Sermons & Homilies

Lent is a small classroom of Orthodoxy within a larger university of Orthodoxy. It is the recalling to Paradise of those who fell away; it is the pronouncement of the resurrection of those dead in sin to life in Christ; it reveals the truth to those deceived by the devil; and it announces sight to the blind, guidance to the lost, a haven for the storm-tossed, and life in a world which kills.

“Sin itself leads us unto God,” says St. John of Karpathos, the great consoler of monks and all those who despair, but he quickly adds, “if we repent.” This is a bold saying, but everyone who has fed themselves on the swine-food of filthy passions, arrogant sins and wretched thoughts, knows this to be true. But only when they feel suffocated and starved, betrayed and deceived by the false shimmering beauty and quickly-passing pleasure of sin, and from such a wretched state cast their eyes to heaven and call upon God in utter humility, confessing their sinful apostasy from Him, their blatant and ungrateful rejection of His infinite gifts and their demonic delusion which sought to live and enjoy itself apart from Life Himself.

Today’s feast is a call to repentance. As many of us know, with the coming of Zacchaeus Sunday Great Lent is right around the corner. There are many of us who are tempted to think that Great Lent is the Great Season of Repentance. We hear about Zacchaeus Sunday and think to ourselves, “It’s almost time for Great Lent; I’ll just postpone this whole repentance thing for a little while longer.” This, however, is not what we see represented in today’s feast. When Zacchaeus is confronted with Christ he immediately sets out on the path of repentance. There was no season that he waited for; he acted here, now, and today. The expediency of the need to repent is a resounding testament for us because of the other great feast that we celebrate today, that of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.