Today we venerate the precious and lifegiving Cross upon which Christ offered Himself for the salvation of the world purely out of love for those enslaved to the fear of death, which He conquered through His glorious resurrection on the third day. Contrary to popular opinion, the Cross is not the sign of a civil religion that grants spiritual sanction to any power structure of this world. Neither is it a magical good luck charm that makes all our problems go away or gives us what we want on our own terms. It is certainly not a means of escape from the daily struggles of living faithfully or a way of demonstrating our superiority over any person or group. In fact, the Cross of Christ is the complete opposite of such distortions, for it stands in radical judgment of those who would attempt to use religion to help them seek first the things of this world, such as power, pleasure, and possessions.

We will misunderstand these blessed weeks of Lent if we assume that they are intended to help us have clearer ideas or deeper feelings about our Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection. We will be even more confused if we think that our intensified prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and repentance somehow earn God’s forgiveness or make us better than other people. Quite the contrary, Lenten disciples are simply opportunities to open ourselves as embodied persons to the gracious healing of the Lord so that we may share more fully in His life. That is another way of saying that the point of Lent is to grow in our personal knowledge of God through true spiritual experience, encounter, and transformation.

On this first Sunday of Great Lent, we commemorate the restoration of icons centuries ago in the Byzantine Empire. They were banned due to a misguided fear of idolatry, but restored as a proclamation of how Christ calls us to participate in His salvation in every dimension of our existence. The icons convey the incarnation of the God-Man, Who had to be fully human with a real human body in order to be born, live in this world, die, rise from the grave, and ascend into heaven.

The gospel readings from the last few Sundays have called us all to return home from our self-imposed exile. Zacchaeus was restored as a son of Abraham when he gave more than justice required from his ill-gotten gains to the poor and those whom he had exploited. The publican returned to his spiritual home by humbly calling for the Lord’s mercy, even as the Pharisee exiled himself by his pride. The prodigal son took the long journey home after coming to his senses about the misery that stemmed from abandoning his father. Last Sunday we heard that the ultimate standard of judgment for entering into our true home of eternal blessedness is whether we have become living icons of the Savior’s merciful lovingkindness.

In case you have somehow not noticed, Great Lent begins a week from tomorrow. On this Sunday of the Last Judgment, the Church reminds us that the point of the upcoming season of repentance is not the keeping of religious rules or the performance of any form of piety as an end in itself. Our vocation in Lent is, instead, to open our souls to the healing mercy of the Lord so that we may enter more fully into His victory over sin and death at Pascha. The ultimate test of whether we will do so this Lent is not simply a matter of how strictly we fast, how many services we attend, or how much money we give to the poor. It is, instead, whether we will unite ourselves to Christ such that His love permeates every dimension of our character to the point that we treat our neighbors as He treats us.

What does true repentance look like? Whenever we are tempted to think that it has to do only with how we feel and not with how we act, we should remember the story of Zacchaeus. As a Jew who had become rich collecting taxes from his own people for the occupying Romans, Zacchaeus was both a traitor and a thief who collected even more than was required in order to live in luxury. No one in that time and place would have thought that such a person would ever change. He was considered the complete opposite of a righteous person, and no observant Jew would have had anything at all to do with him.

During the season of Christmas, we celebrated the Nativity in the flesh of the Savior. Born as truly one of us, He is the New Adam Who restores and fulfills us as living icons of God. During the season of Theophany, we celebrated the revelation of His divinity as a Person of the Holy Trinity at His baptism, where the voice of the Father identified Him as the Son and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove.

In this season we celebrate the great feast of Theophany, of Christ’s baptism when the voice of the Father identified Him as the Son of God and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove. Epiphany reveals that the Savior Who appears from the waters of the Jordan to illumine our world of darkness is the God-Man, a Person of the Holy Trinity. He is baptized to restore us, and the creation itself, to the ancient glory for which we were created. He comes to make all who wandered in the blindness of sin and death radiant with the brilliant light of holiness

Even before the internet and cell phones, people struggled to remain focused on what was truly important. Now we must contend not only with constant messages, images, and other forms of electronic distraction, but also with passions that tempt us to be mindful about just about anything other than preparing to welcome Christ into our lives and world at His Nativity. All the more is that the case when worrying about everything from the persistent problems of the world and of our families to meeting the challenges of paying for presents, travel, and other seasonal expenses threatens to convince us that there are matters more important than accepting the Savior’s gracious invitation to enter fully into the joy of the banquet of the Kingdom of Heaven.

It is terribly tragic when people fall into the delusion of thinking that they love God and neighbor, when in reality they are using religion to serve only themselves and perhaps others with whom they identify for some worldly reason. We do that when we narrow down the list of people who count as our neighbors to the point that we excuse ourselves from serving Christ in all who bear His image and likeness. When we do so, we disregard not only them but also our Lord Himself, the God-Man born for the salvation of all. Our actions then reveal that we are not truly conforming our character to His. Instead of uniting ourselves to Christ to the point that we convey His mercy to all His living icons, we serve only ourselves with our vain imaginations of being truly religious and moral.