Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Epistle: Acts 9:32-42
Gospel: John 5:1-15
Our Faith teaches us that healing is miraculous by whatever means it occurs—whether through medical science or through prayer and anointing, or both. We know that it all comes through Christ by the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God the Father.
In the two examples of healing in today’s Scripture readings, we see exactly this: that true healing comes from Christ, from the Creator of all life. It is St. Peter’s communion (koinonia) with Christ God that enables him by the Holy Spirit to be the means through which God conveys healing to the paralytic and then to the woman of God, Tabitha. He says to the paralytic, “Aeneas, Jesus the Christ heals you.” In the Gospel, it is, of course, Christ Himself in person who heals; in the second, it is Christ through Peter who heals.
In many of the healings recorded in the New Testament, Christ’s healings are preceded by forgiveness of sins. This is so natural, so fitting. Only God can forgive sins. Our ultimate problem is not the weakness and infirmities of our physical bodies, as distressing, saddening, and limiting as they may be. Rather, it’s our sin-sickness, our willful removal of ourselves, our eternal souls, from true Life, from communion with God.
Sin itself is understood in the Orthodox Faith as sickness. Our sin and disobedience, our rejection of God’s communion, His life, as individuals and as human beings, means that we turn away from that life, and we in as sense, embrace death.
Adam and Eve removed themselves from communion with God through their willful disobedience, their departure from the way of life. They chose death instead of life with the Creator. We too, in our sinfulness, our rebellion against God, our thinking we know best, our lack of faith, etc., perpetuate the sin of Adam and appropriate its consequences in our own lives. Thank God, there’s a remedy! Thank God, there’s healing!
As I stated at the outset, healing in whatever form it comes, is given by Christ the Author and Giver of Life—the Word through which the Father spoke creation and life into being. Our healing and recovery from sickness is a reminder of the healing of our souls that is the ongoing work of our repentance and cooperation with the Holy Spirit.
The paralytic in today’s Gospel laments, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up…” God doesn’t leave us alone to fend for self. God offers Himself, His life, new life, that is, the cure for our sin-sickness, to all men. God pours out His grace and love upon us through His holy Church. He gives us the medicine of immortality in the Eucharist. He gives us the means of our healing through our struggle against our sinful passions, He teaches us His truth through the divine services and prayers, He gives us much-needed accountability in the Church and our participation in the Sacrament of Repentance, Confession, and through our daily prayers, as we strive to appropriate the Orthodox Faith in our daily lives.
It’s the teaching of the Church that as we know God in this life, so we’ll experience Him in the next. This should give us pause. We should ask ourselves, “What place do I put my communion with God?” Am I striving to bring Christ into all aspects of my daily life so that I may be further deified, that I may continue to heal and grow in my participation in the Life of the Holy Trinity?
We often use excuses to hold ourselves back from growth and healing: I’m too busy, I’ve got too many other responsibilities, I’m afraid, I’m too prideful: “God can help others, but He can’t help me.” The truth, the reality, is, that we don’t have to stay stuck in the same dead-end patterns of sin-sickness and enslavement to passions that drag us away from Him who is Life. Thanks be to God, through Christ, physical sickness, disease and death can be transfigured. “ O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” (I Cor. 15:55) In the same way, our spiritual sickness finds healing in Christ. Through the tools of the Church, we find the means to struggle with our passions by bringing Christ into the midst of that struggle—and that struggle is transfigured into a means of deification through our repentance and prayers.
Too often we may take the Church with a capital “C” for granted; we treat her casually. We fail to see that this Body of which Christ is the head, is here to teach us, grow us, minister His presence to us all. The more we avail ourselves of the tools entrusted to us in the Church: the Sacraments, the divine services, the teaching (a new Bible study will be starting up in a couple weeks), fellowship, serving one another, building up the Body, the more opportunities we have to heal, to grow in our relationship and communion with God in Christ likeness.
Church is meant to be more than just a once-a-week experience for us. We’re meant to incorporate the Church, that is, the life in Christ, into all aspects of our life. There is for the faithful Orthodox Christian no distinction or separation between our relationship and communion with God and our participation in the Church. For us as Orthodox, there’s no such thing as ‘having Jesus’ without the Church; Jesus is manifested to us through the Church, through the tools of salvation He imparts to us through His Body in His great love for us.
When Christ is kept on the periphery, on the side, we may wonder where the growth and healing is and it reinforces our doubts and fears. When we’re physically sick, we need to avail ourselves of the medicine faithfully. So too, our spiritual sickness demands that we avail ourselves faithfully of the spiritual medicine of the Church.
I encourage you as I encourage myself: bring Christ God into the midst of your struggles with temptation and sin. Continue to persevere in praying to God for healing from the passions and whatever comes between us and our relationship with God the Holy Trinity. Cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. Avail yourselves of what Christ imparts to us through His Holy Church, its worship, fellowship, service, and Sacraments. In this way, our souls, like the body of the paralytic will be lifted up, will be strengthened, and as he took up his bed, so we will be able to take up our cross, and press on toward the Kingdom of Heaven, life with God.
