Bishop Nicholas (Berdyuhyn)

Glory to Jesus Christ, dear brothers and sister!

When you analyze this story and the Bible in the whole you can see that first of all God created the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eva lived. They had everything. They lived in the Garden of Eden and were happy, till the time the perfidious snake tempted them. Later there was the time of the Old Testament. And we remember that people sinned very much. There were a lot of heathens and the Lord through the Jewish people wanted to show how to live and be just. He taught them how to sacrifice. But at that time there was only one kind of sacrifice – to bring calves, pigeons to the temple. By this act the Lord taught people to give voluntary to God, but indeed God did not need that sacrifices. He wanted to show that people had not to live only for themselves with those sacrifices. God wanted them not to be selfish; He wanted them to be able to give back. So, when Jesus Christ came and brought people the New Testament the sacrifice turned into no blood sacrifice. There was no need to bring calves. Bread and wine had to be sacrifice. And people brought money to the church. It is the same sacrifice now. We make some sacrifices. But every time we understand more and more what actually the Lord needs from us. We understand that first of all it is our good doings in the name of God.

And in the Gospel (Luke 15: 11-32) we saw how one of the sons took some property from his father … Where did he spend that?

First of all let’s become clear with the word “property”. What does every man have? What did the Lord give to every man? It is our talents, our strength, our health. And a lot of people do not understand and waste their talents, all strength for the Earth life, for different life pleasures; they usually do not understand why they came in this world. But when the man understands that, he will seem plunged in a deep reverie. When the man feels bad, he thinks: “Why do I live? Why do I spend my strength, my energy?” Only when the person understands that, he starts to realize that the Lord cleated him and he should go to God.

And then we start to turn to God. And on this way there are different stages. One people have only turned and the others are going through it. The others already feel Father’s Love. Because when they come to the church the God’s Grace comes to them. And the Lord wants us to turn to Him that we could work for God with all our talents and strength. He wants other his children to turn to Him. They are our children, relatives and friends.

And first of all we need God’s Love to gain that. We usually have a lack of God’s Love, as it was with the second son. So we should pray to God and ask every time: “Oh Lord, give us forgiveness and love to everything, to everyone”. And when with this Love all our talents, all our knowledge will serve for the Lord, for all our brothers and sisters.

Glory to Jesus Christ!