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A Man Up a Tree (Luke 19:1-10).

The Gospel lesson today describes an encounter in the life of Zacchaeus that changed the whole direction of his life. It was the day he met Jesus of Nazareth face to face. The whole Gospel is contained in that encounter, for it made Zacchaeus a new and redeemed man. Tradition tells us that he later became Bishop of Caesarea.

One day Jesus was passing through Jericho. Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd and the shortness of his stature. Anyone else would have given up then and there, but not Zacchaeus. So eager was he to see Jesus that he climbed a tree to get to see Him.

It was no doubt a strong desire to see Jesus that made him climb the tree — a sycamore. When we really want to find God as much as Zacchaeus did, no obstacle will stop us. We will find Him. A seeker once asked a Christian, "How can I find God?" The Christian replied, "Let me show you." He took him down to the sea and immersed his head in the water three times. Then he asked him, "What did you desire more than anything else when your head was under water?" "Air," replied the seeker. "When you desire God as much as you desired air, you will find him," said the Christian.

It was much more than curiosity that made Zacchaeus climb the tree. It was a strong desire to find God in Jesus. Zacchaeus was restless, fed up with himself, fed up with the kind of life he was living. Restlessness has always been one of the symptoms of man's search for God as Augustine knew when he prayed, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee."

The crowd was an obstacle to Zacchaeus; it stood between him and Jesus. As long as he stood with the crowd, he would not be able to see Jesus. So he left the crowd; he climbed above it. The last thing many of us want is to be "different." But if we are to see Jesus and stand with him, we shall be called upon many times to leave the crowd, to buck the strong current of the Gallup Poll in favor of the unchanging laws of God. To be a Christian means that one is not crowd-controlled but Christ-controlled.

Zacchaeus was "up a tree" in more ways than one. He was a dishonest tax collector, looked down upon by his people as a collaborator and traitor, collecting taxes for the hated Romans. He had lost his self-respect. He had cut himself off from God and man. He was alone, fearfully alone, a "man up a tree."

In this respect Zacchaeus is like many of us who have ever been up the tree of our own moral failure, hating ourselves for it, longing to be different but lacking the courage to come down. God sent Jesus into the world to invite us to come down. This is the great wonder of God's love that Zacchaeus experienced when he discovered that God was seeking him!

"And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up ..." Zacchaeus must have thought that he would never be noticed up the tree. But as Jesus walked by, He stopped right beneath him. He looked up right into the tree, right at Zacchaeus and the eyes of the two men met. Zacchaeus couldn't believe it. Great beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. He expected Jesus to condemn him: "You child of the devil! You who grind the face of the poor and turn orphans and widows out on the streets, how shall you escape the damnation of hell?" This is what Zacchaeus expected to hear. Instead he heard Jesus call him by name and say, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today." How kindly Jesus dealt with Zacchaeus. "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."

When King George of England inspected reconstruction work in one of Britain's heavily bombed cities, thousands of people, including classes of school children, lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the monarch. After the procession had ended, a small boy was weeping bitterly. "What in the world is the matter?" his teacher asked. "Didn't you see the king?" "Oh," the lad sobbed, "I saw the king, but he did not see me."

What a comfort to know that it is not only we who see our great King but even more so, He who sees us and responds to our needs.

Jesus not only saw Zacchaeus; He addressed him by name! This great King Who holds the whole universe in the palm of His hand cares enough and has time to speak to one individual. What does this mean but that the Master knows each one of us personally and by name. He knows the restlessness and the great desire for God in Zacchaeus' heart. He knows the need in each soul and He cares. He draws near to Zacchaeus as He drew near to the woman of Samaria and poured out to her some of the most wonderful teachings of the Gospels. Wherever there is a need and a desire for God, Jesus will draw near. For He is above all a seeking God.

The great Jewish scholar, Claude Montefiore, set out to find the feature of Jesus' teaching that most clearly distinguished it from the teachings of the Jewish religion. He found it in the teaching of Jesus that God is like the Good Shepherd who takes the initiative and goes out to seek the lost sheep. Other religions picture man in search of God; Christianity proclaims a God who seeks man. Jews, he said, always believed that God was a God of love and forgiveness and that, if the sinner repented, God would freely forgive him. But Jesus taught that God would not wait for the sinner to repent; He would go out and seek him to call him back.

"Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today." Mark these words, "I must stay at your house." Jesus had promised, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me." Now He fulfills this promise. He has dinner with Zacchaeus! Not with the chief rabbi or priest, not with the mayor of the town or some other respectable person, but with a much maligned outcast, a sinner.

Jesus went to Zacchaeus' house. But it has to be a certain kind of house that can receive Jesus as a guest. Some things will not live in His presence, and one has to choose between Him and them. And Zacchaeus chose: "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold." Jesus must have smiled as He said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house." That same love of Jesus that walked into the house of Zacchaeus to seek and to save that which was lost exists today and says to each one of us as it said to Zacchaeus, "I must stay at your house today."

When the people of Jericho heard Jesus invite Himself to Zacchaeus' for dinner, "They all murmured, 'He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner/ " The first thing that turned the religious leaders against Jesus and shocked them more than anything else was His attitude toward sinners, His way of mixing with people who were openly disreputable and sinful. A Pharisee would never dream of entering the house of such a person, let alone sitting at meal with him. Jesus did. He was more interested in these people than in anyone else. They criticized Him saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." They even ridiculed Him by calling Him "a friend of publicans and sinners." These words, spoken originally in ridicule, are some of the most comforting words for sinners today. For they tell us that in Jesus we sinners have a real Friend Who will never let us down.

"I did not come to invite the righteous but sinners to repentance," said Jesus. Who is righteous? Not one. But there are people who think they are righteous. Every day we should pray that the Lord may deliver us from the so-called "righteous" people, the modern Pharisees, who look down upon the Zacchaeuses of today, refusing to associate with them and thus alienating them from the Church. So Jesus says today as He said then: "I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." In other words, "I did not come to invite people who are so self-satisfied and convinced of their goodness that they consider themselves better than others. I came to invite people who are very conscious of their sin and desperately aware of their need for a Savior." Zacchaeus was such a sinner. That is why Jesus invited Himself to his house. He knew he needed Jesus and was ready to accept the invitation.

Like Zacchaeus, we today will never see Jesus if we remain on the level we are. There are too many persons and things standing in our way. We must climb higher. Fortunately there are trees we too can climb to help us see Jesus.

There is the tree of prayer. Prayer is speaking with Jesus just as really and truly as Zacchaeus did. If we are to see Jesus, to make His presence a reality in our lives, we must climb the tree of prayer daily.

Another way we can see Jesus is through the Bible and the liturgy. God speaks to us today through the Bible which is His personal letter to us. Through the liturgy, He comes to make His home in us through Holy Communion.

Another tree we must climb in order to see Jesus today is the tree of repentance and restitution. "Blessed are the pure in heart," said Jesus, "for they shall see God." The heart must be cleansed of sin; it must be made pure by a sincere sorrow for our sins and by a determined turning away from them before we can see God. Zacchaeus climbed this tree of repentance. And after he was forgiven by Jesus he made restitution: "Behold, Lord ... if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold." After repentance comes restitution — an honest attempt to undo the damage we have done with our sins. Repentance without restitution is like saying, "I stole a watch but I've been forgiven by God so now I can keep it."

The last way we can take to see Jesus is the way of service. Zacchaeus climbed this tree of service. "Behold, Lord … the half of my goods I give to the poor ..." After he restored fourfold what was not his, he gave half of what he owned to help the poor. We remember the words of our Lord, "I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink … what you did to one of the least of these my brethren you did to me." On the branches of the tree of service we will always meet and serve Christ in the persons of those to whom we minister.

We do not need to climb a sycamore tree to see Jesus today. There are other trees we can climb: the trees of prayer, the Bible, the liturgy, repentance, restitution, and service. From these trees not only shall we see Jesus but He will also see us as He saw Zacchaeus. And He will say to us as He said to him: "Make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house" — in your heart, in your mind, in your soul.

Come, Lord Jesus, as You came to Zacchaeus. We too seek You, for we are restless for the peace, the wholeness, the salvation which only You can bring. We hear your knock on the door of our souls. We open to invite You to come in. Fill us with your loving Presence. May we too hear from your lips those precious words, "Today salvation has come to this house."

Two Men Went Up to Pray (Luke 18:10-14).

Two men went up into the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, highly respected, a man of rank, a very devout and religious person; the other a tax collector, an outcast, nobody's friend, nobody's hero, a traitor and robber. Jesus dares to compare these two people. It is as if He is comparing a saint and a gangster. The comparison becomes very revealing as we overhear their prayers.

These two men went into the temple to pray. Having separated themselves from the busy world, they are deep in their devotions. We will watch them as they pray without their suspecting that they are being watched. For we have much to learn from them.

"The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself… " He "stood" when he prayed which was the normal Jewish position for prayer, but if we read between the lines we can see that the Pharisee had no objection to being seen. He was praying for the sake of effect, publicity, admiration. He was thinking about himself and the impression he would make on others. He even "prayed with himself." In other words, he talked to himself instead of God. True prayer is always offered to God and to God alone. Not so with the Pharisee. His prayer was self-congratulatory. As someone noted,

The Pharisee's prayer begins well: "God, I thank thee ..." But he spoils it; he uses even thankfulness to God to exalt himself. He thanks God that he is not like other men. "I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get!" he said. "Man, look at me — how good I am!" Don't we see this same attitude in others today and especially in ourselves? The self-righteous, holier-than-thou attitude that says to God, "I thank You God that I don't steal from my business associates. I thank You that I am white and not black or brown. I thank You that I am honest and clean, unlike those other people who act as if they are animals. I thank You that I live in America and not Bangladesh! I thank You that I live in a quiet respectable neighborhood and not in a filthy, crime-ridden ghetto. I thank You that I am not like other men are, especially not like that neighbor of mine who goes out and plays golf on Sunday mornings instead of going to Church!"

"God, Be Merciful..."

Let us now look at the tax collector. Standing alone, he did not dare to lift up his eyes to heaven; he was too full of shame. Instead, he looked down to the ground, and, beating his breast penitently, he prayed. He may have been a kind father and a good friend, but it does not occur to him to mention all that. He sees himself in God's sight only as God sees him. He prays, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner." The Greek text says not a sinner but the sinner. He regarded himself as the sinner par excellence. As the Pharisee had singled himself out as the only holy one in the world, so the tax collector singles himself out as the greatest of sinners. In the end this man who knew his own sin got nearer to God than the Pharisee who could see nothing but his own virtue.

"God, be merciful to me, the sinner." He has nothing to trust but the mercy of God. He looks nowhere but to God's mercy for help. He knows that people as personified by the Pharisee are unmerciful to him, but he believes God to be merciful. His only plea is, "God, be merciful!" Without this prayer Christianity would be a philosophy, a history, a code but not a religion that saves.

"God, be merciful to me, the sinner." We are always dependent on God's mercy. We can never approach Him with any claim but that of mercy. This is the one claim God will never reject. See how much this claim is built into the worship services of the Orthodox Church! How often during the liturgy we repeat the prayer of the tax collector: "Lord, have mercy!" The famous "Jesus

Prayer" is nothing more than an adaptation of this prayer, "Lord Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, the sinner."

A precious story pictures a mother pleading with Napoleon to spare her condemned son's life. The emperor reminded her that the crime was dreadful; justice demanded his life. "Sir," sobbed the mother, "not justice, but mercy." "He does not deserve mercy," was the answer. "But, sir, if he deserved it, it would not be mercy." "Ah yes, how true," said Napoleon. "I will have mercy."

We dare not stand before the throne of God and ask that we be given what we deserve. Our only plea is, "Lord, have mercy" (Kyrie Eleison). And the miracle is that there is mercy. At the very heart of the universe beats God's love. "I tell you," said Jesus, "this man went down to his house justified rather than the other."

A sinner said once, "If I were God I would never forgive a man who sinned as much as I did." His pastor replied, "But you are not God. God's mercy is bigger than anything we can imagine."

"Lord, have mercy!"

C. S. Lewis tells an interesting story in his book "The Great Divorce." A busload of ghosts is making an excursion from hell up to heaven with a view of remaining there permanently. They meet the citizens of heaven and one very big ghost from hell is astonished to find there a man, who on earth, had been tried and executed for murder.

"What I would like to know," he explodes, "is what are you doing here, you a murderer, while I a pillar of society, a self-respecting decent citizen am forced to walk the streets down there in smoke and fumes and must live in a place like a pigsty." His friend from heaven tries to explain that he has been forgiven, that both he and the man he had murdered have been reunited before the judgment seat of Christ. But the big ghost from hell replies, "I just can't buy that!" "My rights!" he keeps shouting, "I have got to have my rights the same as you!" "Oh no!" his friend from heaven keeps reassuring him, "It's not as bad as all that! You don't want your rights! Why, if I had gotten my rights, I would never be here. You'll not get your rights, you'll get something far better. You will get the mercy of God."

This is why we pray so often, "Lord, have mercy." This prayer, uttered with the least particle of faith, will open the way for God's forgiveness and for the coming of His kingdom in our hearts. St. Isaac the Syrian wrote in the sixth century, "Never say that God is just. If He were, you would be in hell. Rely only on His injustice which is mercy, love, forgiveness."

Today is called on our church calendar the "Sunday of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee." Last night we began using for the first time the Triodion — the liturgical book that we shall be using during the entire Lenten season which begins in three weeks. The Church has very wisely selected this parable to help prepare us spiritually for Lent. For our Lord's story today is not really about two men who went up into the temple to pray. It is about God, and how He looks at sin and righteousness — how He looks at us, you and me. "I tell you, this man went down to the house justified rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."

"God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Amen."

Three Magic Words: "I Was Wrong" (Luke 15:11-32).

A major league umpire was asked if he ever made mistakes in calling balls and strikes. He replied, "Of course, I make mistakes. My only trouble is I can't admit it." Our hope in life as Christians is the humility to admit to ourselves and to God that, not being infallible or perfect, we have made mistakes — and do make them every day.

If you were asked what is the hardest task in the world, you might think of some muscular feat, some acrobatic challenge or some act of bravery on the battlefield. Actually, however, there is nothing harder, nothing more arduous than to say these three words, "I was wrong." It takes a humility and a self-effacement such as few people are capable of. Yet no three words are more needed in our life than the words, "I was wrong." They are magic words; words that reconcile; words that unite; words that heal wounds and bring peace.

Many years ago there was a man who was not afraid to say, "I was wrong." His name was Judge Samuel Sewall. He was on the Governor's Special Commission in Massachusetts which tried the famous Salem witchcraft cases. He was one of the judges who passed the verdict of "guilty" on the so-called witches. But later Sewall became convinced that his judgment had been wrong.

And so, on a cold January day in 1697, as the Rev. Samuel Willard walked down to the pulpit, Judge Sewall handed him a document requesting that it be read before all the people. On that paper Judge Sewall had written that he was wrong in his verdict of five years before. He did not blame anyone but himself. He asked forgiveness from men and from God.

In no other hour had this New England jurist been as brave or good a man as when he stood before the congregation in church while the pastor read his confession: "I was wrong."

One day a man was passing a truck. Suddenly he had to cut in sharply right in front of the truck to avoid a car coming from a side road. A few minutes later the truck roared around this man's car and cut in front of him sharply the same way.

Soon the car and truck were standing side by side waiting for a red light. The man who cut in front of the truck rolled down his window. The truck driver leaned forward, grim-faced, waiting for an argument.

"I'm sorry that I cut you so short back there," the man said pleasantly.

For a moment the truck driver was speechless. Then he smiled. "Forget it. I was the one who acted like a heel," he said.

Think how differently this incident could have turned out; think of the curses and shouts and bad feelings that could have been generated if the first driver had not uttered those magic words: "I am sorry. I was wrong."

How healing these words can be in marriage and in family life. A couple, for example, may have had a painful misunderstanding, but if the guilty partner is willing to come right out and say, "I'm sorry. It was my fault," there is nothing more about which to argue. Hurt feelings are mended. There is reconciliation, harmony, peace.

Many parents feel that to maintain their children's respect they should never admit a mistake. For this reason they seem to be saying constantly to their children, "We're perfect. We don't make mistakes like you."

This is one of the factors that increases the generation gap. Children need to learn that parents are not perfect. They too make mistakes. It will not hurt for parents to share some of their failures with their children. It will certainly make them seem more human. It will help their children learn how to cope with their own failures. It will help them be much more honest with parents if they feel that parents are completely honest with them. Nobody wants to take his problems to someone who has never made a mistake. How different parent-child relationships would be if adults learned to say, "I'm sorry. I have also been wrong."

One seventh-grader says, "Some moms and dads never will admit they're wrong. One thing I like about my folks is that they will apologize sometimes. This helps a lot because you listen more to people like that."

There are friends and relatives who have not spoken to each other for years. How different things could be if only one of them would take the initiative to practice a little Christian humility and say, "I am sorry about the whole situation. I know I was wrong."

A retired clergyman who has counseled thousands of people writes, "Into my study come many people — educators, scientists, rich people, poor people — girls burdened with sin, boys who know they have done wrong, married men and women who are ashamed of themselves. They tell of the misery in their homes and of the unhappy burdens they carry in their hearts. Almost always I am compelled to say to them, "Why don't you go home and say you are sorry? Why don't you go home and ask for forgiveness?"

The first law of mental health is to be honest with yourself. If you have done wrong, don't hide it. Don't bury your guilt feelings in your subconscious mind where they will fester and come out as hypertension, neurasthenia or neurosis. Face the facts about yourself. Admit them. Confess them.

The Prodigal Son in today's Gospel lesson was honest with himself with a frank and merciless honesty. It was when he admitted the wrong in himself and said, "I have sinned," that he came to his true self. A new chapter of his life began that very day. A new chapter can begin for us if, bidding good-by to self-excuse, self-pity, self-defense, we will face the facts about ourselves and say, "Yes, that's the kind of person I am; that is the sort of thing I am capable of doing and have done, but, by the grace of God, I can be different, and I will be different."

If it is therapeutic to admit our faults to others and say, "I'm sorry. I was wrong," it is even more so to admit them to ourselves and to God. It is not enough to say just to oneself, "I have sinned." This can lead to despair and suicide. When Judas, for example, saw that Jesus was condemned, he brought the money to the chief priests and elders and said, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood." Then, throwing the pieces of silver in the temple, he went and hanged himself. Judas was remorseful enough to admit his sin to himself and to the chief priests, but he just could not bring himself to face Jesus and say, "I'm sorry. Forgive me."

Jesus, who forgave the penitent thief on the cross, would have forgiven Judas, too, if he had gone to the cross and confessed. If only he could have realized that the reward for apology and confession far outweighs the momentary humiliation and embarrassment of saying, "I am sorry."

When the Prodigal Son said, "I have sinned," he did not stop there. To have stopped there could have meant despair and self-pity. He took the next step. He said, "I will arise and go to my father." And this is what Jesus urges on us. When we see ourselves for what we really are, are ashamed of ourselves, have difficulty accepting ourselves, we can be sure of one thing — God will accept us in the same manner as the Prodigal Son was accepted in today's Gospel:

But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him… . and said to his servants, "Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.

This is the way God welcomes us when, with deep repentance in our hearts, we come to Him with those magic words: "I was wrong." Three of the most difficult words to say to yourself, to others and to God. But to the person who musters enough courage to say them, there comes forgiveness, peace, new strength, and a new lease on life.

A psychiatrist recently listed five of the most upsetting experiences people can have. They were as follows: death of a child, death of a spouse, a jail sentence, death of a relative, an unfaithful spouse. Three of the five were related to death.

Some time ago an intriguing story appeared in one of our magazines. It was the story of a man on his way home from the office on a rainy Friday evening to face a cluster of minor problems involving the various members of his family. As he made his way home through mid-Manhattan, he happened to see a man who had just been run down by a car, lying dead in the middle of the street. This was only his second or third contact with death and it really shocked him. The conscious realization that he too was going to die one day hit him like a sledge hammer. It made a difference when he got home that night. The problems that he thought were so great, were not as big as he imagined. The thought of death had given him a new perspective.

One of the striking characteristics of our time is the absurd lengths to which we go to keep death out of sight and out of mind. Dr. John Brantner, a University of Minnesota clinical psychologist, said recently that American society "deals very badly with death and the dying. ... As a society we fear death and through our fear we foster it." Studies have shown that dying patients want very much to talk about death. It helps them accept it and relieves anxiety, but few people are comfortable about bringing up the subject.

Tolstoy, in his masterful tale "The Death of Ivan Ilyitch," describes the conspiracy of silence that we maintain in the presence of the dying. "Ivan Ilyitch’s chief torment was a lie — the lie somehow accepted by everyone that he was only sick, but not dying, and that he needed only to be calm."

Simone de Beauvoir, in "A Very Easy Death," writes of her mother dying of cancer, "At the time the truth was crushing her, and when she needed to escape it by talking, we were condemning her to silence, we forced her to say nothing about the anxieties and to suppress her doubts, she felt both guilty and misunderstood."

In earlier days, along with the other basic facts of life like birth, marriage, bearing children, and raising a family, death was openly accepted as a fact of life. The burial ground surrounding the church stood in the very center of the community. The body was not viewed in a funeral parlor; it was brought right into the living room of one’s home. One could not evade the fact of death. One had to accept it and learn to live with it.

Our Church calendar provides many occasions when we are asked to face up to the fact of death. Good Friday is one such occasion. So is Easter. Sunday is another. Every Sunday is a "little Easter" celebrating Christ’s victory over death. On our Church calendar every year, there are special Memorial Saturdays or "Saturdays of the Souls" which provide another opportunity for us to face up to death, i.e., the two Saturdays preceding Great Lent; the first Saturday of Great Lent, the Saturday before Pentecost. On these Saturdays the Divine Liturgy is celebrated and special prayers are offered for our deceased loved ones. We pray for the dead especially on Saturdays since it was on the Sabbath day that Christ lay dead in the tomb, "resting from all His works and trampling down death by death." Thus, in the New Testament, Saturday becomes the proper day for remembering the dead and offering prayers for them.

There are two questions often asked about the practice of praying for the dead that we have in the Orthodox Church: 1. WHY do we pray for the dead? 2. WHAT can we expect of these prayers?

Christianity is a religion of love. Praying for the dead is an expression of love. We ask God to remember our departed because we love them. Love relationships survive death and even transcend it. There is an inner need for a relationship with a loved one to continue to be expressed even after a loved one has died. Often even more so after a loved one has died since physical communication is no longer possible. The Church encourages us to express our love for our departed brethren through memorial services and prayers.

The anniversary of the death of a loved one is very painful. The Church helps us cope with this pain by encouraging us to have memorial prayers offered in Church for departed loved ones on the anniversaries of their deaths, i.e., forty days after the death, six months, a year, etc. This gives us the opportunity to do something for our loved one. It helps express and resolve our grief.

Death may take loved ones out of sight but it certainly does not take them out of mind, or out of heart. We continue to love them and think of them as we believe they continue to love us and think of us. How can a mother forget a child who has passed over to the life beyond? The same love which led her to pray for that child when he lived will guide her to pray for him now. For in Christ all are living. The same love makes her wish to communicate with him. Yet, all communication must take place in Christ and through Christ. No other communication with the dead is possible or lawful for the Christian. God is God of the living. Our dear ones live in Him. Only through Him is it possible for us to communicate with them. Every liturgy in the Orthodox Church contains prayers for the dead such as the following: "Be mindful also of all those who slumber in the hope of a resurrection to everlasting life. Give them rest, O God, where the light of Thy countenance shineth."

Just as we pray for the deceased, so we believe they continue to love us, remember us, and pray for us now that they are closer to God. We cannot forget the example of the rich man in Hades asking Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers lest they, too, go to that place of torment. Though he had left this life, he did not cease to be concerned for his brothers still on earth.

The Orthodox Church prays for the dead to express her faith that all who have fallen asleep in the Lord, live in the Lord; their lives are hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). Whether on earth or in heaven, the Church is a single family, one Body in Christ. Death changes the location but it cannot sever the bond of love.

Since a person’s eternal destiny is determined immediately after death (though one must wait for the General Judgement to receive the full measure of one’s reward), we must not expect our prayers to snatch an unbeliever from Hades to Paradise. It is our present life that determines our eternal destiny. Now is the time to repent and accept God’s grace. Death puts an end to that state and commits each person to his special judgment. This is why the Lord said that work must be done "while it is day" because "the night cometh when no man can work." "Day" means the present life, "when it is still possible to believe," writes St. Chrysostom, while "night" is the condition after death.

What happens beyond the grave belongs entirely to God. He has told us as much as we need to know; the rest is covered with a veil of mystery which man’s curiosity is incapable of piercing. The faithful have committed themselves to God for the duration of their earthly lives. Now, it is well and good for them to commit their departed loved ones to the mercy of God through prayer, for they have the assurance that God in the riches of His mercy has ways to help them beyond our knowing. Some church fathers state that our departed loved ones experience a kind of spiritual relief as a result of the prayers of their loved ones on earth.

Whether our prayers for our departed loved ones bring any benefit to them we know not; we leave this to the mercy of God. But of one thing we are certain: such prayers do benefit those who pray for the departed. They remind us that we too are going to die; they strengthen faith in the life beyond; they nourish reverence toward those who have died; they help build hope in divine mercy; they develop brotherly love among those who survive. They make us more cautious and diligent in getting ready for that ultimate journey which will unite us with our departed loved ones and usher us into the presence of God. They remind us that now is the time for moral development and improvement, for faith, repentance and love; now is the time to strive for the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to those "who have fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith." In other words, the Lord never told us that after we die, somebody else’s prayers will get us into heaven — no matter how many memorial prayers they offer in our behalf. Salvation is a personal matter between each person and his Lord to be achieved in this life.

Nowhere did Jesus ever tell us that prayers for the dead are necessary to help shorten the stay of our loved ones in a place called Purgatory. The Orthodox Church has never accepted Purgatory. We are not saved by pain or suffering in Purgatory; we are saved by grace through faith in Christ. Nowhere in the teachings of Jesus do we find any suggestion that heaven is a Dantean inferno out of which the spirits of the departed must be "prayed." Instead Jesus referred to heaven as "My Father’s House."

Knowing that our loved ones are in our Father’s house, — love motivates us to pray for them as St. Paul prayed for his converts: that God will grant them, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by the spirit of the inner man, that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith, that they, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend all the greatness of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that they might be filled with all the fulness of God (Ephesians 3:16-19).

Dr. Paul Tillich believed that the anxiety of having to die is the anxiety that one will be forgotten both now and in eternity. Burial means a removal from the face of the earth. This is what men cannot endure. Memorial markers will not keep us from being forgotten. One day they will crumble to dust. The only thing that can keep us from being forgotten is our faith that God knew us before we were born and will remember us for all eternity.

In a lesser but still very real way, memorial prayers offered by loved ones serve to relieve the anxiety of being forgotten.

The first child of Dr. Martineau, an eminent minister, died in infancy and was buried in the French cemetery of Dublin. Before they left Ireland for Liverpool, the father and mother paid a farewell visit to the grave of their first-born son. The years went by. Mrs. Martineau died. At the age of 87, Dr. Martineau was a lonely old man. But when he was at the tercentenary of Dublin University, he stole away from the brilliant public function to stand once more by the tiny grave that held the dust of his first-born child. No other living soul recalled that little one’s smile or remembered where the child was sleeping. But the father knew and the little buried hands held his heart. A father’s heart never forgets. Love always remembers. That is why the Orthodox Church has always encouraged us to sponsor special memorial prayers and services for the departed.

It is customary among Orthodox Christians from Greece to bring a tray of boiled wheat kernels to church for the memorial service. The wheat kernels express belief in everlasting life. Jesus said, "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). Just as new life rises from the buried kernel of wheat, so we believe the one buried will rise one day to a new life with God. The wheat kernels are covered with sugar and raisins to express the bliss of eternal life with God in heaven. St. Paul writes, "So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body" (I Cor. 15:42-44).

When Orthodox Christians pray for departed loved ones, they focus not only on them but also on Christ in Whom they died: "Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith ..." (Hebrews 12:1). "I am the resurrection and the life," He said, "he who believes in me though he were dead yet shall he live, and he who lives and believes in me shall have life everlasting."

The King in Disguise (Matthew 25:31-46).

In the early days there was a king who decided to test the character of his people. Disguised as a peasant, he traveled about his country and was treated for the most part quite shamefully. In time he came to realize that the honor with which his people greeted him as a king was not due to the respect they felt for his goodness; rather, it was the result of the fear and awe they felt for his wealth and power.

Then, at length, as the king went about in disguise, one of his subjects recognized him. This subject protested the king's going about like any other man, and insisted that he go back to his throne, put on his royal robes, and rule as a proper king should. The people thought it was a sort of trick the king was playing on them to see if he could catch them off guard.

There is another King who travels in disguise. Though He was born not in a royal palace but in a cave with animals. Though a King, He was born not of the royalty of this world, but of a poor peasant girl. Though a King, He lived and worked in the tiny town of Nazareth as a carpenter.

After His resurrection Jesus often "appeared in another form" (Mark 16:12). His disciples did not immediately recognize Him. Mary Magdalene, near the sepulcher, took Him for the gardener (John 20:20). On the road to Emmaus, the two disciples took Him for a traveler (Luke 24:13). To the apostles fishing on Lake Galilee, He appeared to be a stranger until John said to Peter: "It is the Lord" (John 21:7).

In these ways Jesus was showing us that He is present in all persons. He tells us so in today's Gospel lesson. He declares that He was hungry and thirsty, naked and sick, a stranger and a prisoner in those whom we have fed and given to drink, clothed and visited and welcomed. He was present also in those who were in need but whom we did not help. "Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it not to me." This does not mean that God and His creatures are identical by nature but by grace as members of His body, as His living images and temples. This is the mystery of the visible presence of Christ among us today. St. Chrysostom tells us that more sacred than the stone altar in Church is the human altar set up in every street and crossroad because on the first Christ is offered, but the second is Christ himself.

At the close of World War II, a young officer of the United States Army found himself on an island in the South Pacific, which had a large leper colony. As he wandered around the separate dwellings he happened upon a nun who was dressing the wounds of the patients. When the soldier saw the infected legs and running sores he became nauseated. He watched as the Sister calmly and expertly removed the soiled dressings, applied ointment, and then proceeded to bandage the limbs. He was amazed at the nurse's poise and serenity. All this was too much for him, and he exclaimed: "I would not do that for a million dollars!" Undisturbed the nun turned towards the young man and replied sincerely: "Neither would I!" For a million dollars she would not touch those running sores, but because Christ dwells in those outcasts whom society banishes from its sight, she had left home and wandered thousands of miles to assist those in suffering, to assist the King in disguise.

J. D. Salinger in his book "Franny and Zooey" tells of a Fat Lady sitting on her porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio going full blast. He describes her as having "thick legs, very veiny" and being tormented by cancer. Then Salinger asks, "... don't you know who that Fat Lady really is? ... It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself..."

Jesus is often pictured as an attractive man — tall, with a straight nose, friendly eyes, and a radiant face — a person anyone would want to include on the invitation list to a party. But the Gospel lesson today suggests that Salinger's picture of Christ as the Fat Lady may be closer to reality than the picture of Christ we see on our icons. Christ appears to us today in disguise as He appeared to His disciples following the resurrection. He comes to us as an ordinary person: as one of the least of our brethren: the hungry, the naked, the thirsty, the stranger, the prisoner, the Negro, the Fat Lady. The King in disguise.

An Associated Press news item from Calcutta, India, read as follows: The sign over the door reads "Home for Dying Destitutes." Inside, 66 men and 72 women lie on steel frame cots waiting for the end to come. These people are products of this population-choked city, which hardly has time to care for the living. Some of the men and women here were forced to leave hospital beds when they were termed incurable, to make room for those who might be saved. Others were among the countless thousands of nameless persons whose homes are Calcutta's sidewalks and gutters. Work is scarce and begging is fruitless. People like these used to die anonymously. In the old days, trucks picked them up and dumped them into the Hooghly River, an arm of the Ganges. Then in 1952, Mother Teresa, Superior General of the Roman Catholic Church's "Missionaries of Charity," took over a former rest house for Hindu pilgrims and made it a haven for the dying. Since then, 18,000 persons have gone to the crowded stucco building on a cluttered street in Calcutta. Of these, 8,500 died. But, amazingly, the others, most of whom have to be carried into the home, regained strength and the will to live and walked back out into the city streets.

What made Sister Teresa leave the comforts of the West to minister to those forgotten people? Why don't agnostics do this? Why don't atheists? Why don't humanists? Simple! They do not have the ethic of Christ: " ... as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." The King in disguise!

A soldier of World War I tells of stumbling over the body of a dead German, a mere boy. As he looked, the boy seemed to disappear and in his place he saw Christ on the Cross. From that moment on whenever he saw a human suffering, he saw Christ staring at him from the Cross calling him to share the sorrow and help alleviate the pain. The King in disguise!

There is an old legend of Martin of Tour, a Roman soldier and a Christian. One cold winter day a beggar stopped him. Martin had no money but he saw that the man was shivering from the cold. He took off his soldier's cloak, worn and frayed as it was, cut it in two with his sword and gave half of it to the beggar who blessed him and left. That night Martin had a dream. He saw all the angels of heaven and Jesus sitting in their midst wearing the torn half of a Roman soldier's cloak. One of the angels asked him, "Master, why are you wearing that battered old cloak? Who gave it to you?" And Jesus answered softly, "My servant Martin gave it to me." The King in disguise!

The things Jesus talks about in the parable today are simple things. Anybody can give them: a piece of bread, a cup of water, a word of welcome, a piece of clothing and a visit. Nobody is so poor that he cannot give something to the King in disguise. In fact, St. Chrysostom tells us that if the Church ever comes to the point where she has nothing to give to help the poor, the holy chalice and the other sacred vessels of the holy altar should be melted down and made into gold coins to help feed the hungry who are the living temples of God.

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory … before Him will be gathered all the nations … and He will separate them one from another ... to those at His right hand He will say, 'Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world! ... to those at His left He will say, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels The basis on which we shall be judged by God when He appears at the end of history is: how deeply we loved the King when He appeared to us in disguise: "Lord, when did we see Thee hungry and feed Thee or thirsty and give Thee drink? Or when did we see Thee a stranger and welcome Thee?" And the King will answer, "... as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to Me."

The King in disguise!

Christ's Three-Part Recipe for Lent (Matthew 6:14-21).

In today's Gospel lesson the Lord Jesus offers us a three-part recipe for Lent: forgiveness, fasting and laying up treasures in heaven.

First, forgiveness. The trouble with our world today is that we have built too many walls. The Iron Curtain. The Bamboo Curtain. Walls between the races. Walls between husbands and wives, parents and children. Walls between man and God. One of the best ways to tear down walls is by forgiveness.

Let us start with the walls between man and God. These walls are built by sin. During Lent the Church calls upon us to look at the cross of Jesus and His great mercy. She invites us to come to Christ during Lent in the great Sacrament of Confession to exchange our sins for the riches of His Grace, to taste and experience for ourselves the sweetness of His forgiving love.

Having received His forgiveness, God calls on us to grant forgiveness to all who have hurt us and also to seek forgiveness from those whom we have hurt. God offers us His forgiveness very graciously and generously. But His forgiveness obligates us to forgive others. This is exactly what Jesus says in today's Gospel lesson: "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Christianity begins with the forgiveness of our Lord. But it does not end here. Because I have been forgiven and daily am being forgiven by God for my many sins, I am obligated to forgive others.

So Lent becomes a time for tearing down walls first between man and God and then between neighbors — walls created by enmity and hatred; walls tougher than steel or concrete; walls which forgiveness alone can destroy.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann has written, "The triumph of sin, the main sign of its rule over the world, is division, opposition, separation, hatred. Therefore, the first break through this fortress of sin is forgiveness: the return to unity, solidarity, love. To forgive is to put between me and my 'enemy' the radiant forgiveness of God Himself. To forgive is to reject the hopeless 'dead-ends' of human relations and to refer them to Christ. Forgiveness is truly a 'breakthrough' of the Kingdom into this fallen and sinful world" ("GREAT LENT" by Fr. Alexander Schmemann. Copyright St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, New York. Used by permission.).

Our first challenge for Lent is to receive God's forgiveness and to forgive.

The second part of our Lord's recipe for Lent consists of fasting: "When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by man but by your Father who sees in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

There are many very valid reasons for fasting but the main one is love. Love was one of the main purposes for fasting in the early Church. For example, writing when Christianity was less than a century old, an ancient Christian writer, Hermas, reported an interview with an angel on the subject of fasting. Asked what sort of fast he was making, Hermas replied that he was fasting in the customary manner. The angel was not impressed. He replied that Hermas hadn't the fuzziest notion of what a genuinely Christian fast is, and that what he was doing was pointless. The angel went on to say that if fasting is to have meaning, one should keep careful track of how much money is saved by it, and give the savings to the poor and the needy.

Another early Christian, Aristides, writes in his "Apology," "If there is a poor person among the Christians and they do not have the means to help him, they fast two or three days and give the food they have saved through fasting to the hungry person."

This is the fast we are called upon to practice during Lent which begins tomorrow. We are called upon to fast not only for reasons of self-control and prayer, but also for reasons of love: to deny ourselves something that we may share what we have saved with a needy person.

One family decided to have a meal of just rice once a week during Lent since that is the daily diet of millions of underprivileged people in the world. Of course, the rice was fancied up a bit. It was not watered down into a thin gruel as in the underprivileged countries. When Lent was over, this same family decided to continue once every month the practice of serving only rice for dinner. The $2.50 they saved was placed in a special envelope to be given through their church to the poor of the world. They could have obtained the money by cutting out some luxury but they felt that the rice meal helped them identify with those they wished to help. Once a week during Lent — and once a month following that — they would get a taste of hunger to keep them reminded both of the bounty in their land and of the desperate plight of those who have no access to such bounty.

The Lord God said through the prophet Isaiah, "Is not this the fast that I choose. ... Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover him…" (Isaiah 58:6-7). This is the fast that is pleasing to God.

The Triodion which contains our church services for Lent says the following about the Lenten fast: The Lenten spring has come, The light of repentance… Let us receive the announcement of Lent with joy! For if our forefather Adam had kept the fast, We would not be deprived of paradise… While fasting physically, brothers, Let us also fast spiritually; Let us loose every knot of iniquity, Let us tear up every unrighteous bond, Let us distribute bread to the hungry and welcome to our homes those who have no roof over their heads So that we may receive great mercy form Christ our God.

After forgiveness and fasting the third part of Christ's recipe for Lent is expressed in His words: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

The question God puts to us in today's Gospel lesson is: What treasures have you laid up for yourselves in heaven? What security will you have when you face the final your? What will you be able to claim as yours when you appear before the throne of God? Granted, God means that we should live our life upon this earth to the fullest, but He also intends that we should live it as a preparation for that which is to come. The question we must ask ourselves is: Are we laying up treasures in this life only? or are we using this life to lay up eternal treasures, treasures that we can take with us when we go, treasures that shall be ours for all eternity?

All our treasures on earth — said Jesus — will last only as long as this life. They are "rust collections." They will all end up in the junkyard. But in Jesus we find real treasures that will never lose their value.

What are some of these treasures that God commands us to accumulate, treasures that are pleasing to Him, treasures that we can take with us, treasures that satisfy eternally.

There is the treasure of love. "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing. Now remain faith, hope, and love these three; but the greatest of these is love." To be rich in love is to be rich indeed.

There is the treasure of forgiveness. The strongest walls between people and between nations are not built of iron or steel but are created by fear, hate, and prejudice. The only way to break down these walls is through the practice of forgiveness. To be rich in forgiveness is to be rich indeed.

There is the treasure of knowing Jesus personally as our Lord and Savior. "This is eternal life that they may know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent" (John's Gospel). "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ…" (Phil. 3:7-8).

Lent is a time to strengthen our relationship to the most important person in he universe: the Lord Jesus by extra prayer every day, by reading His word daily in the Holy Bible, by frequent Communion, by attending the extra Lenten services. Our lives are cluttered with a lot of unessential activities that lead to heart attacks and nervous breakdowns. Lent is a time to weed out and cancel some of these unnecessary activities and create time for God and the soul; time to stop and live; time to accumulate some treasures in heaven where "neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal." To know Christ personally is the greatest treasure there is.

There is the treasure of faith in Christ. Without this faith no man can be saved. Faith is powerful — so powerful it can "move mountains"; it is the force to which God Himself responds. To be rich in faith is to be rich indeed.

There is the treasure of doing God's will. "He who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Jesus in Matt. 12:50). In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, "He who does… (these commandments) shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:19). True nobility, said St. Chrysostom, consists in doing the will of God. To do the will of the Father and to be called by Jesus "my brother and sister and mother" is indeed a treasure.

There is the treasure of prayer — the awesome privilege of speaking and communing with our loving Lord at any hour of the day or night. Someone has written: Executives are hard to see Their costly time I may not waste; I make appointments nervously And talk to them in haste. But any time of night or day, In places suitable or odd, I seek and get without delay An interview with God.

Truly, what a privilege — and treasure — it is to carry everything to God in prayer!

Finally, there is the treasure of service to others in the name of Christ: "And whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water… truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward" (Matt. 10:42). One of our service projects for Christ this Lent will be to place the proceeds of our fast of love in our special Lenten offering envelopes. The proceeds will go to the mission program of our Church and to help feed the hungry of our world in the name of Christ.

These, then, are the treasures that really count in God's eyes, treasures that are not "rust collections" but will last forever: the treasure of love, forgiveness, knowing Jesus personally, faith, doing God's will, prayer and service to our fellow humans through the fast of love.

A ruler once threatened that he would take everything away from St. Chrysostom. The great saint replied, "My treasure is in heaven and you can never take it away from me."

Another person said, "I struck it rich." His friend asked, "Gold?" "No," was the answer. "Just remove the 'l’ — God!"

Treasures in heaven

Why not try Christ's three-part recipe for Lent: forgiveness, fasting and laying up treasures in heaven. You will find it to be the perfect recipe if you are looking not only for a resurrected Christ but also for a resurrected you this Easter.

"Jesus Answered ... I Saw You" (John 1:44-52)

When Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, He said, "Behold! A man who is really an Israelite. A man in whom there is no guile!" Nathanael said to Him: "How do you know me?" Jesus answered, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you."

It was not so much that Jesus had seen him under the fig tree that surprised Nathanael; it was that He had read the thoughts of his inmost heart. So Nathanael said to himself, "Here is a man who understands my dreams and my prayers and has seen into my most secret longings. This must be the Son of God, none other than the Promised Messiah."

"And the people of Israel groaned under their bondage, and cried out for help, and the cry under bondage came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God saw the people of Israel, and God knew their condition" (Exodus 2:23-25).

God is He Who sees the affliction of His people. He said to Moses: "I have seen the affliction of my people … and have heard their cry ... I know their sufferings, and have come down to deliver them…" (Exodus 3:7-8).

Dr. Henry Norris Russell, noted Princeton astronomer, was once lecturing on the infinite greatness of the universe compared to our tiny earth. When he finished his lecture, a woman came to him and asked: "If our earth is so little, and the universe so great, can we believe that God actually pays attention to us?" Dr. Russell replied: "That depends, Madam, entirely on how big a God you believe in."

Our Christian God is bigger than the universe He created; big enough to pay attention to each and every one of His children. But what kind of attention does He pay to us? What does it mean to live constantly in the sight of God?

Does it mean that we may threaten our children and say, "God is watching you. You better behave!" and thus make God a Giant Babysitter providing us with free service whenever we leave home? Is this what it means to live in the sight of God?

Some prisons are now equipped with television cameras placed at such strategic spots that every jail cell is within view. Guards can see everything that goes on. Nothing can be hidden from the probing eyes of the camera. Such cameras are now found in banks, hospitals, and department stores. They remind one of the all-seeing eye of God that is painted on many Orthodox icon screens. Is this what it means to live constantly in the presence of a God who sees all? Is God a great eye constantly watching us to see if He can catch us off guard?

Certainly not!

Plato tells the story of a young shepherd who found a ring which would make him invisible to his neighbors. This gave him the right to do as he pleased without being observed. Prior to having received this ring, the young shepherd was a righteous and godly person. But when he was freed from the scrutiny of his neighbors, he degenerated into an unscrupulous, rapacious person.

It is a good thing to live with the eyes of our neighbors upon us. It helps keep us at our best behavior. In fact, it is when people leave home and go to strange places where no one knows them that they are tempted to do things they would never do at home.

In Lloyd C. Douglas' novel "The Robe," Marcellus asks Justus, "Where do you think Jesus went?"

Justus replied, "I don't know, my friend, I only know that He is alive — and I am always expecting to see Him. Sometimes I feel aware of Him, as if He were close by." Justus smiled faintly, his eyes wet with tears. "It keeps you honest," he went on. "You have no temptation to cheat anyone, or lie to anyone, or hurt anyone — when, for all you know, Jesus is standing beside you."

"I'm afraid I should feel very uncomfortable," remarked Marcellus, "being perpetually watched by some invisible presence."

"Not if that presence helped you defend yourself against yourself, Marcellus. It is a great satisfaction to have someone standing by — to keep you at your best."

Edward R. Murrow once described the secret of Britain's stand against Nazi tyranny, "Unconsciously they dug deep into their history and felt that Drake, Raleigh, Cromwell, and all the rest were looking down at them and they were obliged to look worthy in the eyes of their ancestors." He who looks down at us constantly is our loving Lord Jesus. How much more obliged should we feel to appear worthy in His eyes?

This, then, is what it means to live in the presence of a God who sees. It is like the little girl who was having a great time demonstrating to her grandfather a dance she had learned. Half of the fun for that little girl was in having a friendly eye to watch her.

The ultimate in despair is to feel that we are not seen by anyone. In Thornton Wilder's play, "Our Town," a young woman who had died shortly after her marriage, is permitted to return from the dead to spend a day at her home. Because she returns as a ghost, nobody sees her. The resulting isolation is more than she can bear. Before the end of the day she longs to return to the grave over the hill.

Because we have seen God in Christ, we know that He sees and He cares. A little girl was present at a meeting where the candidacy of Calvin Coolidge for the Presidency was being discussed. Following his appearance before the group, Coolidge's qualifications were being discussed. Suddenly the little girl interrupted to say that Coolidge was the best qualified man. When her father asked her why, she lifted up her bandaged thumb and said, "He is the only one of you who noticed that I had a sore thumb, and who asked me how it was getting on."

Our God is not aloof. He sees. He cares. "Not one sparrow falls to the ground unless it be the Father's will," said Jesus.

God does not see us from the top of some ivory tower but from the cross. Through Christ we have learned that the eyes of God are the eyes of tender love and mercy. He sees us not because He wants to punish us but because He loves us. In fact, He loves us so much that He cannot take His eyes off us. As a mother cannot take her eyes off her newborn baby, so the Lord does not withdraw His eyes from those who put their trust in Him (Job 36:7).

He sees us in our suffering and pain. Because He sees He is able to comfort and strengthen and help. And because we know He sees we can say, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil." Why no fear? "For Thou art with me."

He sees us in our sorrow. He sees us also in our sin. But even in our sin He looks on us with love summoning us to repentance. For example, Jesus looked on Simon Peter after he had denied him three times. As a result of that look Peter went out and wept bitterly. Why? What was it in that look of Jesus that made Peter repent and become the mightiest preacher of Pentecost? Surely it was that the eyes of Jesus were filled with compassion and love. It was this that broke the heart of the impulsive apostle. God is He Who sees us even in our sin. But His seeing is an act of love inviting us to repentance and forgiveness, pleading with us and saying, "Come let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow" (Isaiah 1:18).

He sees us in our suffering to comfort us. He sees us in our sin to make us aware of our error and to bring us to repentance. Thirdly, "the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). There are people who have their facial expression so much under control that it is impossible to guess what is behind it. God looks on the heart. He sees the character. He sees the real motive behind each act. He distinguishes between the real and the unreal, between the expression and the intention, the mask and the original.

Finally, think of the compassion in the eyes of Jesus; for these are the eyes through which God looks at us today. What compassion must have shown in His eyes when, looking at Jerusalem, He wept over it. What compassion must have shown in His eyes when He healed the sick and raised the dead. What compassion must have been there when He wept before the tomb of Lazarus, His friend.

The way we look at people exerts a powerful influence on them. A man can look at another with a look that hardens the other's heart. A man can look at another with a look that hurts and destroys. A man can look at another with cold indifference, humiliating and degrading the other. But a man can also look at another with reverence and when that happens, the other will be given the freedom to be himself. A man can look at another with kindness and goodness, with a look that encourages and loves, that opens up what is locked up inside the other, that awakens his powers and brings him to himself. This is the way God looks at us.

Romano Guardini captured so well the meaning of God's seeing when he wrote: "God is He Who sees. But His seeing is an act of love. With His seeing He embraces His creatures, affirms them, and encourages them… . His seeing is not the kind that merely looks at something: it is creative love, it is the power which enables things to be themselves and rescues them from degeneration and decay … God turns His face to man and thereby gives Himself to man … To be seen by Him does not mean being exposed to a merciless gaze but to be enfolded in the deepest care… We are seen by Him whether we want to be or not. The difference is whether we try to elude His sight, or strive to enter into it. ... None of the shortcomings and evil in our lives are fatal so long as they confront His gaze. The very act of placing ourselves in His sight is the beginning of renewal… But everything is in danger once we refuse to place ourselves and our lives in His sight" (THE LIVING GOD by Romano Guardini. Pantheon Press, a division of Random House, Inc. Used by permission).

"He who formed the eye, does he not see?" asks one of the Psalmists. "Yes, He does!" we answer. He saw what was in Nathanael's heart. He saw Abraham. He saw His people suffering in Egypt. He sees us today. He sees us in our sorrow to comfort us. He sees us in our grief to uphold us. He sees us in our sin to forgive us. He sees us from the cross. He sees us with love and it is His seeing that keeps us at our best. If the eyes of Christ are windows through which God sees us, they are also mirrors in which we see ourselves as cared for and loved by our Creator and Redeemer.

What a difference it would make in our lives if every day — throughout the whole day — we remembered that everything we do and say and attempt and think and imagine is going to be done under the eye of God. It would truly revolutionize our lives!

Jesus answered, "Before Phillip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you."

The first Sunday of Lent is called the Sunday of Orthodoxy. It marks the day on which the use of icons was reinstated. It commemorates the triumph of Orthodoxy against the iconoclasts whose purpose it was to remove forcibly all icons from churches and destroy them as instruments of idolatry.

The use of icons is certainly subject to abuse: the record of the iconoclastic controversy is full of evidence to that point. A letter addressed by Byzantine Emperor Michael in 824 A.D. to Louis Le-Debonnaire says among other things:

"They choose the images of saints to serve as godparents to their children… . Some priests have taken to the practice of scraping the paint on the icons, mixing this powder with the Eucharistic bread and wine and distributing the mixture to the faithful after the Eucharist. Others place the body of the Lord in the hands of the icons from where the communicants receive them."

But the misuse of any religious practice cannot be an argument against its true use. Even the spoken word, for example, is an icon. It describes the reality of God and His disclosure of Himself through His Son. Yet even the word — spoken or written — can become an idol which we worship in lieu of God Himself.

Since the icon is one of the most distinctive features of Orthodoxy, we shall consider briefly what it signifies, why it is used, its practical value as well as its doctrinal significance.

First, let us consider the charge of idolatry. Orthodox Christians do not worship icons; they merely reverence or venerate them as symbols. Leontius of Neapolis wrote in the seventh century:

"We do not make obeisance to the nature of wood, but we revere and make obeisance to Him who was crucified on the Cross…. When the two beams of the Cross are joined together I adore the figure because of Christ who on the cross was crucified, but if the beams are separated, I throw them away and burn them" (Migne, Patrologia Graeca).

The iconoclasts held that God cannot be painted because He is eternal and invisible. "No man has seen God at any time" (John 1:18). But the Orthodox insisted that God can be painted because He became man. Because of this it is lawful to make a picture of Him. Those who were denying the icon of Christ were denying the truth that He had become man. In other words, they were denying the very basis of our salvation: God become man in Christ. Thus, what we really commemorate on the first Sunday of Lent is not a controversy about religious art, but about the Incarnation of Christ and the salvation of man.

It would be theologically accurate to say that God Himself was the first icon maker by visibly reproducing Himself in the likeness of His Son. The iconoclast controversy was not simply a controversy over religious art, but over the entire meaning and implication of the incarnation. God took a material body, thereby proving that matter can be redeemed. "The Word made flesh has deified the flesh," said John of Damascus. The materials employed in the icons are but another expression of belief in the materialism of Christianity. This has much to say to us today in the area of ecology: that matter is sacred and should not be abused or contaminated.

The Reformation was negative to icons. For Luther they were permissible as illustrations. Calvin could accept nothing more than historical scenes with more than one person depicted, so that it would not make the faithful stumble into idolatry."

Puritans in England and America took a dim view of religious art. They despised and prohibited all religious paintings. In a way they were probably right. Much of contemporary "religious art" is offensive because it makes it hard to believe that the only begotten Son of God became man.

The picture of the Christ as a bearded lady, sometimes with a bleeding valentine heart showing through a transparent chest, if taken seriously, denies that he was made man. Such pictures give the idea that he became a phantom, neither male nor female.

As Eric Newton writes,

"But from the moment when God sent His only begotten Son to dwell on earth, born of a mortal woman, to preach, to perform miracles, to suffer death at the hands of the Jews, and to be resurrected, the situation for the artist changed, for the new religion contained within itself the fact of the invisible made visible, the Deity made human, the supernatural made physically manifest. At last there was no reason to forbid imagery, for if God Himself became incarnate there could be no possibility of the artist’s image of Him leading to idolatry" ("2000 Years of Christian Art," Eric Newton and Wm. Neil. Harper and Row. Used by permission).

The tendency among some of the early Christians was not to use a realistic image of Jesus. Instead they used abstract signs — letters that would stand for Jesus, such as Chi-Rho, the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ, or IHS, the first letters for the name Jesus in Greek. They also used figures as the fish, which was a secret sign for Christ, or a sheep, standing for the lamb of God.

The Trullan Synod, held in Constantinople in 692 A.D., stated that it was wrong for the church to depict Christ in signs and symbols any longer. The Synod specifically decreed that it would be wrong to portray Christ as a lamb. If He really became man, the Synod said, then He must be portrayed as a human being — not as an animal or as a symbol.

But the church fathers felt that the divine nature of Christ should be brought out in the images as well as His human nature. They said, in the same directive, that images of Him should not be "too carnal." So the icon makers worked out a representation in which the image of Christ was thoroughly human but also highly stylized. This is perhaps why the icons look so very contemporary. They have the stylization, something of the abstraction, of contemporary art, but they have wedded this to an image of Christ as a human being. It is interesting that the late medieval Gothic artists made the image of Christ more human and lost the Byzantine stylization and abstraction that attempted to present also the divine nature of Christ.

Perhaps we should mention the fact that the West has traditionally emphasized the human nature of Christ through the use of statues, the Sacred heart of Jesus, the Christmas Crib etc., whereas the East has placed more emphasis on the divine nature of Jesus through the icon that lends itself very effectively to the expression of the divine, transfigured state of Jesus through the use of stylization and abstraction.

There are three possible ways of "portraying" someone: the photograph, the portrait and the icon. The photograph records the features as they are. A successful portrait reproduces a person’s features in a way that is true to life and recognizable; but at the same time it brings out his character and gives expression to his inner nature. An icon is not a photograph but more like a portrait. Yet it is more even than a portrait. It aims at giving a true likeness of the person, and at the same time it attempts to bring out in a person what he has become through the power of the Holy Spirit. An icon then is more than a photograph, more even than a portrait. Iconography portrays what happens to people after God touches them. They become new persons. By omitting everything irrelevant to the spiritual figure, the figure becomes stylized, spiritualized, not unrealistic but supra-realistic. (I am indebted for this comparison of photograph, portrait and icon of Rudolf Muller’s article, ‘The Theological Significance of a Critical Attitude in Hagiography," which appeared in the "Ecumenical Review"). The icon is thus set aside from all other forms of pictorial art. It offers an external expression of the transfigured state of man, of a body so filled with the Holy Spirit, so trained in good, that it has become like the spiritual body which we shall receive at the Second Coming of Christ.

There are some who believe that abstractionism, the reduction of a figure to its purest essence, originated with the iconographers.

Icons have been called prayers, hymns, sermons in form and color. They are the visual Gospel. In reality, the Eastern Church has two Gospels: the verbal and the visual to appeal to the whole man. As St. Basil said, "What the word transmits through the ear, that painting silently shows through the image, and by these two means, mutually accompanying one another ... we receive knowledge of one and the same thing." One has but to enter an Orthodox Church to see unfolded before him on the walls all the mysteries of the Christian religion. "If a pagan asks you to show him your faith," said John of Damascus, "take him into church and place him before the icons."

Through the icon the Orthodox Church appeals to the eye which is the pope of the senses. We remember much more easily what we see than what we hear. The Old Testament prophets, for example, often used the method of dramatic and symbolic action. Men might refuse to listen, but they could hardly fail to see. Jeremiah, for example, forewarned the people of the slavery that was to fall upon them by making yokes and wearing them on his neck. The current practice in Communist countries of hanging pictures of their leaders everywhere was borrowed by the Russian Marxists from the use of icons in the Russian Orthodox Church. The pictures are, in effect, icons of the new gods intended to stimulate a kind of worship and absolute obedience.

The icon is more even than a means of instruction. It is in effect a sacrament. For, an icon is not fully an icon until it has been blessed. Then it becomes a link between the human and the divine. It provides an existential encounter between men and God. It becomes the place of an appearance of Christ, provided one stands before it with the right disposition of heart and mind. It becomes a place of prayer. An icon participates in the event it depicts and is almost a re-creation of that event existentially for the believer. As S. Bulgakov said, "By the blessing of the icon of Christ, a mystical meeting of the faithful and Christ is made possible." Many icons are regarded as "wonder-working." These are considered to be the icons par excellence.

Standing in an Orthodox Church whose walls and ceiling are covered with icons of Christ and the saints, the worshipper does not feel alone. He experiences the communion of saints. He experiences a fellowship with Christ and the saints. He is made to feel that he is a member of the family of God. Cecil Stewart describes this well when he writes,

"The pictures seem to be arranged in a way which instills a feeling of direct relationship between the viewer and the pictures … each personality is represented facing one, so that one stands, as it were, within the congregation of saints. Byzantine art, in fact, puts one in the picture … He (the viewer) observes and is observed."

A Japanese girl in an American college was invited to spend the Christmas holidays with a classmate. Afterwards she was asked how she enjoyed the holidays. "Very well," she replied, "but I missed God in the home. I have seen you worship God in your church. In my country we have a god-shelf so we can worship our gods in our homes. Do not Americans worship their God in their homes?"

It has been traditional for Orthodox homes to have such a "God-shelf" in the form of an icon with a votive light burning before it. This serves as a reminder of God’s presence in the home and as a center for family prayer. In old Russia, for example, every house — from the great winter palace of the Czar to the thatched hut of the peasant — had an icon of Christ or the Virgin Mother. At that time no Russian home was a home until it was consecrated by the icon. In fact, upon entering his home or visiting a friend, a Russian Christian would first of all bow low before the icons and make the sign of the cross before greeting his family or host.

If the Church in Russia has survived under Communism these past years despite lack of any facilities for instructing children in the Christian faith either at school or at church, it is due (humanly speaking) to the Christian family. Throughout Orthodox Christendom the family has been regarded as a "house church" with its own "altar" where prayers are offered before the icons.

One wonders, however, what has happened to the "house church" and the "icons" in the modern Orthodox family. How many of our homes have icons today? Among our younger families I have seen pictures of famous movie stars on the walls but very few icons. Are we going to allow one of the most precious traditions of our Orthodox faith — the icon — to disappear from our homes? Then what will symbolize God’s presence in our homes? What will serve as an invitation to prayer? What will serve to appeal to morality and conscience?

The icon was never intended to hang on a wall as an aesthetic object. If it is used as an attractive piece of decoration, it ceases to function as an icon. For an icon can only exist within the particular framework of belief and worship to which it belongs. Divorced from this framework, it loses its function as an icon.

In a fragment of the "Life of St. John Chrysostom" preserved in a work by St. John of Damascus (675-749), we are told that Chrysostom had an icon of the Apostle Paul before himself as he studied Paul’s epistles. When he looked up from the text, the icon seemed to come to life and speak to him.

Icons in the home consecrate the profane; they transform a neutral dwelling-place into a "domestic church" and the life of the faithful into an unceasing liturgy.

One of the Patriarchs of the Russian Church (Alexis in 1947) said: "If in hospitals, which treat the diseases of the body, everything is arranged to make the surroundings conducive to the patient’s return to health, what great care must be taken to order everything in a spiritual hospital, a church of God." We can apply this also to the Christian home which should include reminders of God’s strengthening and healing presence.

It has been said that love is the great interpreter. It is the conductor of an orchestra who is in love with the music of a composer who can best interpret and express it. A young artist once brought a picture of Jesus which he had painted to a great painter for his verdict. The artist studied it for quite some time and finally said, "You don’t love Him, or you would paint Him better."

This great truth is practiced among Orthodox icon painters who are usually monks. Such iconographers are not considered to be religious artists but rather as persons who have a religious vocation. They are clergymen preaching visual theology. The icon, like the Word, is a revelation, not a decoration or illustration. More important than being a good artist is the fact that the icon painter be a sincere Christian who prepares himself for his work through fasting, prayer, Confession and Communion and has the feeling that he is but an instrument through whom the Holy Spirit expresses Himself. It is important to know Him better if one is to paint Him better. In the West, the theologian has instructed and even limited the artist, whereas in the East the iconographer is a charismatic who contemplates the liturgical mysteries and instructs the theologian.

Since we are talking about icons we would be remiss if we neglected to say that by far the best icon of God is man who was made in God’s own image. This is the reason the Orthodox priest during the liturgy turns and censes the congregation after having censed the icons. Each person in the congregation is a living icon of God. Through censing we pay respect to the image of God in man which resides in all men regardless of the color of skin or class. To pay respect to the icons in Church and to show disrespect to the living icons of God — our fellow men — is hypocrisy of the worst sort. The Sunday of Orthodoxy should remind us that God made us .in His own image. We are His living, walking icons. Yet often we allow the icon of God in us painted by the Holy Spirit to be marred and blurred by sin. By her emphasis on the restoration of icons on the first Sunday of lent, the Orthodox Church calls on us to restore also the fallen icon of God in our souls through repentance and a return to the renewing power of Christ in the Eucharist.

A Sunday school teacher once said to her first-grade class, "You know how you feel when you draw a picture. You want everybody to see it and admire it because you made it. That’s how Jesus feels about you. You’re the picture He draws."

A little boy asked, "Is everybody Jesus’s picture?"

"That’s right," said the teacher.

"Even Annie?"

"Yes."

Suddenly a scrap of brown paper fluttered into the teacher’s wastebasket. "I was going to put flypaper in Annie’s milk," he said sadly, "only Jesus drew her so I better not."

As soon as one enters an Orthodox Church one is greeted at the door by an icon of Christ whose house we have just entered. He stands at the door to greet us as Host. We, in turn, greet Him by making the sign of the cross and bowing before or kissing His icon. Then as we enter the church we see Christ Pantocrator in the dome reminding us of His all-pervading presence in the universe and in our lives. On the walls and on the icon screen He is surrounded by the prophets, apostles, Virgin Mother, martyrs and Saints. Finally on the floor level of the Church are the living saints — all of us, the Church triumphant in heaven and the Church militant on earth, gathered round our Lord and singing praises to His glory.

A little girl once visited our church on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Relating the event to me later, her father told me that they were members of another church that did not use icons. Their church was rather plain on the inside. As soon as the little girl entered the church and saw the huge picture of Jesus in the dome and the other religious paintings on the walls and icon screen, she walked up to the altar and instinctively knelt down and began to pray. She had felt God’s presence. We, too, can feel His presence not only at church but also at home every day and every night through the devotional use of this great aid to prayer: the icon, the visual Gospel.

Razing the Roof (St Mark 2:1-12).

One day four friends brought a paralytic to Jesus for healing. When they saw that the house where Jesus was preaching was packed and the doorway jammed, they did not give up in despair. Faith never gives up. It perseveres. It is inventive, fertile, full of ideas. It laughs at barriers. If the road is closed one way, faith will look for another way. And it finds another way. Removing some of the loosely-joined tiles on the simple Palestinian roof, the four friends lowered their burden of grief down through the opening, and laid it at the Master's feet. Imagine the amazement of those in the crowded house when they heard the crumbling noise above them, felt the dust and debris falling all over them, and looked up to see the ceiling open and a pallet bearing a sick man descending on them. Imagine Jesus staring at the open sky through a hole in the ceiling and seeing four heads looking down at Him! Here is an example of how faith will literally raze the roof to get to God. These men made it clear for all to see that Christian faith is something more than a stab in the dark; it is a determined effort to establish contact with Jesus. The person who says, "I was not in church last Sunday but my heart was there" is kidding himself. If his heart were there, his body would have been there. You simply cannot stop faith from finding a way to be with Jesus.

Let us take a look at the four friends of the paralytic. The first thing for which Jesus admired them was their faith. It was when He "saw their faith" that He performed the miracle of healing. But Christian faith does not stand alone; it walks hand in hand with love. When these four friends came to Jesus, they did not come alone. They remembered one who wanted very much to see Jesus but could not because of paralysis. Most people had forgotten him, but not these four friends. They took the time and made the effort to go and get this man and bring him to Jesus. They are the kind of people who delight the heart of God. They not only wanted to see Jesus themselves, but they also thought of someone to bring with them who otherwise could not have come.

We begin by bringing ourselves to Christ. But we never stop there. After we have brought ourselves, we bring others. The greatest gift that any man can bring to another is Christ. Very few people pass even a single day without being in touch with someone who does not know Christ, and who greatly needs to know Him. Isn't this our whole purpose as a Church, i.e., Sunday school teachers, parents, youth workers, choir members, friends — each in his own way, to bring others into the healing presence of our Lord? How easy it is, for example, to bring a friend and lay him at the feet of Jesus on the stretcher of prayer! The four men in today's Gospel could not heal their paralyzed friend, but they were willing to bring him to the One who could heal.

See how tenderly and with what great compassion Jesus spoke to the paralytic, "My son, your sins are forgiven." Seeing him lying there on his pallet paralyzed, he addressed him as "My son." He was indeed speaking to one of His children who was hurting and He brought to him — as He brings to each one of us — the total love and power of God.

Jesus could have said to the paralytic, "Your paralysis be healed." But he did not. Instead He said, "Your sins are forgiven." The trouble with that man was not paralysis but something deeper. Body and soul live so close together that often the sickness of the one affects the other. The torture of sin and guilt was the deeper cause of this man's paralysis. So Jesus removed the primary cause: "My son, your sins are forgiven."

If a person is a bad driver, he will ruin any car — even the best one. The best therapy in such a case is not the constant repairing of the car, but the re-education of the driver. If Jesus had healed only the body of this man, the guilt of unforgiven sin would have found expression in some other physical ailment. This man was paralyzed by guilt and physical paralysis was only an outer manifestation of the inner spiritual paralysis. Sin is the greatest paralysis. It paralyzes man, body and soul. Jesus came to cure this paralysis.

We come to Jesus today paralyzed by the meaninglessness of life, we leave with a sense of purpose: "I have come that you may have life and that you may have it more abundantly." We come to Jesus paralyzed with sin and guilt, we leave pardoned and forgiven. We come to Jesus paralyzed by anxiety and fear. We leave with peace — "the peace of God that passes all understanding." We come to Jesus paralyzed by our weaknesses; we leave with power. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," said St. Paul. We come to Jesus paralyzed by a feeling of loneliness, we leave having found a Friend who loves and cares. We come to Jesus paralyzed by discouragement, we leave with hope — a hope that is rooted in God who so loved the world that He "spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for us all." We come to Jesus paralyzed by skepticism and doubt, we leave having found the Truth. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man comes to the Father but by me," said Jesus. We come to Jesus paralyzed by sadness, we leave with joy. "These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full." We come to Jesus paralyzed by the fear of death, we leave with the assurance of life everlasting.

When the scribes heard Jesus say, "My son, your sins are forgiven," they objected saying, "Why does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" The scribes felt that since only God can forgive sin, Jesus had committed blasphemy. Jesus shows them that He is God by healing the paralytic. "But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins — he said to the paralytic — I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home." We must remember that the scribes believed that no paralytic could get up and walk unless first his sins were forgiven. According to the scribes all sickness was the result of sin, and no sickness could ever be cured until sin was forgiven. Now, if Jesus was able to make this man get up and walk, then that was proof that the man's sins had indeed been forgiven and that Jesus was indeed the God who alone can forgive sin!

"Which is easier," asked Jesus, "to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven' or to say, 'Rise, take up your pallet and walk'?" Which is easier? To forgive or to heal? Archbishop William Temple answered this when he said once, "To create (the world) was easy ... no effort there. 'Let there be light; (said God) and there was light. But to convert hearts like ours from the self-centeredness which is natural to them into love which is God's own nature … that costs the agony and the bloody sweat and the death (of God) upon the cross." Indeed, which is easier?

"Rise, take up your pallet and walk!" The world will always say, "You made your bed and now you must lie in it;" but there is One greater than the world who says to every penitent sinner, "Take up thy bed and walk. Thy sins are forgiven."

"Why does this man speak thus? … Who can forgive sins but God alone?" ask the scribes. But the paralytic knew. Here in Christ is God! So the people "were all amazed and glorified God, saying, 'We never saw anything like this!"

Through the power of the same Christ, we, too, can rise from a paralyzed mind, a paralyzed soul, a paralyzed spirit and walk into a new life, a life of wholeness and health. We, too, can glorify God, saying, "I never saw anything like this. I never dreamed anything like this joy, this peace, this forgiveness, could be possible!"

God's Great Plus Sign (St Mark 8:34-9:1).

The third Sunday of Lent is dedicated to the Adoration of the Holy Cross. During the liturgy the cross is carried from the altar on a tray of flowers and placed in the midst of the congregation that we may pay homage to the symbol of our salvation. When the priest bows down before the cross today, he bows not to wood or metal but to Christ and His great love, of which the cross is but a symbol. The beautiful flowers surrounding the cross signify the fragrance, sweetness and beauty that it has added to life.

Today we shall talk briefly about the meaning the cross can have in our daily lives.

A little girl had arrived at the point in her schooling where she was studying the mysteries of mathematics. She was deeply impressed with division signs, multiplication signs, minus signs and plus signs. On the Sunday after she had learned about plus signs, she noticed the cross behind the church altar which she had seen many times before. But this time it deeply impressed her and she whispered to her father, "Daddy! What is the plus sign doing behind the altar?"

The girl's question was a natural one but far more perceptive than she realized. In a profound sense the cross is God's great plus sign.

The cross means that man does not have to rely solely on his own resources. He can have the great plus of God's power. God has placed tremendous power in nature. In one glass of water there is enough energy to propel a ship across the Atlantic Ocean. Shall the God who placed such power in nature refuse His children when they come to Him in weakness seeking strength? If Jesus taught us anything about God, He taught us that He is a God who grants strength to the weak. Man's weakness plus God's strength equals the ability to overcome anything life can place before us.

To a man burdened and cast down by an overwhelming sense of guilt, feeling that he can never be forgiven, that he can never again look God or man in the face, the Cross brings the great plus of God's forgiveness. "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," prayed Jesus from the Cross. And St. Paul writes, "God showed his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). If the most difficult person to forgive is oneself, then the fact that God has forgiven and accepted us, will help us forgive ourselves. If He accepts us, then we can learn to accept ourselves. Sinful man plus God's great mercy equals salvation, wholeness, peace with God and self.

Plus power. Plus forgiveness. Thirdly, plus newness of life. The addition of Christ to man's life is not "simple addition," like adding one apple to one apple and getting two apples. It is more like adding hydrogen to oxygen and getting a totally new substance — water. As St. Paul put it, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all old things become new." He who is "in Christ" has a new center for life; and Christ Himself gets a new, unique expression in the world through a life that has never been here before and will never be here again. Man plus Christ equals new life, new meaning, new goals, new values, a totally new person.

Plus power. Plus forgiveness. Plus newness of life. Fourthly, plus eternal life. The greatest minus sign in life before Christ came was death. Christ took this minus sign and crossed it out by his resurrection turning it into life's great plus sign: "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive" (I Cor. 15:20-22). "He who believes in me," said Jesus, "though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:25). Dying man plus Christ equals life everlasting in a place where "eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it ever entered into the heart of man what things God has prepared for those who love him" (Paul).

Plus power. Plus forgiveness. Plus newness of life. Plus eternal life. Fifthly, plus God's love. The Cross is a very eloquent sign and symbol. It is a pledge that God will go to the uttermost for us; He will never wash His hands of us or leave us to perish. The Cross speaks: it says, this is how much God loves and cares. He cares so much that He gives His only Son to die for our sins. It says again, greater love hath no man than this. It speaks of the limitless love of God which will not cease to love even when crucified. Erase the Cross from our lives and we are left with no assurance that man is worth more than a doornail. Erase the Cross and the heart of the universe remains cold and closed. But with the Cross we can sing with St. Paul: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities … nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:35-39).

Plus power. Plus forgiveness. Plus newness of life. Plus eternal life. Plus God's love. Sixthly, man plus Christ equals the promise of ultimate victory. St. Paul writes in Colossians, "On that cross he (Jesus) despoiled the cosmic powers and authorities … ; he made a public spectacle of them and led them as captives in his triumphal procession" (Col. 2:15 NEB). In our Orthodox faith the Cross is never viewed apart from the Resurrection. Christian faith sees in the Cross of Christ a death-struggle with all the forces of evil and sees in the Resurrection their ultimate and final defeat. Man plus Christ equals ultimate victory. "Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Cor. 15:57).

There are two kinds of people in life — the plus people and the minus people. Those whose symbol is the minus sign never add to anyone's happiness. Rather, they take away. When they leave your company, you feel poorer in faith, poorer in love, poorer in hope. But thank God there is another group of people — God's people — the people of the Cross, the people who live by faith in the Son of God, the plus people. The Bible calls them "the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world" and "the aroma of Christ." They add to life: courage, faith, love, hope, peace, joy.

So today on the Feast of the Adoration of the Holy Cross as we look at God's great plus sign beautifully decorated with flowers we are reminded that:

1. Man need not be alone in his problems and troubles. He can have the great plus of God's presence, His love and care.

2. Sinful man plus God's mercy equals forgiveness.

3. Confused man plus Christ equals new purpose, new meaning, a totally new person.

4. Guilt-ridden man plus Christ equals "the peace of God that passes all understanding."

5. Dying man plus faith in Christ equals eternal life with God in heaven.

6. Weak man plus Christ equals strength. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," testifies St. Paul.

7. Despairing man plus Christ equals hope — a hope that says, "You need not stay the way you are. You, just as you are, plus God's redeeming power, equal the person you were meant to be, the person about whom God can say one day, "This is my beloved son or daughter, in whom I am well pleased."

Lord, as we come to reverence your Cross today we reverence not wood or metal but the symbol of the greatest victory mankind has ever known — your victory over sin and death; a victory in which we all share through Baptism and faith; a victory which has changed the great minus signs of life into plus signs, a victory which makes each Christian a plus person in the world adding light where there is darkness, love where there is hate, hope where there is despair, a cup of cold water where there is thirst, and a piece of bread where there is hunger. Amen.

Whenever we wish to win people to a cause, a party or club, we put the best foot forward. We point out the advantages they would gain should they join our group.

When Jesus wanted people to follow Him He used no such bait. On the contrary, His invitation to them was: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me."

"…let him deny himself." Let us say something about this life of ours. One of the big troubles we have with the self is that it is always with us. We cannot get away from it. If we have a disagreeable neighbor, we can move away from him. But we can never move away from ourselves. If we go to the uttermost parts of the earth, we take ourselves along. And this is the cause of a lot of misery to people who go on vacations to faraway places to "get away from it all."

To escape themselves, many people turn to drink and sex. The trouble with these is that the escape is only temporary. After we have gotten drunk and indulged ourselves to excess, the self, with which we still have to live, becomes less desirable to live with. We come to hate ourselves even more.

What then does one do with oneself? Many answers have been given. The man bent on pleasure says, "Enjoy yourself!" The teacher says, "Educate yourself!" The artist says, "Express yourself!" The philosopher says, "Know yourself!" Christ says, "Deny yourself!"

Deny yourself? Is not this a sort of spiritual suicide? to destroy the personality? How can it be God’s will that we destroy the self which He Himself h