Archbishop Alexander (Nehodenko)

Glory to Jesus Christ, dear brothers and sister!

I want to tell you that I heard a lot of dictums. They are same we have heard in the Gospel (Мark, VIII:34-IX:1) today: “For whoever would save his life[d] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.” And every time I hear this I think about a little seed. It ruins. When it is planted into the ground it starts to ruin. But a little sprout comes out of that seed and it is very little in comparison with that seed. It grows and gives the life to a new, big and beautiful plant.

The Lord acts in the same way. If we take care only about appearance and do not think about our inner world, we will lose both.

You see that the seed just lies there and putrefies with time. And the person with its miserable soul can putrefies in the same way. And the Lord does not want that. He said: “take care about that little seed that you have, it will give you so huge power that you can’t even dream about.” The Lord told in His Gospel about the mechanism of salvation. He said: “Take up you cross.” And other asks: “I took it up, what is next?” In the other Gospel He said: “Fill up this power with Love.” You have cross and Love. These are two wings of the bird, which give the ability to fly in the Universe. It gives the ability to a person to overcome everything. He has the mechanism of salvation and the strength, which helps. Don’t forget about that. Because the energies that are near us are fighting against God all the time; they want to take a part of this good energy from us, to destroy the protection of a man and to fall us into despair.

And the Lord appeal to His children all the time, because He took His huge cross consciously, came on this Earth and was crucified on this cross. In what purpose? Because He brought the knowledge and gave them to people. The knowledge how to live, to work and to win.

And these are not just words. When a man understands these words with heart, he starts to realize how much the Lord suffered, because He was a Human. He was a living Human. Through He was God, He suffered like a man. He was crucified like a living man.

And we have read and will read in the future how difficult was to carry that cross for Jesus, who was a man. But the Lord was with Him, His Power, which helped Him.

And I believe that we will not lose our chance. Nobody crucifies us. We are crucified by our sins. Some people have more sins, some other have less. But we are also on the cross. Maybe ours are little. Because the Lord said: “Everyone has its own cross.” Someone has big one, someone has little, but it is not easy for every person. Today Ukraine is crucified on the cross. And we have to help it. First of all it must be a prayer and a desire to create good inside ourselves. If here are a lot of spiritual people, Ukraine will change, like in the fairy-tale. Everything will change because the world will be different. And it depends on us, on Ukrainians, on everyone, who is in this hall, the future of our country.

That is why, my dear, let’s take that cross that Our Lord gave, when we came on this Earth. Now we know what kind of cross every person in this hall has. I am sure that almost all present people know their own cross. And let’s carry this cross. It is not so heavy, when we are with God, with Truth, because a huge post of Light stands behind our back. It helps every soul to do these steps.

We remember the way of Jesus. We can imagine, how much suffered Jesus-Human, when He was pressed by this cross. But the faith lived in Him, God lived in Him. And despite the difficulties He continued to go ahead. He realized what was waiting for Him ahead. But He tried not to fall down because He felt that the Lord was with Him. Do not lose this faith. Take the Gospel as a source, because you can find the rules of life only in it. All other rules, which are brought by people, are not true, because these are the words of men. And we constantly have to check our life, our actions and the actions of neighbors with the Great Book. That Book which was brought by the Lord on the Earth and gave His life for us. He did it not for worlds’ reign or his own arrogance. He did it for us that we could be happy.

And we will be happy only when we enter the Light of Living God. The Lord lives on the Heavens, on the Earth, in the soul of every person. And this happiness is because of this, a person wants to sing. But don’t forget about the things, which a man has to do on the Earth – to overcome a sin with that cross, which is in his heart.

Glory to Jesus Christ!