Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory to God. In the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen. I've been a priest long enough
that I could probably share on this Forgiveness
Sunday edifying and some humorous stories as
well about forgiving and lack of forgiving. But
that's really not what we need, illustrations
and stories. What I want to give you is some
meat, something to think about this week. Let's
start with where we have been. For the last several
weeks, the Gospels we have heard on Sunday morning
have presented to us events and parables with
two categories. Tax collector, the Pharisee.
Prodigal son, the older brother. The sheep at
the judgment and the goats. Today, those who
forgive, opening their heart to receive God and
their neighbor, and those who do not forgive.
All this has been given to us. So that we can
meditate on the path we need to take. To find
ourselves in those stories somewhere. We're there
someplace. And to remember that in each of them
it is the mercy of God that saves. These weeks
we've had this extended lesson. These two categories
and what the Lord our God sort of like gave to
Moses. To say to the people. I call heaven and
earth to record this day against you, that I
have set before you life and death, blessing
and cursing. Therefore, choose life, that both
thou and thy seed, thy children, descendants,
may live. That thou mayest love the Lord thy
God, and thou mayest obey his voice, and that
thou will cleave unto him, for he is thy life.
to our sorrow and hurt. Many of us keep looking
for a third way, somewhere between life and death,
and unfortunately we find it all too often. Lent
is the time when we recalculate, and I'll use
the word reorient ourself. The orient is the
east. We turn to Christ. So we're on the threshold
of Great Lent right now, and the church wants
us to begin at the beginning. So last week we
meditated on the end, on judgment, on the glorious
appearance of the Lord in our own place, in that
scene, in that reality that will come to us,
whether at some point in the future or when we
die. Either way, we prepare ourselves now for
it. And this week... We go back to the very beginning.
So last week the end, today the beginning. Back
to Adam and Eve. We call this Sunday Forgiveness
Sunday commonly, but our liturgical books call
it the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise
of delight. And you heard those heart -moving
hymns that the choir sang a few moments ago.
Adam outside of paradise. I'll share with you
the words of St. Silouan, who died in 1938 on
the Holy Mountain. In this poem, Adam's Lament,
which is like the hymns we heard last night,
he writes this. He said, Adam knew great grief
when he was banished from paradise. But when
he saw his son Abel slain by Cain, his brother,
Adam's grief was even heavier. His soul was heavy
and he lamented and thought, peoples and nations
will descend from me and multiply and suffering
will be their lot. And they will live in enmity
and seek to slay one another. And Adam's sorrow
stretched wide as the sea. And only the soul
that has come to know the Lord and the magnitude
of his love for us can understand. Father Silouan
says, I too have lost grace. And I call out with
Adam, be merciful unto me, O Lord. Bestow on
me the spirit of humility and love. That's all
today is about. Let's not imagine, however, whatever
Adam said. And however St. Paul frames through
death. Through one man comes death, but through
Christ, the new Adam, comes life. Let's not imagine
that our world is full of suffering and we are
the victims of Adam. You are not the victim of
Adam. We can't say, things are miserable, I'm
miserable because someone else, Adam, it's his
fault. I would never do that. That's simply not
true. We know Christ. We know the gospel. We
know the saints. We await the resurrection, and
we share in the resurrection and communion at
the divine liturgy and our baptism. We have the
divine liturgy. We have miracles and stories
and icons, and yet we still sin. So it is not
Adam's fault. We may be created in the image
of God, but we act in the likeness of Adam. And
Lent. It's repentance. It's turning away from
that. To be created in the image of God and to
live according to that image. And the good news,
the gospel, the victory news, the news that the
war has been won. And yes, there's skirmishes,
but the war is won. We're celebrating the fact
that God sends his son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
to be the real and final and last Adam who does
not sin. We may, but he does not. We're celebrating
the fact that he has searched us out. And he
has found us. And he forgives us. And he cleanses
us. and he washes us, and he refreshes us, and
renews us, and restores us, and resurrects us
from the dead, and takes us home to the house
of the Father, the church, where we have communion
with one another, and our lives, our relationships,
are restored to the way they're supposed to be,
and we come to paradise again. We start with
the beginning, but we are going to end with paradise
too. And that's our aim now, now as we begin
to enter Lent. Lent is the time for the way back.
So during Lent, we begin the whole season by
remembering our exile by the waters of Babylon.
There we sat down and wept. If I forget thee,
O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither. Let my
tongue cleave in my mouth if I forget thee. We
remember our status, we remember who and what
we are, and we try to be honest with ourself.
And turn that attention from out there, everybody
else's problems, political problems, societal
problems, whatever, and we turn that spotlight.
And what is that spotlight? It's the light of
Christ. And you will hear on Wednesday at the
Presanctified, when I come out of these doors
with the candle, The deacon will say, let us
attend. Command. And I'll say, the light of Christ.
And you will all fall down on your face. Because
the light that shines in the darkness is shining
in our heart of the glory of God. And we can
only fall down in adoration. I'll say, the light
of Christ illumines all. So we see ourselves
in that light today. And we become like him,
especially in the divine act, the divine act,
the act that God gives us to be like him. Father
Zacharias, and that's forgiveness, Father Zacharias
from England says that in order to come into
the living presence of the risen Lord, which
is what Pascha is, there's so many things we
need to die to in this world. We need a heart
enlarged by the grace of God, he says. A heart
free from passions and hatred and lies and sin.
From every form of hatred, a heart free from
evil which resists divine love. A heart where
the light of the humble spirit of Christ has
driven back the black darkness of pride. For
this reason, he says, at the beginning of this
period, the Lord's word to forgive one another
An absolute condition. It's not magic, and it's
not a sudden transformation for us. We will struggle
mightily. The Lord's mercy is not an instantaneous
alteration of our character or wiping out of
our past history. We heard the parable of the
prodigal son. He was given a second chance. He
came home. It wasn't automatically changed because
of it. That guy... has serious struggle ahead
for him if he hopes to remain in the father's
house. So does the older brother. When we hear
these words from the gospel, if you forgive men
their trespasses, your heavenly father will also
forgive you. That sounds good theoretically.
But then we hear, but if you do not forgive men
their trespasses, neither will your father forgive
you. your trespasses, and we hear that as a threat
in our modern ears. Sounds like a threat. How
dare he? He can't know. Yes, he does know your
circumstances. It's not a threat. It's a condition
of reality that without it, our heart cannot
receive any forgiveness. The entire gospel, the
entire Christian faith. is essentially the conviction
that God forgives us. There's plenty of people
who say, well, what does God have to forgive
me for? What have I done? No matter what we do,
however stupid, however silly, however ridiculous,
however obscene, however rebellious, God forgives
us and God loves us. And when we come before
the face of God, we begin to see ourselves because
that light of Christ is shining on us. He relentlessly
loves us. Can we discover that during Lent? God's
love for us. And the sign of his love is that
he forgives us. He sets the sin aside. Think
of the cross. Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do. He didn't say, Father,
forgive them. It's okay. Not a problem. I'll
let it go. Because that's not forgiveness. That's
some kind of psychological game. Forgiveness
is knowing the evil and to expel it and to destroy
it, to kill it, we forgive. That's how evil is
expelled. That's why the cross is so great and
that's why we stand before it in such, not only
adoration, but fear and trembling and the mystery.
of how great God is. He forgives us before we
ask. He forgives us before he even created us.
He created us, forgiving us. Our way to paradise
depends on doing the same for others, not approving
the evil, but defeating it by forgiveness. We've
had so many lessons so far, my dear friends,
to inspire us to give God... all the space in
our heart for a dwelling place and we begin this
season with the prayers of the great forerunner
john the baptist his icon is here today is the
feast of the finding of his precious head of
course you know he was beheaded by herod we have
his prayers as we begin And what does Jesus say
about him? He says, the kingdom of God is taken
by violence and the violent bear it away. The
moment you oppose yourself, you say no to the
simple things, to the hamburger during Lent,
to the mayonnaise, to the cheese, to the whatever,
to this act, to that act, to clicking on this
thing on that screen on your phone. The moment
you say no, that's when the violence starts.
Not by you, but against you. St. John was free.
He was absolutely a man of freedom. Just look
at his life and what he said. Let his example,
let him lead the way for us through Lent. Crying
in the wilderness to us, the wilderness of the
spiritual life here in this world. Let him lead
the way for us as we go weak. by week, by week,
to reach Holy Week and to then participate in
the passion and the suffering and the death of
Christ ourself. In that way, we will participate
in his very resurrection. O Lord, have mercy
on us and lighten our way as we go towards that
feast. To him be glory now and ever, to ages
of ages. Amen.