“This is My beloved Son… Hear Him!” (Matthew 3:17; 17:5).

Such was the voice of the Pre-eternal God the Father to mankind concerning the Pre-eternal God the Son, when the Son, by the will of the Father and the working of the Spirit, was made man of the Virgin and accomplished the salvation of fallen humanity. Brethren! Let us render obedience to the Son of God, as God desires of us, that the divine good pleasure may rest upon us.

Perhaps someone will say: “I too would desire to hear the Son of God, but how may I attain this, when nearly two thousand years have passed since our Lord Jesus Christ dwelt upon the earth in the flesh and preached His all-holy teaching?”

To attain that we may be constantly with Christ, unceasingly to hear His most sweet voice and to be nourished by His life-giving teaching, is most possible and near at hand: the Lord Jesus Christ even now abideth with us. He abideth with us in His holy Gospel; He abideth with us through the holy mysteries of the Church; He abideth with us by His omnipresence and almighty power; He abideth abundantly, as befits the boundless and all-perfect God.

The Lord clearly proves His abiding with us by delivering souls from the bondage of sin, by the distribution of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and by many signs and miracles.

Those who desire to draw near to the Lord and to be joined unto Him in blessed union for ever must begin this holy work with the most careful study of the word of God; they must begin with the study of the Gospel, in which Christ is hidden, from which Christ speaketh and acteth. The words of the Gospel are “spirit and life” (cf. John 6:63).

They transform the carnal man into a spiritual man, and they quicken the soul that has been slain by sin and by the vanity of worldly life.

They are “spirit and life”: beware of explaining the great word of the Spirit by thine own reasoning that creepeth upon the earth; beware of interpreting the word, filled with dread divine power, in such a manner as it may readily appear to thy dead soul, thy dead heart, and thy dead mind. The word spoken by the Holy Spirit is interpreted only by the Holy Spirit.

Those who desire to approach the Lord, that they may hear His divine teaching, be quickened by it, and be saved — draw near, stand before the Lord with the greatest reverence and most holy fear, as His bright angels, His cherubim and seraphim stand before Him. By your humility make the earth upon which you stand to be heaven.

And the Lord will speak to you from His holy Gospel as to His beloved disciples! And the holy Fathers, who have interpreted the holy Gospel by the gift of the Holy Spirit, let them be for you guides to the exact and unerring understanding of the holy Gospel.

It is grievous and perilous to approach the Gospel — to approach the Lord Jesus Christ Who liveth in the Gospel — without due reverence, with boldness and self-reliance. The Lord receiveth only the humble, filled with the awareness of their sinfulness and nothingness, filled with repentance; but from the proud He turneth away. The turning away of the Lord’s countenance from the insolent tempter — thus do I name the irreverent, careless, and cold hearer — striketh the tempter with eternal death.

Thus did the God-inspired elder Simeon proclaim of the Incarnate God — the Word:
“Behold, this Child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against” (Luke 2:34).
The word of God is a “stone”, a stone of immeasurable greatness and weight — and “whoever falls on this stone will be broken” with a breaking that is beyond healing (Matthew 21:44).

Brethren, let us be reverent and active hearers of the word of God! Let us obey our heavenly Father, Who today crieth unto us from the holy Gospel concerning His all-holy Word: “This is My beloved Son… Hear Him!” (Matthew 17:5).
Let us hear Him! Let us hear Him! — and the good pleasure of the heavenly Father shall rest upon us unto the ages of ages.