he thinks according to the flesh and pleases his physical passions and lusts. These deficiencies of the physical birth can be corrected through the spiritual birth: “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. He who accepted the rebirth from the Spirit, himself enters the spiritual life that is higher than anything carnal or sensual. Seeing that Nicodemus still does not understand, the Lord begins to explain what this birth is made up of, comparing the means of this birth with the wind: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone born of the Spirit”. In other words, in the spiritual rebirth, a person has access to observe the change only that takes place within him, but the power of rebirth and the method through which it acts, as well as the paths by which it arrives — all this is mysterious and subtle. In the same manner we feel how the wind affects us: we hear its “voice”, but we do not see and know, where it comes from and where it goes, so free in its strife and in no way depending on our will. The effect of the Holy Spirit that gives us rebirth is akin to this: it is evident and sensory, yet enigmatic and unexplainable

Wednesday

However, Nicodemus continues to remain in the state of incomprehension, and his next question “How can these things be?” are expressed the mistrust to the words of Christ and the Pharisee’s pride, with the pretension to understand all and to able to explain everything. It is this Pharisee’s sophistry that the Lord destroys with His response, and with such power, that Nicodemus is unable to object — and in his state of self-humiliation, little by little begins to prepare in his heart the grounds on which the Lord will later sow His seeds of the redemptive teaching: “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?” By these words the Lord not only accuses Nicodemus but also the high-minded Pharisee teachers, who, taking the key of understanding the mysteries of God’s Kingdom, neither entered it themselves nor allowed the others to do so. How was it that the Pharisees did not know the doctrine on the necessity of the spiritual rebirth, when in the Old Testament one often encountered the thoughts on the necessity of the spiritual regeneration, about God’s gift of a heart of flesh and not one of stone (Ezekiel 36:26). Even King David prayed: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10-11).

Thursday

Passing to the revelations of the higher mysteries of Himself and of His Kingdom, the Lord remarks to Nicodemus in the form of a prologue that in opposition to the teachings of the Pharisees, He Himself and His disciples are proclaiming the new teaching, which is based directly on the knowledge and the contemplation of truth: “We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive our witness,” — that is, you, the Pharisees — are the false teachers of Israel.

In the further words: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you Heavenly things?” under “earthly” the Lord is thinking of the teaching on the necessity of rebirth, as the need of rebirth and its consequences happen within a person and are known through his inner experience. While speaking about the “Heavenly” the Lord means the sublime mysteries of God, which are higher than any human observation or knowledge: About the eternal unity of Triad-God, about accepting by the Son of God of the redeeming exploit for people’s salvation, about conjoining in this exploit of the Divine love with the Divine justice. Perhaps, about what happens within the person and with the person may be known by the person himself. But what a human can ascend to heaven and penetrate into the mysterious domain of the Divine life? Nobody, except the Son of God, Who in descending to earth did not abandon heaven.

Friday

Afterwards the Lord reveals the mystery of His redeeming exploit to Nicodemus: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up”. Why is it that the Son of Man had to be raised on the cross for the human salvation? This is exactly what is that heavenly, which is impossible to comprehend with the earthly mind. As to the symbol of His exploit on the cross, the Lord points to the brass snake that Moses raised in the wilderness. Moses raised the brass snake in front of the Israelites, so that they, struck by snakes, would receive a cure by looking at it. Likewise, the whole human race, living in flesh and struck by the ulcer of sin, receives its cure by looking with faith at Christ, Who had come down in the form of sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3). In the basis of the Son of God’s exploit of crucifixion lies God’s love for people: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”. The everlasting life is established in a person by the grace of the Holy Spirit, while the access to the altar of grace (Heb. 4:16), is received by people through the redeeming death of Jesus Christ.

The Pharisees thought that Christ’s pursuit would consist of judging the people of other faiths. The Lord explains that He was currently sent to save the world, and not to judge. The unbelievers will condemn themselves, because together with their disbelief will be revealed their love for darkness and hatred for light, forthcoming from their love for dark deeds. Those who render truth, the honest and moral souls, walk towards the light themselves, not fearing the exposure of their deeds.

Saturday

Saint John informs us that “Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His Disciples” (4:2). This baptism was identical to that performed by John the Baptist: it was with water and not with the Spirit, because at that time they did not have the Holy Spirit as “Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 4:39). It was only after the Lord’s resurrection from the dead that they received His directive to baptize in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19).

At the same time, Saint John the Baptist continued to baptize “in Aenon near Salim” in the area which is difficult to determine, however, it appears it was not adjacent to Jordan, otherwise the Evangelist would have no need to add an explanatory note: “there was much water there”. Saint John the Baptist’s disciples soon began to notice that there were fewer people coming to listen to their teacher than before, and in their blind, illogical affection to him, began to be vexed and envy the One, Who had great success among the people, i.e. Lord Jesus Christ. Undoubtedly, these malicious feelings within them were purposely fomented by the Pharisees, contriving arguments about cleansing, which lead to the debates about the comparative worthiness of the baptism performed by John and Christ’s Disciples.