"O John! Thy life was indeed filled with sorrow, but thy death is honorable, thy grave is glorious, thy reward is many," — thus contemporaries evaluated the life of the saint immediately after his departure. And how shall we evaluate this truly great life in God 1585 years after its completion, if to this day we go to the springs of living water, led by his teaching, by his word?

And if the example of Zacchaeus the publican is the beginning of the sinner's conversion to God, then the great Chrysostom, with all his life, his death, and his life after death, left a perfect example of how to live with God and how it is possible and necessary to attain the likeness of God by life, to attain holiness, in order to live eternally both on earth and in heaven.

But let us begin our conversation with the first steps, with an appeal to God. Let us begin to talk about Zacchaeus the publican, for, like him, many people still wander along the crossroads of life in the darkness of life's fog, looking here and there, led by illusory goals, far from God.

The passion for gain and wealth, voluptuousness, the desire for any fame, even if it is not good, but the glory that distinguishes from the general mass, from the crowd — this is the lot of many. Do we not recognize ourselves in this hustle and bustle, in this human vanity?

Here is also Zacchaeus the publican, famous for his unrighteous wealth and humiliated by the universal contempt of both the rich and the poor. The crowd thirsts for bread and circuses, and it is around Christ, but its curiosity only glances at Him and, passing by, fades away, absorbed by worldly cares and addictions. And the curiosity of Zacchaeus is stung by rumors about the Righteous and Wonderworker, Who does not disdain either lepers or sinners. And Zacchaeus wants to see the incredible, the unheard-of – A man who knows how to love.

Zacchaeus takes the first step. He gets out of the crowd. He runs ahead of her and, forgetting himself, forgetting who he is by position, by age, does the unseen, he climbs a tree, rises above the ground. A small, important, already elderly man, not taking into account how he looks in the eyes of others, Zacchaeus climbs up. And at the same moment, wanting to see Man – Christ, he meets Christ – God. ... Come down quickly, for today I must be in your house," Zacchaeus hears the words of the Savior addressed to him, words that reward his initial efforts (Luke 19:5).

My dears, a miracle happened in the life of Zacchaeus! The miracle of the soul's meeting with God! And in our time this is the most obvious, the most real miracle that takes place every day, which many of us ourselves experienced at the moment of our conversion to God.

Nowadays people often talk about visions and revelations as if they were a miracle, trying to affirm their faith in this way, but they forget that this can be, and most often is, just the charm of demons and the enemy's intrigues against a person who dares to resist the spirit of the times. But the fact that modern man, who has grown up and been brought up without God, comes to the Church, where the Lord meets him with the words: ... today I must be with you... now... the salvation of this house... — this is not an imaginary, but a real miracle (Luke 19:5-9). And how many more such miracles of God, which make up our religious experience, our life in God, will the Lord reveal to us. We must learn to see and keep every tangible touch of God, and only this will give us firmness in faith.

And Zacchaeus, shocked by the miracle, seemed to burn in grateful self-surrender to the Lord. “... God! half of the estate... I will give to the poor, and if I have wronged anyone in any way, I will repay fourfold" (Luke 19:8). This is the next step towards God, from which his new life, life in God, began. Thus Zacchaeus followed Christ on the path of salvation.

Here we are in the Church, and the miracle of meeting Christ in the lives of many of us has already taken place. But have we taken our next step after Christ, have not our souls become dead again, have we not given ourselves over to small acquisitions and addictions?

Or perhaps the soul sighs, but only in self-gratifying fuss and swarming within itself, around itself, again paralyzed by the earth, and, rejecting the truth of God, it seeks its own truth.

Yes, the first zeal for God, born of an encounter with Him, gradually weakens. And a person who aspires to God begins to feel that his steps after Christ are becoming heavier and heavier, and the yoke of Christ, good and light, which we have not felt before, is oppressing us like a burden, bending us to the ground. And so we want to throw off this burden of commandments, even to violate faithfulness to dogmas, but the world and the crowd begin to especially press the convert, and the devil, remembering our first love for him, approaches us with a multitude of temptations.

In this state, so often many give up in bewilderment, and the tyrannical power of sorrow crushes everything in our lives, erasing even the very bright memory of God's grace, of God's mercy to us. Only one question then drills into the consciousness: "Why did the light fade, how did that which seemed to be enough for the whole life disappear?"

And after all, notice, my dear, many in this first period of the invasion of sorrow with even greater effort and even with a kind of frenzy intensify external work, external feats. But alas! The external and internal life is crushed more and more, and often the person returns to the former, and sometimes even worse, way of life. Why?