Sermons & Homilies
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.
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We stand at a spiritual crossroad today—two martyrs with insuppressible love for Christ are both commemorated today: St. George—the glorious, faithful and pure lover of Christ who was filled with divine love from His youth; and St. Photini—the repentant Samaritan woman, who, after Christ came to her and revealed her sins and told her plainly that He was the long-awaited Messiah of the Jews and the Savior of all mankind; after this, she acknowledged her sins, cast them aside and went straightway in her zeal with haste to preach this Good News to all her kinsman and fellow-neighbors.
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We have come to the end of the Church year. Today, we commemorate the last notable feast of the whole Church year, the Beheading of the honorable and glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John. The holy Baptist came preaching: Behold the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sin of the world; prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and all the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places into plains. Whoever we are, wherever we are, at all times, places and circumstances, we always need to seek repentance...
What kind of men and women become martyrs? What is it within each of our hearts that determines our destiny and eternal fate? For what kind of open or hidden virtue does the Lord grant the supreme gift of a martyr’s crown? And which of our many sins and passions do we need to fear the most, which can so corrupt and sicken our souls that we become capable even of mocking, torturing and slaughtering God’s faithful servants?
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Today we commemorate the death of one of the greatest Saints in the Church. We in the Church do not shy away from death as the world does but see it as the entrance from life into true and everlasting life. For us still here in the world the death of the righteous reveals to us many spiritual truths to aid us on the path of salvation.
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