Notes for3 November 2024

How can a Christian witness of the Kingdom, which "is not of this world"? It is of course possible to try to say something by words, but indeed, when it is about things, which are impossible neither to see, nor to feel, words remain often only an abstraction. And doesn’t fit into the consciousness of the inhabitant of "this world", as it is possible, for example, to give his life, in order to obtain it again even in a greater fullness. In such a situation, the best proof, and thus, and the best testimony becomes the testimony of the improbable, the absurd (or, more exactly, of what seems absurd). What Paul describes, is completely impossible. It will not come in the head of normal people to live like that. We can understand again those who are ready to risk everything and even go through sufferings and persecutions for the future great victory that will lead to success, compensating all the sufferings. But to suffer, knowing that there will not be victory in this world, that the sufferings here will never be bought back, that from the point of view of "this world", they are totally and completely meaningless?

Only a madman or the one, to whom are hidden in sleeve certain trumps, which allow him to hope and give him the strength to live as he lives, can accept such a thing. Because most of the persecutions never repress any movement till the end as long as are not exhausted in this movement the internal strengths for resistance, and thus, and for the later existence (exception are only the cases of massive terror or direct genocide, and this not always). And to those who looked at the persecuted Christians, should have unwittingly creep up in the head the idea that these people have, it is impossible not to be a certain secret resource, besides a completely inexhaustible resource, which supports the existence of their movement on the background of its full meaningless from the point of view of the perspectives of "this world".

That’s where appears the possibility to witness, what is the Kingdom that "is not of this world". If a certain movement exists contrary to all the laws of the non transformed world, if according to the laws of this non transformed world it should not and cannot exist, it means that people, constituting it, have a certain another source of sense, strength and the assurance not to leave what the logic of "this world" recognizes as meaningless and hopeless. And so the thoughtful man listens to the words of the witness of the Kingdom, the power of which they live and witness.