St. Luke 13:10-17
Many people
today think of religion as a matter of feeling or emotion that simply helps
them cope with the problems of life. That
may sound appealing, but it is ultimately a perspective that limits God and
takes away real hope. For Jesus Christ
was not born simply to change how we feel about our broken world and
lives. No, He came to restore and
fulfill the entire creation, including every aspect of our lives as human beings
in the image and likeness of God.
That is precisely what we see in
today’s gospel lesson when, as the Lord taught in a synagogue on the Sabbath, He
saw a woman who was bent over and could not stand up straight. She had suffered for eighteen years with this
terrible condition. He said to her,
“Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.”
Then He laid hands on her and healed her, so she actually stood up
straight and glorified God.
A legalistic critic took offense at
this healing on the Sabbath, when no work was to be done. Christ responded by noting that everyone
takes care of his donkey and ox on the Sabbath.
“So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has
bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” The truth of His teaching was so clear that His
critics were put to shame and the people rejoiced.
Here is a powerful image of what the
Son of God has done for us by becoming a human being, for we are all like that
poor woman stooped over with an infirmity and unable to straighten herself up. We live in a world of corruption, illness,
pain, and death in which there are harsh realities that we cannot control.
We all have diseases of soul, of
personality, of behavior, and of relationships that cripple us, that make it
very difficult to follow St. Paul’s advice to “walk as children of light.” Like every generation since Adam and Eve, we
have fallen short of God’s purposes for us.
We are all bent over and crippled in profound ways in relation to the
Lord, our neighbors, and even ourselves.
Joachim and Anna knew all about long-term
struggles and disabilities, for like Abraham and Sarah they were childless into
their old age. But God heard their
prayer and gave them Mary, who would in turn give birth to the Savior Who came
to heal us all from the ravages of sin and death. This Tuesday is the feast of St. Anna’s
conception of the Theotokos which we celebrate as a foreshadowing of the coming
of the Lord to set us free from the infirmities that hold us captive and hinder
our participation even now in the life of the Kingdom.
The entire history of the Hebrews was
preparatory for the coming of the Christ, the Messiah in whom God’s promises
are fulfilled and extended to all who have faith in the Savior, regardless of
their family heritage. Christ did not
come to privilege one nation or group over another, but to fulfill our common
vocation to be in the image and likeness of God, to share by grace in the
eternal life of the Holy Trinity as distinct, unique persons. He transcends the
laws of nature in order to do so, enabling elderly women to conceive and bear
children and a young virgin to become the mother of His Son Who Himself rises
from the dead. Yes, this is a story of
liberation, of breaking bonds, and of overcoming the brokenness and limitations
of life in the world in the world as know it.
The Savior did not treat the woman in
today’s reading as nameless bundle of disease.
Instead, Christ restored her true identity as a beloved person, a
daughter of Abraham. He treated her as a
cherished child of God who was not created for an existence of pain, disease,
and despair, but for blessing, health, and joy.
She glorified God for this deliverance, as did those who saw the
miracle. Likewise, barrenness did not
have the last word on Joachim and Anna.
God heard their prayer and was not finished with them yet.
The good news of Christmas is that
the Lord is born to do the same for us and for the whole world, to set us free
from slavery and barrenness in all their forms, including the decay,
corruption, and weakness that distort us all.
He comes to restore us as living icons who manifest His glory and
salvation in unique, personal ways. Even
as the icons of the Saints portray them as distinctive persons who participate
in the life of God by grace, the same should be true of us as we live and
breathe in this world.
As we become less the slaves of “the
unfruitful works of darkness” and more “the children of light,” we become more
truly ourselves and experience a joyful freedom from the sinful habits of
thought, word, and deed over which we had previously been powerless. Despite the lies we hear from our culture and
that we often gladly accept, evil is just the same old boring thing that leaves
us empty, alone, and ashamed because we are not made for it. Sin and corruption may be packaged a bit differently
in each generation, but they remain essentially the same and lead to the same
end.
As St. Augustine prayed, “You have
made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in
You.” No wonder, then, that turning away
from the Lord brings only disappointment, despair, and greater bondage to our
own self-centered desires. Holiness, in contrast, is fulfilling and
liberating, for we are made for it as those created in the image and likeness
of God. The more we become like Him, the more we
become truly and freely ourselves as we turn away from slavery to sin and
passion in order to embrace the new life that Christ was born to bring to the
world.
That is why we
should all follow St. Paul’s advice: “Look
carefully then how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of
the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but
understand what the will of the Lord is.”
In other words, why
should we continue to stumble along the familiar paths of darkness and decay
which simply make our situation worse?
That is no way to live. We have to change our course. It is time to wake up from sleep and to open ourselves
to the healing and fulfillment for which we were made.
Sts. Joachim and
Anna did that by intense prayer for a child, and God heard them and gave them
Mary. Though we do not know much about
the woman bound with infirmity whom Christ healed in today’s gospel reading,
she was in the synagogue on the Sabbath, presumably praying for healing. We should follow their example, but that is
hard to do in a world with so much noise and distraction which we often welcome
into our hearts and souls. We find it so
easy to fill our minds with everything but prayer, with everything but being fully
present with the only One Who can set us free from bondage to corruption in all
its forms. Like Joachim, Anna, and the
crippled woman, we simply must devote ourselves to prayer if we are to open our
lives to the healing presence and power of God.
St. Paul
instructs us to “be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all
your heart.” In other words, he tells us
to pray and to fill our minds—and our mouths—with words and thoughts that direct
us more fully into the life of Christ. Most
people need words in prayer, for our minds tend to wander when we attend to God. We all know the words of the Jesus Prayer,
which we can use at any time. We should
know the Trisagion Prayers by heart, and we all have access to Orthodox prayer books,
the Psalms, and other resources that help us focus on the Lord. But no matter what resources we have, they will
do us no good if we do not use them, if we do not devote time and energy on a daily
basis to prayer from the depth of our hearts.
Prayer is where the
journey begins and is the means by which we open ourselves to the healing and fulfillment
of our lives, to our being set free from slavery to our sins. It is how we begin to participate in the new life
that Christ has brought to the world. So
as we continue the Nativity Fast, let us make prayer a settled habit so that our
spiritual eyes will open wide to the brilliant light of the Savior when He comes
to set us free at His birth. That is how
Christ will loose us from our infirmities. It is how we will overcome our spiritual barrenness
and instead bear fruit for the Kingdom of God.
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