All this, which happened to the blind Bartimaeus, is happening to this day with many spiritually blind people, when their spiritual sight returns to them. Then they follow Christ and do not want to see anything else. Then they glorify God and do not want to glorify anything else.

Oh, what a huge hospital this world is! And the largest number of patients in this hospital are blind. And the only Physician in this hospital is our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how dusty is the Jericho road of this world, and what a gloomy crowd hurries along this road! And after these people goes the only one who is able to grant sight to all the blind. This is our Lord Jesus Christ. And a certain bodily blind man, Bartimaeus, was standing that time in the midst of a crowd of spiritual blind men. This ratio remains true to this day. And today the number of bodily blind people is unusually small in comparison with the huge number of spiritual blind people, for whom bodily blind people serve only as a living reminder, a living image and a living diagnosis. But the more the number of spiritually blind people increases, the more the number of those who are physically blind increases. European culture can hide all the physically blind in hospitals, but it cannot reduce their number. She can shut them up within four walls so that the world does not see them, but so much the worse for the world! In this case, the innumerable spiritual blind will no longer be able to see the picture of their souls on the corners of city streets and at the crossroads of village roads, and read the diagnosis of their spiritual illness.

Coming from Jericho to Jerusalem, our Lord Jesus Christ was killed by the spiritual blind, Herod, Pilate, Caiaphas and a blind crowd of elders and scribes. But the tomb barely restrained Him for three days - and was forced to let Him go. He commanded the earth to release Him from the tomb, as He had commanded blindness to leave the eyes of Bartimaeus. And His tomb became a bright eye for the whole world. The Lord has risen, and the Living One walks even now – invisible to the bodily but visible to the spiritual human eyes – along the dusty road of this world, waiting for some blind man to cry out to him for help: Lord Jesus, have mercy on me! He is ready to have mercy on everyone - it is only necessary to call upon Him - as He had mercy on Bartimaeus. And everyone who has received spiritual sight from Him will follow Him and glorify God. Honor and glory to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the One-in-Essence and Indivisible Trinity, now and ever, at all times and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Thirty-second Sunday after Pentecost. The Gospel of the Repentant Zacchaeus

Luke, 94 rec., 19:1-10.

Whoever wants to see Christ must rise high above nature in spirit, for Christ is above nature. A high mountain is easier to see from a hill than from a plain. Zacchaeus was small in stature, but, seized with a desire to see Christ, he climbed a high tree.

Whoever wants to meet Christ must be purified, for he meets the Holy of Holies. Zacchaeus was stained with love of money and hardness of heart, but when he met Christ, he hastened to purify himself by repentance and works of mercy.

Repentance is the abandonment of all the paths of debauchery by which man's feet, thoughts and desires have walked, and turning to a new path, the path of Christ. But how can a sinful person repent when he has not yet met God in his heart and is not ashamed of himself? Before the small Zacchaeus saw Christ with his eyes, he met Him in his heart and was ashamed of all his ways.

Repentance is the pain of self-deception, with which a sinful person has been lulling himself for a long time, for a long, long time, namely, until the moment when he feels the pain of self-deception. But this pain itself leads to despair and suicide, if shame and fear of God are not associated with it. Only then is this pain from self-deception not fatal, but healing. Blessed Augustine at first felt the fatal pain of self-deception, which would have killed both his soul and body, if it had not been quickly overtaken by the shame and fear of God.

Repentance is an unexpected vision of one's leprosy and a cry for a remedy and a doctor. When a dark-haired man does not look at himself in the mirror for a long time, then suddenly stands in front of him - and he is all gray! A sinner who has not repented thinks for a long time and asserts that his soul is healthy and sinless, until one day his spiritual sight suddenly erupts and he sees that his soul is all leprosy. But how to see your spiritual leprosy without looking in the mirror? Christ is the mirror in which everyone sees himself as he is. This is the only mirror given to mankind, so that all people look into it and see what they are. For in Christ, as in the purest mirror, everyone sees himself sick and ugly, and still sees his beautiful original image, as he was and as he should become again. And the sinful Zacchaeus, healthy and visible on the outside, having learned about our Lord Jesus Christ, discovered in himself a terrible leper and terrible pain, for which there was no physician on earth except Jesus.

Repentance is the beginning of healing from self-will, the beginning of submitting oneself to God's will. Living according to his own will, a person quickly slides from his royal dignity into a cattle barn and into an animal hole. No man on earth has ever been able to act according to his own will and remain a man. The name of a person does not mean self-will; the name of man, true man, signifies complete obedience to the higher will, the far-sighted and infallible will of God.

In the houses of madness and weeping dwell the willful, in the houses of utter darkness and gnashing of teeth. Their body is darkness and gnashing of teeth; their soul is weeping and gnashing of teeth Self-will opens the gates for the undying worm, which gnaws at the sinner's soul and body. Repentance is the discovery of a worm in oneself. Alas for me, when I managed to breed so many worms! Alas for me, who will free me from so many abominable worms that dwell in me! Thus cries the terrified sinner when his eyes are opened and he sees what lives in him.

Today's Gospel reading describes one of the repentant sinners, the small Zacchaeus, who ascended to the heights to see the Most High Christ; who was cleansed by repentance in order to meet the Most-Pure Christ; and who was healed of the leprosy of his soul, love of money and hardness of heart by the power of Christ the Almighty. The Lord turned many sinners to repentance, many who were lost He found and saved; He called many who had gone astray and returned them to the true path. But it pleased Providence that only a few examples of repentance should be recorded in the Gospel, those that are typical and instructive for all human generations. The example of the Apostle Peter shows the fall repeated because of fear from people and the repentance repeated because of God's love. The example of a sinful woman shows the leprosy of fornication and the healing of this leprosy. The example of Zacchaeus shows the leprosy of the love of money and the healing of this leprosy. The example of the thief who repented on the cross shows the power and salvific repentance of the most hardened criminals even in the hour of death. These are all encouraging examples of repentance leading to life. All these are models of repentance shown to us so that we can choose the path and method of our own salvation that corresponds to our sinful state. But there is also repentance that is destructive and deadly, hopeless and suicidal. Such was the repentance of Judas the traitor. I have sinned, betraying the innocent Blood, - he said, went out, went and hanged myself (Matthew 27:4-5). Such repentance, which leads to despair and suicide, is not Christian blessed repentance, but satanic malice against oneself, against the world and life; satanic abhorrence of oneself, the world and life. However, let us dwell today on the wondrous example of the salvific repentance of the small Zacchaeus, which is told in today's Gospel.

At the time of it, Jesus entered Jericho and passed through it. And behold, a man named Zacchaeus, the chief of the publicans, and a rich man, sought to see Jesus who he was, but he could not follow the people, because he was small in stature, and running ahead, he climbed into a fig tree to see him, because he had to pass by it. This was at the time when the Lord performed another miracle in Jericho, namely, when He restored the sight of the blind Bartimaeus. For what the Lord did to Zacchaeus is a miracle, hardly less than the healing of the blind man. Bartimaeus He opened his bodily eyes, and this Zacchaeus his spiritual eyes. Bartimaeus he cured of the blindness of the eyes, and Zacchaeus of the blindness of the soul. He opened the windows for Bartimaeus so that he could see the miracles of God in the material world, and He opened a window for Zacchaeus to see the miracles of God in the heavenly, spiritual world. The miracle of Zacchaeus is interpreted as the miracle of Bartimaeus. The acquisition of bodily sight should serve to the acquisition of spiritual sight. Each miracle performed by our Lord Jesus Christ had first of all a spiritual purpose, consisting mainly in giving spiritual sight to blinded humanity, so that it might see the presence of God, the power of God and the mercy of God. This goal is partially achieved, for example, in the healing of the ten lepers; for only one of them, having been healed bodily, was healed in soul and returned to give thanks to the Lord (Luke 17:12-20). But in the case of the blind Bartimaeus, as in most others, this goal has been fully achieved. Having seen the word of the Lord with his bodily eyes, Bartimaeus immediately received his sight in his spirit, for he immediately knew the presence of God, the omnipotence of God and the mercy of God - and he immediately received his sight and followed Him, glorifying God (Luke 18:43). And not only did the blind Bartimaeus receive his sight, but, seeing the miracle performed by the Lord on the blind Bartimaeus, many others also regained their sight in spirit; for it is said, And all the people, seeing this, gave praise to God. Probably, this miracle also influenced the publican Zacchaeus, opening his spiritual eyes. There is also no doubt that he must have heard much before about the wondrous deeds and wondrous personality of our Lord Jesus Christ, since such an irresistible desire to see Him arose in him that in order to realize it, Zacchaeus had to push forward through the crowd of people who were taller than him, and even climb a tree. The tax collectors were considered very sinful and unclean people, since while levying a state tax from the people, they mercilessly engaged in extortion in their own favor. Therefore the publicans were equated with the pagans (Matt. 18:17). And if the publicans had such a bad reputation in general, what kind of reputation did one of their leaders have? And one of these notorious leaders of the publicans was this small Zacchaeus. He was the chief of the publicans and was a rich man, that is, he was despised and envied. Contempt and envy are always two closely spaced walls, between which the soul of a rich sinner squeezes in this life. But in the sinner Zacchaeus the man Zacchaeus awoke, who rebelled against the sinner in himself and with all his might rushed forward and upward in order to see Christ, to see Man without sin, to see his unstained, all-pure type. So, the man Zacchaeus climbed onto a high, branchy and gnarled fig tree near the road along which the Lord was supposed to pass.