When Jesus came to this place, he looked at him and said to him, "Zacchaeus! come down quickly, for today I must be in your house. And he came down hastily and received Him with joy. From these words it is clear that it was not Zacchaeus who first saw the Lord, but the Lord of Zacchaeus. The Saviour, looking, saw him and called him. With His spiritual sight the Lord had seen Zacchaeus much earlier, and with His bodily eyes He saw him when He came to this place. And although the small Zacchaeus got out of the mass of people and climbed a fig tree, yet the Lord noticed him from the ground and from the crowd of people before he saw the Lord from the height of the tree. Oh, how shrewd is the Lord our God! He sees us even when we do not even know about it. While we seek Him, making every possible effort to find Him and see Him, He stands beside us and looks at us. He always sees us before we see him. If we were to fix our mind's eye on Him, seeking Him, only desiring Him, then He would appear to us and call us by name, so that we, too, would descend from the high and dangerous rocks of carnal wisdom and descend into our hearts - descend with a prayerful mind into our hearts - into our true home. Then the Lord would say to each of us: today I need to be in your house. For when the human mind descends into the heart and, having been washed in tears in the heart, reaches out to the Living God, then the heart becomes the place where God meets man. This is the inner or spiritual meaning of this event.

And he came down hastily and received Him with joy. How can one not hasten to the voice that revives the dead and rebukes the winds, heals the possessed and dissolves the petrified hearts of sinners with tears? How could he not accept Him whom he wished to see, at least stealthily from afar? And how can one not experience inexpressible joy when seeing Him in one's home, into which no one dared to set foot except the feet of inveterate sinners? But this is how the Lord has mercy when He has mercy. This is how the Lord bestows when He gives. Desperate fishermen are so overflowing with the net that it breaks through, thousands of hungry people in a desert place are fed so abundantly that many baskets of pieces remain; to the sick who ask for help, He grants health not only physically, but also spiritually; Everywhere He forgives royal gestures, royal mercy and royal generosity of gifts! So it is in this case: Zacchaeus only wants to see Him, and He does not just allow him to see Himself, but hurries to be the first to turn to Zacchaeus, and even enters under the roof of his house. This is what the Lord does. And here is how ordinary sinful people, self-satisfied and self-styled "righteous" do:

And everyone, seeing this, began to murmur, and said that He had come to a sinful man. Oh, the unspeakable misfortune of man is a language that outstrips the mind! Embittered in soul and paralyzed in mind, these people shout, mock and murmur before reflecting on the intention of our Lord Jesus Christ and on the possible change in the heart of the sinful Zacchaeus. According to their brief thoughts, our Lord Jesus Christ enters the house of Zacchaeus because of ignorance of the sins of this man. Thus the Pharisees judged short-sightedly, when the Lord allowed a sinful woman to wash His feet – if He had been a prophet, He would have known who and what kind of woman touches Him, for she is a sinner (Luke 7:39). This is how all those people judged and judge today who think with the carnal mind and evaluate others by their outward appearance, not knowing the depth of either God's mercy or the human heart. Christ said more than once that He came into this world for the sake of sinners, and most of all for the sake of the greatest sinners. And just as a physician hastens to visit not the healthy, but the sick, so the Lord hastened to visit not the healthy with righteousness, but the sick with sin. The Gospel does not say that the Lord in this case entered the house of some righteous man of Jericho, but He hastened to turn into the house of the sinful Zacchaeus. Does not every reasonable physician act in the same way when he enters a hospital? Does he not first hurry to the beds of the most seriously ill patients? The whole earth is a huge hospital, overflowing with the sick infected with sin. All people are sick in comparison with the health of Christ; all are weak in comparison with the omnipotence of Christ; all are ugly in comparison with Christ's beauty. But among people there are more and less seriously ill, there are more and less infirm, more and less ugly. The former are called righteous, the latter sinners. And the Heavenly Physician, having descended to earth not to entertain himself, but to urgently treat and save the plagued, first of all hastened to help the most seriously ill. Therefore He ate and drank with sinners; therefore He allowed sinners to weep at His feet; and therefore He entered under the roof of the sinful Zacchaeus. But, however, this Zacchaeus, at the moment when he met Christ, was far from being the most plagued man in Jericho. His heart suddenly changed, and at that moment he truly became a much healthier, stronger, and more beautiful righteous man than all these murmurers and scoffers. For he repented of all his sins, and his heart was suddenly changed. And that his heart has changed, is shown by what follows:

And Zacchaeus, standing up, said to the Lord, Lord! I will give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have wronged anyone in any way, I will repay fourfold. Who demanded this from him? No one. Who accused him of kidnapping someone else's property? No one. The very presence of the all-pure and sinless Lord Zacchaeus felt as an accusation against himself, and this very presence, without words, confession and explanations, prompted him to take such a step. A repentant heart understands God without words. To the repentant, God quickly reveals what to do next. As soon as a person heartily repents of his sin, God immediately prompts him by His power to create the fruits of repentance. Even St. John the Baptist showed people a whole method of true repentance. First he called people to repentance: repent. And immediately after this: "Bring forth the worthy fruit of repentance" (Matt. 3:2-8)! And here is a sinner who hastily studied this method and applied it! Only when he heard about our Lord Jesus Christ, Zacchaeus rebelled against himself, seeing Him, he sincerely abhorred his sinfulness; and now, when the Most Gracious Physician has shown him such attention and entered his house, he bears the fruits of repentance. He knows his main disease and immediately applies the main remedy for this disease. The illness of Zacchaeus is the love of money; the remedy for it is mercy. Even in ancient times it was said: "He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver" (Ecclesiastes 5:9). Zacchaeus loved silver and spent his entire life accumulating it in all ways, most of them sinful. This is a disease that irrevocably draws a person into the abyss. This is fire, the more it flares up, the more wealth increases. There is no amount of money that can satiate the covetous. Just as fire cannot say: "Do not put any more wood in me, enough is enough of me!" - so the passion of love of money cannot utter the words: "Enough!" It can only be quenched by the presence of God, which instills in the human heart shame and fear, and in addition to shame and fear, also the knowledge of what is greater than silver and gold. Without the presence of Christ, Zacchaeus would have lived out his sinful life, like all other publicans, would have died despised and cursed - and would have been forgotten. His name would never have been inscribed in the gospel on earth and in the Book of the Living in heaven. But the presence of the Living God revived his soul, which had been previously mortified by the passion of love of money, and made him a new man, reborn and resurrected from the dead. This is an immortal lesson to all people, teaching that no mortal can be saved from his sinful illness without the help of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But look at the way Zacchaeus confesses his sin. He does not say: "Lord, I am a sinful man!" and does not say: "My illness is the love of money!" No, but by bringing forth the fruits of repentance, he himself confesses both his sin and his illness. Half of my possessions I will give to the poor. Is this not a clear confession of one's passion for covetousness? And if I have offended anyone in any way, I will repay fourfold. And is this not a clear confession that his wealth was acquired by sinful means? He did not say to the Lord before this: "I have sinned and I repent!" He silently confessed this to the Lord in his heart, and the Lord silently accepted his confession and his repentance. For the Lord, it is more important that a person with his heart, and not with his tongue, recognize and confess his illness and cry out for help. For the tongue can lie, but the heart does not lie. Now look at how Zacchaeus atones for his sin and what efforts he makes on his part to come out into the light from the shadow cast by the accursed passion of the love of money! He immediately promises to give half of his property to the poor - he, who admired every coin he received and hid it away from people's eyes; He, who never knew the bliss of giving! But that's not all. He tries with all his might to correct and make amends for the offenses inflicted on people and offers to repay fourfold to everyone from whom he has taken something unjustly. The law of Moses deals much more leniently with sinners than this Zacchaeus did with himself. In the law of Moses it is said: "If a man or a woman commits any sin against a man, and thereby commits a crime against the Lord, and that soul is guilty, then let them confess their sin which they have committed, and restore in full that of which they are guilty, and add to it a fifth, and give it to him against whom they have sinned" (Num. 5:6-7). This was prescribed for those who confessed their sin. Zacchaeus, confessing his sin, thus had to return to everyone offended by him according to the law as much as he had taken away, and in addition another fifth of this amount. But Zacchaeus treats himself more harshly than the law; he wants to apply to himself the provision of the law that applied to thieves and swindlers who do not confess their sins, but are caught in the act; he wants to repay those whom he has offended fourfold (Exodus 22:10). Thus, everyone who truly repents becomes merciful to others and unmerciful to himself.

Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is the son of Abraham." Such was the answer of our Lord Jesus Christ to the small Zacchaeus to his heartfelt repentance, to his spiritual joy and to the fruits of repentance that had been shown. The next and final words: "For the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost" were Christ's answer to the short-sighted sages and murmurers who blamed the Lord for having come into the house of a sinful man. As they walked along the street to the house of Zacchaeus; while they grumbled and were indignant at this indecent visitation, the Savior was silent and waited. What was He waiting for? He waited for the hearts of the inhumane grumblers and the heart of the repentant Zacchaeus to be fully opened; He allowed the demon of their malice to reach the pinnacle of rejoicing, so that his defeat would be clearer and more obvious to all. Such is the tactics of God's victory. God is never in a hurry to show evil its weakness and His strength when it first encounters it, but waits until it is lifted up in its arrogance to the clouds, so that evil can be destroyed by the breath of His mouth alone. Evil is so insignificant in comparison with the power of God that if God did not allow evil to grow as much as it can grow, in order to intervene later with His power, people would never realize the greatness of God's power. Having granted freedom to both hellish and earthly forces on Golgotha, the Almighty immediately showed both hell and earth His unheard-of power through His Resurrection. The Lord uses the same method in this case with Zacchaeus. He calmly goes to the house of Zacchaeus; the shouters shout, the murmurers murmur, the mockers mock, but He is silent and walks. He enters the house of Zacchaeus; the self-styled "righteous" remain outside the sinner's house for fear of getting dirty; And again the shouters continue to shout even louder, the murmurers murmur and the mockers mock. Thus the triumph of malice reaches its climax. All those who shout, murmur, and mock are already convinced that they are absolutely right and Christ is wrong; that they know the sinner Zacchaeus well, but Christ does not know him; that they firmly follow the law, and that Christ broke the law by crossing the threshold of the sinner's house; that they do not allow themselves to be deceived, and Christ was deceived! Hence the logical conclusion for them that Christ is not a true teacher, prophet or Messiah; for if He had been all these things, or any of them, He would have known who Zacchaeus was, and would not have come under his roof. And it means: "We, the people of Jericho, have caught Jesus Christ in a trap today, and now we will save the world from the great self-deception that He is the Messiah and the Son of God!" This is their victory. This is the exaltation of evil to the clouds. And at the same time, Zacchaeus grows, becoming more and more kind and a newer person. And the Lord, looking less at the hypocritical and malicious crowd than at the renewal of Zacchaeus' heart, stands quietly and waits until everything is done, and then the time will come for Him to speak. And when malice rises to the clouds, when all the hard mold falls from the old heart of the sinner, then Zacchaeus opens his mouth and pronounces before everyone the words, unexpected for everyone except Christ: "I will give half of my possessions to the poor." Was it not thunder that suddenly dispersed the haughty cloud? Why are you suddenly silent now, people of Jericho? Why don't you shout, murmur, and mock anymore? Why are the words stuck in your throat? Who was deceived: Christ or you? Who knew Zacchaeus better: you or Christ? Who is the greater righteous now, you or Zacchaeus?

How merciful and meek is the Lord! Like a gentle lamb, this time He stands among people embittered by invisible wolves. And how calm and confident He is in His victory, now as always! How calmly He waits in the wings! And when His time comes, He first turns to the sick man, for whose sake He turned off the road to his house: now salvation has come to this house. With these words, the Heavenly Physician gives the patient a certificate that he has recovered and is ready to join the healthy people upon discharge from the hospital. Blindness had fallen from his soul, as it had been from the eyes of Bartimaeus, and now he was free to walk the path of truth and mercy. But in order to make this reference more understandable to everyone standing around, the Lord also adds: because he is also the son of Abraham. A true son of Abraham, in spirit and truth, and not only in name and blood, like others, who boasted of their descent from Abraham only in name and blood! Abraham was philanthropic, stranger-loving, non-acquisitive, meek and filled with the fear of God, faith and joy in the Holy Spirit. This is how the short Zacchaeus became. Abraham, for his lofty virtues, was vouchsafed to become the spiritual ancestor of all the righteous. That is why Zacchaeus, through repentance, becomes his true descendant, his son in spirit. The Lord announces this to Zacchaeus for consolation, and to his accusers for reflection. And again He declares last: For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. That is: to seek out precisely those sinners whom no one seeks, but everyone repels, and to save precisely those whom both the world and they themselves consider lost. For the Great Podvig descended from heaven in order to save not so much those who had a slight cold, as the lepers and the blind, the demon-possessed and the paralytic, and in order to raise the dead who were in the graves. In another place the Lord says: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Matt. 9:13; 1 Timothy 1:15). O brethren, do you know that this word also applies to us? Do you know that we too are sinners, for whose sake the Lord the Podvig descended to earth? His ineffable love for us brought Him down from heaven to earth, to seek out what was lost and to save sinners. Oh, look at little Zacchaeus, whom his desire to see the Lord made great. Behold, even now Christ draws near to us, as He once did to Zacchaeus, surrounded by masses of people, innumerable masses of both righteous and murmuring. The whole of human history, consisting of a two-thousand-year hum behind Him and around Him, bends over us. Don't you hear the hubbub and humming? It's all the past rushing towards you and next to you. And in the center of the multi-million crowd walks the humble Lord and Savior. Hurry, climb up to the heights to see the Lord. Everything else, past and present, is not so worthy of the view. Rise above the muddy road that you have been wandering so far, climb a high tree: He will certainly pass by. Oh, blessed is he who is called by the sweetest voice, the sweetness of which even the angels revel in!

Truly, repentance is the first step of the ladder that leads to the Kingdom of God. No one could ever step on the second step without first stepping on this first one. In the emptiness of this life, repentance is the first and only true knock at the heavenly door. You can bang your fists on the walls of a house as much as you want: no one will hear you and no one will open you. But knock on the door, and it will be opened for you. Repentance is not a knock on the wall, but on the true door that leads to light and salvation. Whoever sincerely repented and wished to enter the house of his Heavenly Father, has already knocked at the only gate through which it is possible to enter this house.

The love of money blinds, only Christ gives sight to the blind. The love of money makes a person lonely and binds him with the chains of slavery; Christ brings the lonely man out of his solitude and brings him into the assembly of angels, and unchains the slave, and makes him free. And to all who repent, who have risen to see Him, He reveals Himself; and to whom He appears, all the mysteries of Heaven and earth, and all the innumerable and everlasting treasures which God has prepared for those who love Him from the creation of the world, are revealed and made manifest. To our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in this is due honor and glory, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, One-in-Essence and Indivisible, now and ever, at all times and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

The Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos. The Gospel of the Archangel Gabriel

Luke, 3 rec., 1:24-38.

The sun is reflected in clear waters, and the sky is reflected in a pure heart.

There are many abodes with God the Holy Spirit in this vast universe, but the pure heart of man is the abode of His greatest joy. It is His true abode, all the rest are only His workshops.

The human heart can never be empty, it is always filled: either with hell, or with peace, or with God. The content of the heart depends on the purity of the heart.