Matthew 9:1-8
Romans 12: 6-14
I am sure that
we have all felt stuck, trapped, or paralyzed in one way or another at some
point in our lives. Whether we were
physically ill or caught in an unhealthy relationship or an unfortunate
situation at work, life is full of circumstances where we seem to lack the
strength to move forward in freedom. The
same is true when we think about the spiritual life and our own personal
characteristics. Learning to put others
before ourselves, to restrain various appetites and desires, and to stop
behaviors to which we have become addicted are all very difficult things to
do. Sometimes we fall into despair and
simply give up because we have had so little success in overcoming our
paralysis. Sometimes we feel helpless
before the problems and challenges that we face.
The good news is that Jesus Christ gives
us all solid grounds for hope in gaining strength, freedom, and salvation. This
Tuesday is the great feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, when we
celebrate the revelation of His divinity to Peter, James, and John, for Christ was
illumined brilliantly with light, and the voice of the Father proclaimed, “This
is my beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased.” At the same time, we continue in the Dormition
fast as we prepare to celebrate on August 15 how the Theotokos shared in the
resurrection of her Son-- body, soul, and spirit—and followed Him into the
heavenly Kingdom upon her death.
Taken together, these feasts remind
us that God’s salvation liberates us from captivity to the brokenness of our lives
in our corrupt world, for the Son of God has truly taken on every dimension of
our humanity and transfused it with holiness.
He was transfigured before His disciples and we too may be changed by
uniting ourselves as fully as possible with the Lord. His divinity will be revealed through us as we
shine with light even as the paralyzed man was enabled to get up and walk
toward his house. As for him, the
process of healing begins with the forgiveness of sins which Christ mercifully
grants to all who come to Him with humble repentance. His mercy is such that He forgave this wretched
man without the fellow saying anything at all due to the faith of his friends
who literally carried him to Christ. Perhaps
his paralyzed state was also a sign of his humility and dependence upon the
Lord and an image of our collective sickness and decay. The Savior did not stop, however, with
forgiving his sins, for He transfigured his life by enabling—indeed, by
ordering—him to get up, pickup his bed, and walk home.
The truth is that Christ says
exactly the same thing to us all, for His forgiveness is not some kind of legal
degree but a true participation in His life, holiness, and divinity which heals
and transforms us into living icons of His salvation. He calls and enables us all to live the kind
of life described by St. Paul: “Let love
be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is
evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with
brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another…Bless those who
persecute you: bless and do not curse.” No, it is not easy to live that way,
especially in relation to people who have wronged us or whom we do not find it
easy to like or in situations where we have trained ourselves to see only the bad
in others and what else can go wrong.
Likewise, it surely was not easy for the paralyzed man to transition
from being an invalid to having an active life, for we tend to get used to
whatever state of life we are in and find it stressful, frustrating, and scary
to act differently. No matter how
miserable we make ourselves, we often prefer that to the difficult course of
change for the better.
That is one of the reasons that the
Church gives us periods like the Dormition fast in order to gain some
experience struggling with our addictions, weaknesses, and bad habits. As we remember the end of the earthly life of
the Theotokos, we want to become more like her, able to say, “Behold the
handmaiden of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,” in response to
God’s calling in our lives. She said and
did that in response to the totally outrageous and terrifying news that she was
to be the mother of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ. We all struggle, however, to carry out much
smaller and easier acts of faithfulness every day. Too often, we are like a person who wants God’s
forgiveness, but does not want His healing.
We are like the paralyzed man would have been had he said, “Thank you,
Jesus, for forgiving my sins, but my legs are weak from lack of exercise and I
would rather stay in bed than get up and walk.”
Even though we fall down like toddlers
taking their first steps with some frequency, we must keep moving forward as
best we can in the new life that Christ has given us. Otherwise, we will end up rejecting Him
because we will worship ourselves and attempt to make Him in our own image, to
use Him simply to get what we want and disregard everything else to which He
calls us. Certainly, we are all inclined
to do that because of our self-centeredness and pride, but that is precisely
why we have to gain strength in denying ourselves so that we can refocus our
energies on serving the Lord and our neighbors in whom He is present to us each
day.
As anyone who has tried to fast,
pray, show generosity to the needy, and forgive others learns very quickly, we
all suffer from some degree of paralysis.
It is often astonishingly hard to inconvenience ourselves even a little
bit in order to give attention to God and our neighbors or to restrain our slavery
to our taste buds, stomachs, and bank accounts.
When the Church calls us to undertake these spiritual disciplines, it is
not as a punishment or because God likes us to see us suffer. It is because we need help in getting up from
our beds and moving forward with our lives.
We are all too comfortable with the misery of our weakness and
paralysis. Our feeble struggles to
embrace the spiritual disciplines reveal to us the truth about ourselves and
should lead us to call in humility for the Lord’s help in serving Him more
faithfully.
I hope that we are all doing our
best to observe the Dormition fast so that we will be better prepared to
respond obediently as the Theotokos did to the Lord’s calling upon her
life. I hope that we are all doing our
best to be transfigured into the new life that Jesus Christ has brought to the
world as the Second Adam in Whom our corrupt, fallen humanity is healed,
restored, and blessed. I hope that none
of us will rest content to lie in the bed of our passions, weaknesses, and
self-indulgent addiction to life as we have come to know it on our own
terms. For our Savior did not come to
make us feel better about ourselves, to help us succeed by worldly standards,
or even simply to forgive us. He came to
make us participants in the life of the Holy Trinity, to become by grace what
God is by nature. Yes, that means
shining with light and holiness as He did at the Transfiguration. Let us use these few days of the Dormition
fast to take even the small, faltering steps of which we are capable to become
more like Christ—to rise, take up our beds, and walk as best we can, trusting
that His grace and mercy are healing us from our paralysis and weakness, and
ushering us out of misery into a new and joyful way of living.
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