Well, it’s that time of year once again. It seems to come around all too quickly, but here we are looking toward Lent again. Today we begin the series of preparatory Sundays for Lent. It’s time to gradually wean ourselves from the festive spirit of Christmas and Theophany and to start getting ourselves psychologically and spiritually prepared for the penitential rigors of the Great Fast.
We are exhorted to this preparation first of all in the Epistle (1Tim. 4:9-15). This selection begins, not uncharacteristically for our liturgical calendar, with a passage that cannot be understood without looking at passages not included in this selection. It starts out by telling us that the saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance. The problem is, it doesn’t tell us what saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance! For this we have to go back a couple verses, and there we get the answer: “Train yourself in godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” There, that is the saying that is sure and worthy of full acceptance.
Now we can see that this passage is quite appropriate for the beginning of our preparation for Lent. The season of Lent is a time for training ourselves in godliness, for this is beneficial to our souls, both in this present life and especially in view of the life to come. The word for “training” in the original Greek is gymnasía, from which we get our English “gymnasium.” So Lent is going to be a real workout, a series of spiritual exercises in which we are expected to train ourselves in godliness, for the fruitful celebration of the Paschal Mystery of Christ as well as for our spiritual growth unto sanctification and salvation.
The Apostle, in speaking of the promise that godliness holds for eternal life, goes on to say: “To this end, we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God…” The same word comes up here that I explained in one of Jesus’ sayings a few weeks ago. The word for “strive” is agonizomai, which means to struggle violently or to fight like a gladiator. So we toil and struggle and fight to obtain that which is worthy of every sacrifice: the sanctification and salvation of our immortal souls. Lent is the arena, the training ground for this struggle, and the Church calls us to enter it willingly, eagerly, with serious intent and steadfast endurance. Nobody says it is going to be easy, just as rigorous athletic training is not easy, but we trust that with our consistent effort and the help of God’s grace the fruits will be good and we will make significant progress in our spiritual life and maturity.
St Paul gives us something to aim for as well. He says: “Set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” Wouldn’t it be wonderful if during the whole course of Lent we could be exemplary in our speech and our conduct, in love and faith and purity! Well, this is what training in godliness is for. The word here for love is the specifically Christian term agápi, which is the self-sacrificing love that Jesus manifested all during his life, and especially in the giving up of his life as a ransom for our sins. There’s nothing sentimental about this kind of love. It’s the kind of love one has to acquire through spiritual training, through struggle to overcome selfishness and pettiness and to put the Gospel into practice. Read and meditate upon First Corinthians 13 to see what this kind of love is like. It is worth the effort and the struggle, for as St Paul says, it is valuable in every way, both for this life and the life to come.
Now let us turn to the Gospel (Lk. 19:1-10) to discover another dimension of our spiritual preparation or godliness-training for Lent. If we’re going to make all these sacrifices and endure all this demanding training, we ought first to see what or who it is all for. Self-mastery and the perfecting of one’s spiritual capabilities are not ends in themselves. They only help to get us properly disposed for the real goal: the personal and profound communion with Our Lord Jesus Christ. So the Gospel is about seeing who Jesus is, welcoming Him, and pledging to be faithful to Him and to his will for us.
This was what Zacchaeus was trying to do, though at first he was perhaps merely curious. The Gospel tells us that he wanted to see who Jesus was. We aren’t told why he wanted to see who Jesus was, but it seems to me that perhaps the seed of his conversion had already been somehow planted in him. Zacchaeus was a wealthy man, probably a rather callous and unscrupulous one as well, since he didn’t seem to have any qualms of conscience about making himself rich at the expense of his fellow Jews, who unanimously regarded him as a sinner. So one wonders what interest he might have had in a rabbi, who likely was preaching against the very things that Zacchaeus embraced as his way of life.
But maybe he had heard that this particular rabbi named Jesus was different. Not that Jesus’ teaching was lax on the commandments. But perhaps Jesus didn’t simply denounce law-breaking as did the Pharisees, who considered the common lot of sinners to be far inferior to themselves. Jesus seemed to have this special quality which simply drew people to Himself in admiration and even love, so it wasn’t hard for them to give up their sins, because after coming to know Him, they would do anything just to please Him, just to be counted among his disciples. Are there really such people in this world? Zacchaeus may have wondered this, and he may have wondered if there might after all be a more peaceful and rewarding way to live. So he decided that he would have to see who this Jesus was.
Zacchaeus had to undergo a little athletic exercise to attain his goal. The Gospel tells us he was short, and he couldn’t see Jesus because of the crowd, so he had to perform two exercises: first to run ahead of the others, and then to climb a tree. For a short and most likely well-fed man, this was not easy. But he had set himself a goal and he would achieve it, whatever the cost. He was not yet willing, however, to declare his interest in Jesus publicly, so he hoped he could observe Him from the tree without himself being observed. But in the providence of God, this was not to be.
Jesus immediately saw him when He came to the only sycamore tree with a short, fat tax-collector in it, and Jesus told him to hurry 
down as He invited Himself to stay at Zacchaeus’ house that very day. Zacchaeus had come to see who Jesus was, but Jesus had come to see who Zacchaeus was, and when he saw a heart that was ripe for repentance, He extended the divine invitation. Zacchaeus then threw all self-conscious caution to the wind and tumbled down out of his tree, welcoming Jesus with rejoicing. At that moment, however, he was reminded once again why he didn’t like the Pharisees’ style of religion, for he was once again branded a sinner, and now his new friend Jesus also had to bear the reproach of associating with one.
So Zacchaeus summoned his courage and made full use of the grace of repentance and conversion he had just received: he publicly declared not only that he would make fourfold restitution to those whom he defrauded, but would give half of whatever was left (which was probably not much) to the poor, effectively joining their ranks.
The Gospel doesn’t tell us what was the response of the self-righteous to this unexpected change of heart and change of behavior, probably because neither Zacchaeus nor Jesus was interested in what they had to say, and I guess St Luke is telling us that we shouldn’t be interested, either. What should interest us—and what most delightfully interested Zacchaeus—is what Jesus had to say: “Today salvation has come to this house… For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.”
Maybe, as we turn our spiritual attention toward Lent, there are a couple things we can learn from the repentant tax-collector and what Jesus did for him. First of all, we ought to take a look inside ourselves and ask if we are truly happy with our lives as they are, and if not, why not? Let us not point the finger at anything or anyone outside ourselves, for peace and joy and spiritual health are matters of the heart and soul, and not of our environment or circumstances. Is there something lacking within us? Or is there something in us that ought to be lacking, like some attachment or bad habit we may have acquired? If this is so, then we need to set out to see Jesus; we need to hear what He has to say; we need to come to Him and let the attractive power of his love free us from whatever is hindering our happiness and our peace.
As we seek to discover more deeply who Jesus is, He will come toward us, seeking to see who we are! He will look into our hearts and see if they are ripe for repentance and conversion, and if they are He will invite Himself into our hearts, into our lives, ever more deeply and completely. He wants to stay with us, not just today, but forever.
Hopefully, we will then receive Him rejoicing. But like Zacchaeus, our joy shouldn’t be superficial but it should rather be an expression of a real interior change, a metanoia, one that manifests itself in doing things differently now that one has had a profound encounter with Christ. So the dishonest man became an honest one; the greedy man became a generous one. When we examine our consciences and repent of our sins, we ought to make some sort of declaration to the Lord about how we are going to change, now that He has mercifully invited us to come to Him so He can bring salvation to us. This is what Lenten resolutions are about: pledges and declarations that our repentance is genuine, that it will bear fruit in real, concrete changes in our attitudes and behaviors. Then the Lord Himself will declare that salvation has come to us, that He has sought and saved us who were lost.
The Gospel today is just a few verses, and we hear it all in a matter of a couple minutes, but the spiritual realities it signifies are not all instantly or easily achieved. That is why we have to refer back to the Epistle and realize that the work of our conversion and salvation is not finished, but we are still in training. There are still serious struggles that lie ahead of us, and we will be called to fight like gladiators against the world, the flesh, and the devil. We are in training for godliness, which has great value for our souls, in this age and in the age to come.
So as we look toward Lent, and thus look toward a time of difficult spiritual training, let us also realize that we are looking toward Jesus, who is looking toward us, coming down our path to invite us to conversion and salvation. He will call us out of hiding in order to draw us to genuine repentance and the resolution to live it out on a daily basis. He wants to come and stay at our house, today, and He will begin by coming into our hearts in the Holy Eucharist. Let us receive Him with rejoicing, and then accept both the demands and the rewards of spiritual training, as we prepare for both Easter and Eternal Life. “This saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance.”
