Some people welcome Him others don’t do it. You are surprised by this word, venerable father. He might impose Himself in such a way that everyone might welcome Him but then how would the Roman Caesars distinguish of the contemporary tyrants?
Force and tyranny destroy the human personality.
And He did not come to destroy what is in Him and in the man the most precious thing. He did not want to subdue by the force of His will the man’s will, but by kindness to win all the people for His kingdom.
He showed Himself as a special Shepherd, who does not chase away with the stick the sheep from His pen, but goes before the sheep and calls them.
My sheep listen My voice and follow Me.
And the sheep who do not listen to His voice return or go astray on wrong paths.
Neither then wanted all the people to follow him nor do they now.
The evangelists speak about the separation:
` At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them` (Luke 4,42)
They say this in one place and in another one the opposite:
`Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them` (Luke 8,37)
There he healed a diabolized man with the price of their pigs and they felt more sorry of the pigs than of the man.
This is how it was then and this how it is now too. The men are separated through Him on a right side group and on a left side one: those who value more the man than any animals or fortune and those who value more the pigs than the people.
The first ones listen to His voice as being the voice of their shepherd and they do not let Him go away of them. The others do not listen to Him, do not follow Him and chase Him away angrily thinking that He affects their interests.
Blessed were then and blessed are now those who listen to His voice and follow Him, because they go on the path towards the eternal Kingdom.
Blessed are you too honored father and your parishioners because you listen to the voice of Christ and follow the visionary guide on the path which leads straight to the Kingdom of heaven and the eternal life.
To priest Abraham from saint Nicholas Velimirovich
(Letter 220)
