Tag Archives: Zacchaeus Sunday

Children, Candlemas, and Christ

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In 2025 we had a confluence of celebrations on this Lord’s Day, February 2nd. Though it is not the preeminent liturgical event of the day, I will first mention Zacchaeus Sunday, which is our signal that Lent is coming soon, as our homilist reminded us. He took his sermon from the story of Zacchaeus’s coming to Christ, and asked us to contemplate the circumstances of our own individual conversions, or the time when we began to take seriously the faith that we had been baptized into as children.

A 12-year-old catechumen was sitting next to me on the carpet as Father James began his talk, and I pointed out to him the fresco above us on the south wall of the nave, of this story of Zacchaeus. This one below is not ours, but as with many of these icons, the tax collector whom the Bible describes as “short,” and a Sunday school song tells us was “a wee little man,” is depicted as the size of a child. He climbed up into a tree so that he could get a better look at Jesus.

The children of our parish might have wished they had some trees to climb this weekend, because they had lots of extra wiggles to work out, last night and this morning. The rain has been constant for days now, and that kind of weather always seems to result in this phenomenon. Is it only the lack of outdoor play, or is there something in the air — ions? — that makes the little ones more alive than usual? What do you think?

We had at least a couple of dozen children under the  age of five this morning, and many of those families were at Vigil last night, too. It is a huge blessing to have them. I missed last Sunday, and when I came into the beautiful temple for these two services, I was struck afresh by the lavish gift I have been given, to be a member of this parish. After a while, as I was noticing the children happily toddling around, or joining their squeals to the hymns, or sleeping in slings on their mothers, it came to me how much I love my church family at this particular time, when these babies are just the age that they are. There will never be another moment like this one.

Because we we stand during the services, the children have as much liberty as their parents want to give them, to walk around and feel at home in God’s house, which is their house, too. To teach them what is appropriate and reverent behavior is work that spans the years; I am often amazed at how patient and gentle the parents are, as they get them used to church etiquette to whatever degree is realistic, given their changing level of maturity.

from the internet

Many other people help the parents in this; one way it frequently happens is to literally step in and lead a toddler in another direction, when he is about to have a collision with a procession, or encroach on the altar space. We want the children to stand up close, so they have a better view than of the backs of legs, but it takes a while for them to get a feeling for how close is too close. Yesterday evening one little guy made a break for it and was headed right up through what is usually a kind of open space before the altar, and I was nearby in the best position to head him off. I scooped him up and brought him back ten feet, and held him in my arms for the next fifteen minutes or so.

It was the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord, or The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and I have written before about how moving I find this account of Christ the firstborn son brought to the temple with an offering to God: Simeon had been waiting his whole life to meet the Messiah, and God told him that he would not die until he did. When the 40-day-old Jesus was revealed to Simeon as The One:

“Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said,
     ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:
     For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
     A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” (Luke Chapter 2)

Candlemas Day by Marianne Stokes

It seemed that we had more children than usual in church for this feast, which would be so fitting, wouldn’t it? — and so many of them again and again were taken up in the arms of one or another parishioner, among whom I was only too happy to be counted. How nourishing to their young souls, to be in a community where so many people are ready to love and hold them.

The third overlapping event we were participating in was Candlemas, which is actually not a separate feast, but just another name for it, which we Orthodox don’t usually use. But it has candle in the name, and we do always bless candles on this feast. Candles are certainly a symbol of Christ, whom Simeon recognized as the Light of the world. It is not a coincidence that Groundhog Day is the same day; it derived from the feast after its celebration spread to Germany. But you can read about that elsewhere, or watch this podcast of Jonathan Pageau talking about Groundhog Day with Richard Rohlin: “The Deep Symbolism of Groundhog Day.”

I read recently about how some Christians leave their Christmas decorations up until this feast, and I’d decided to take down my tree today. Not sure I will finish, having taken quite a while to assemble this post, but I have begun putting away the ornaments at least. And this little poem about all that just came to me, identified only as “an 18th century poem”:

When New Year’s Day is past and gone;
Christmas is with some people done;
But further some will it extend,
And at Twelfth Day their Christmas end.
Some people stretch it further yet,
At Candlemas they finish it.
The gentry carry it further still
And finish it just when they will;
They drink good wine and eat good cheer

And keep their Christmas all the year.

We Orthodox don’t fit in with the attitude of “the gentry” referenced in these verses; now that Zacchaeus Sunday has heralded the approach of Lent, we leave the feasts of Christmas, the Circumcision of Christ, Theophany, Epiphany and Candlemas behind us. Anyone who holds to the more ancient and traditional mode of life, where feasts punctuate ordinary or regular time, will know that feasts are most elevating when one has prepared for them. My next step in preparing for Holy and Great Pascha is to remove the Christmas tree — but I’ll keep the candles burning.

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, “I am the light of the world:
he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,
but shall have the light of life.”
(John 8:12)

All human conventions are destroyed.

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Seeing posts of those who are at the beginning of Lent prompts mixed feelings in me. Orthodox Easter, or Pascha, does not come to us until May 2 this year, and our Great Lent begins March 15th, by which time western Christians will be halfway to their April 4th Easter.

Part of me is envious, and wishes we were already there, in that blessed season of “bright sadness.” But probably the greater part says, “Thank God we have a few more weeks!”

Yes… and I do want to take advantage of that time so that Lent itself won’t fly past without any effect on me. The Orthodox Church gives us five Sundays of preparation, and last Sunday was the first of those, Zacchaeus Sunday. Our rector emphasized to us that Zacchaeus climbed to a good vantage point because he wanted to see who Jesus was.

I appreciated Patriarch Kirill’s homily for the day in which he explained how Zacchaeus “…received his post from the hands of the Romans, the people who captured Israel, who enslaved the Jewish people. In modern terms, Zacchaeus worked in favor of the occupation power. And the freedom-loving Israelites, who painfully experienced everything that had happened to them – the fact that pagans seized power over the chosen people and over the holy places – treated those who voluntarily served the Roman authorities, collecting taxes from their own people, with contempt and indignation. That is why, in the minds of the Israelites of that time, the publicans were equal to the greatest sinners.

“But one of these tax collectors, Zacchaeus, was so eager to see the Savior that, being short, he climbed up a tree to see Him from there. The act itself is out of the ordinary, because Zacchaeus was one of those who had power, and adults who have power usually do not climb trees. If they need to see something, they have the opportunity to come closer: to push through the crowd, to make people part. But Zacchaeus climbed a tree, humiliating himself, only to see the Savior.”

And oh, my, wasn’t he rewarded! He did see Jesus, and apparently not just superficially. His humble act led eventually to true repentance and salvation; can you imagine how the whole town must have been astounded? As another has put it, “He lived in luxury from what he stole in the name of a hated foreign power.” It likely was not an easy process to make restitution to all the people through whom he had made himself rich, and to disentangle himself from the corruption of the political system, but however it happened, he went on to become one of the Seventy Apostles described in Luke Chapter 10.

Patriarch Kirill goes on to say, “Everything in this story is so simple and so unexpected. All human conventions are destroyed by the power of humility.” If we also can act in such a way that we begin to see Jesus more clearly, there is no telling what huge changes might begin in any of us, for the glory of God and our full salvation.

How to become fresh and youthful.

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“The Paschal season of the Church is preceded by the season of Great Lent, which is also preceded by its own liturgical preparation. The first sign of the approach of Great Lent comes five Sundays before its beginning. On this Sunday the Gospel reading is about Zacchaeus the tax-collector. It tells how Christ brought salvation to the sinful man, and how his life was changed simply because he “sought to see who Jesus was” (Luke 19:3). The desire and effort to see Jesus begins the entire movement through Lent towards Pascha. It is the first movement of salvation.”

This excerpt from our church bulletin explains why this date on the church calendar is a good one for someone to become a catechumen, as two people did on Sunday in my parish, and as I did seven years ago. It was not my first introduction to life in Christ, but it was definitely the time when I climbed up to the best vantage point to see Christ and His Church in all its fullness.

When I was a little child in Sunday School I learned some details of the story by way of a song:

“Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.
And when the Savior passed that way He looked up in the tree;
And He said, ‘Zacchaeus, you come down, for I’m going to your house today.'”

In his Gospel homily Sunday our rector pointed out that the Lord also said, “Make haste.” In other words, “Get down here, man! Don’t be dilly-dallying about, but begin right now to mean business with God.” And this week St. Nikolai explains how this man and his experience are meaningful to each of us:

“Today, salvation has come to this house.”
(St. Luke 19:9).

“Thus it was spoken by the One Whose word is life and joy and restoration of the righteous. Just as the bleak forest clothes itself into greenery and flowers from the breath of spring, so does every man, regardless of how arid and darkened by sin, become fresh and youthful from the nearness of Christ. For the nearness of Christ is as the nearness of some life-giving and fragrant balsam which restores health, increases life, give fragrance to the soul, to the thoughts and to the words of man. In other words, distance from Christ means decay and death and His nearness means salvation and life.”
….
“Draw near to us O Lord, draw near and bring to us Your eternal salvation.”