Homily for the Sunday After the Nativity of Christ with Commemoration of Joseph the Betrothed, David the Prophet and King, and James the Brother of God in the Orthodox Church

 

Matthew 2:13-23

        Christ is Born!  Glorify Him!

As we continue to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world, we must resist the temptation to think that we have heard the story so many times that we no longer really have to pay attention.  Like the other great feasts of the Church, the Nativity provides us with an invitation each year to enter more fully into the mystery of our salvation.  The miracle of the Word becoming flesh does not change, but we must change in order to welcome Christ into the temple of our hearts more fully each year of our lives. 

        We live in a culture with a sentimental view of Christmas focused on superficial family happiness and commercialism.  Our culture also prizes youth and encourages us to think that we should be ashamed of gray hair, wrinkles, and other perfectly normal aspects of aging.  Today the Church calls us to mature in our understanding of the Lord’s Nativity by commemorating Joseph the Betrothed, an elderly relative of the Virgin Mary who reluctantly became her guardian when she had to leave the Temple where she had grown up.

One of the verses chanted for Joseph states that “a strange betrothal fell unto his lot.” Joseph certainly thought so. This betrothal was an arrangement in which a man became the guardian of a woman without the intimate relations of marriage.  As an 80-year-old widower, he was reluctant to take on this responsibility for a teenaged girl, but he obeyed God’s command nonetheless.  He played an essential, but often overlooked, role in how salvation came into the world. 

The story of Joseph resonates with so much of the heritage of the Old Testament.  An evil ruler wanted to murder the young Savior because he viewed Him as a threat.  Pharaoh had ordered the deaths of Hebrew male infants long ago in Egypt, and now a wicked king like him reigned in Jerusalem.  Herod slaughtered the young boys in and around Bethlehem when he realized that the wise men had tricked him.  In the Exodus, the Hebrews had fled Egypt on the night of the Passover.  Now the young Messiah flees Israel to go to Egypt at night.  Once the danger had passed, Joseph brought the family back to the Promised Land, just as the Hebrews eventually returned after wandering in the desert for forty years. Recall also the story in Genesis of another Joseph.  He went to Egypt unwillingly as a slave, but eventually saved his whole family from a famine by bringing them there.

These connections are surely not accidental, for Matthew’s gospel describes Joseph’s role in the Lord’s early life with obvious Old Testament symbolism.  Joseph’s story is a challenging reminder that God calls us in unanticipated ways to cooperate with His gracious purposes for bringing salvation to the world.  He does not call us to serve Him in a realm of imaginary perfection or according to our own preferences, but in the same world with pregnant women and children whose lives are in danger of deadly violence and with families who must flee for their lives as refugees.  There are surely many rulers and regimes every bit as vicious as Herod today. 

The story of Christmas also magnifies the importance of our free response to God’s calling. We cannot tell that story properly without celebrating the Theotokos, who freely chose to say “yes” when the Archangel Gabriel visited her with the good news that she was chosen to be the Virgin Mother of the Son of God.  Despite his reluctance to become her guardian in the first place, Joseph accepted the responsibility.  After being horrified to discover her pregnancy, he had the faith to believe the message of the angel that the Child was conceived of the Holy Spirit.  Despite his advanced age, Joseph successfully guided his family to Egypt as they fled the murderous Herod.  He had certainly not anticipated or desired involvement in such a dangerous set of circumstances, but he accepted the calling to do what had to be done for the safety of the Theotokos and her Child. 

Joseph reminds us that God uses our cooperation to accomplish His gracious purposes in the world.  That was certainly the case in the Old Testament:  Abraham, Moses, David, and countless others responded to God’s initiative, and He worked through them, despite their many failings.  And through the free response of a teenaged girl came the Messiah in Whom the ancient promises to the descendants of Abraham are fulfilled and extended to the entire world.

The details of our Lord’s conception, birth, and infancy show that God does not force people to obey Him.   We can disregard God and refuse to live as those created in the divine image and likeness.  It is tragically possible to become like Herod in moral depravity and spiritual blindness to the point of disregarding even the basic humanity of innocent children and ruthlessly destroying anyone who stands in the way of getting what we want.  Such corruption is a possibility for anyone, not only for the rich, famous, and powerful. Violence, hatred, and lust for revenge and domination so easily corrode the character of people in all walks of life today. 

Our vocation is not simply to avoid becoming as wicked as Herod, but to become like the Theotokos and Joseph the Betrothed. Her life plans changed at the Annunciation, and we must accept that the healing of our souls will likely not occur according to our own preferences or schedules.   That was certainly the case for Joseph, who took on unanticipated responsibilities because He accepted them as God’s will for him.  Through the free obedience of this unlikely couple in their respective callings, the Savior came into the world. Such obedience is a form of martyrdom in the sense of dying to self-centered desire out of faithfulness to the Lord. 

We also remember today James, the son of the widower Joseph, known as “the Brother of the Lord.”  James wrote in his epistle, “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good conduct, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.” (Jas. 3:13) He also famously taught that faith without works is dead.  (Jas. 2:17) In order to bear witness to the good news that the Son of God has become truly one of us, we must freely pursue the vocation of becoming like Him in holiness as we grow in our participation in His divine life. Our fundamental vocation remains the same:  to undergo a change of mind such that we offer ourselves without reservation in obedience to God.  As with the Theotokos, Joseph the Betrothed, and James, there is no telling what that will mean for the course of our lives, but saying “yes” in free obedience as we take the steps we have the strength to take today remains the only way to participate personally in the healing of the human person made possible by the birth of Jesus Christ.   Let us look to those we commemorate today as brilliant examples of how to enter into the joy of the Babe of Bethlehem, Who calls us all to salvation.

 

 

 

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!: Homily for the Nativity of the Lord in the Orthodox Church

 

Galatians 4:4-7; Matthew 2:1-12

Christ is Born!  Glorify Him!

      We gather today to celebrate the Nativity in the Flesh of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world.  He is born to fulfill the vocation of every human person to become like God in holiness as “partakers of the divine nature” by grace.  Because He has truly become one of us, every dimension of our life in this world may become a point entrance into the blessed peace of the Kingdom of Heaven.  In contrast with that high calling, the lack of such peace today in so many parts of the world, including especially the Holy Land and Ukraine, as well as in our own society, relationships, and hearts, becomes quite apparent.

The Prince of Peace was born in the context of a brutal military occupation that required the elderly Joseph and the pregnant Theotokos to take a long and difficult journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem for a census. There He came into the world like a homeless child, born in a cave used as a barn with an animal’s feeding trough for his bed.   Herod, who reigned over Judea under the authority of Rome, plotted to kill the Messiah from His birth, for he certainly did not want a rival king of the Jews.  He cared far more about his own power than the lives of innocent people, as do so many rulers of the world as we know it today.  That is why Joseph had to lead the family to Egypt at night as they fled for their lives, just as refugees do today in the land of our Lord’s birth and in so many other places.

When the One Who spoke the universe into existence becomes part of His creation, the tension between the way of the Lord and the path of slavery to the fear of death becomes obvious.  Angels proclaimed His birth and the promise of peace to lowly shepherds who had no power or prominence at all.   Though many expected the Messiah to be a nationalistic religious hero, Gentile astrologers from Persia traveled far to worship a Lord Whose Kingdom transcends the divisions of empires, nations, and ethnicities. He fulfills the ancient promises to Abraham such that all who believe in Him become the adopted children and heirs of God.  The New Adam is born to restore all to the blessedness of Paradise.  He comes to make us radiant with holiness and “perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect,” which requires especially love for those we are tempted to hate, condemn, and disregard as strangers and enemies.  (Matt. 5:38)    

The Savior born this day is the Prince of Peace, but not of the illusion of peace that comes from being so self-centered that we blind ourselves to the needs of our neighbors, who bear the divine image every bit as much as we do.  He is the Prince of Peace, but not of the illusion of peace that comes from intimidating and manipulating people so that they do our will.  He is the Prince of Peace, but not of the illusion of peace that comes from projecting our hopes for wellbeing on some fleeting standard of worldly success that can never heal our souls.  To know Christ’s peace is to share in His life to the point that we become those who are blessed in His Kingdom:  the poor in spirit; those who mourn their sins; the meek; those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; the merciful; those who acquire purity of heart; and the peacemakers. To know His peace is to become so much like Him in holiness that, regardless of what sufferings and obstacles come our way, we make even the deepest challenges of our lives points of entrance to the joyful blessedness of His Kingdom.  (Matt. 5:3-12) 

Even as the circumstances surrounding His Nativity were not peaceful by conventional standards, welcoming the Prince of Peace into our lives requires embracing the inevitable tension of mindfully entrusting ourselves to Him as we share in His fulfillment of the human person in the image and likeness of God.  That is not a matter of sentimentality or of using religion to build ourselves up over anyone, but of responding with true spiritual humility and integrity to the gloriously good news that the Son of God has become one of us—in the world as we know it--for the salvation of all.  The more that we undertake the struggle to do so, and to treat every neighbor as one for whom the Savior was born, the more we will experience the true peace of Paradise brought by the God-Man.  Let us celebrate this glorious feast by doing precisely that this day and every day of our lives.  

 

 

 

 

Homily for the Sunday Before the Nativity of Christ (The Genealogy) in the Orthodox Church

 

Hebrews 11:9-10, 32-40; Matthew 1:1-25

 

As we conclude our preparation to welcome Christ at His Nativity, we must resist the temptation to corrupt this blessed season into merely a celebration of this world on its own terms. At Christmas we celebrate nothing less than the God-Man’s full personal entrance into our life and world, becoming truly one of us even as He remains truly divine in order to make us “partakers of the divine nature” by grace.  He was born to bring the entire creation into the eternal joy of His Kingdom, which stands in prophetic judgment over all that mars the beauty of the souls of His living icons.

Christ is born to fulfill the ancient promises to Abraham, who “looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”  The many generations of preparation for the Savior’s birth did not occur through the unbroken progress of any earthly kingdom, culture, or family, but through a history characterized by the deep brokenness and disappointment that are our common lot in this world of corruption. The prophet Samuel was the last of the judges of Israel over a thousand years before Christ was born.  When his sons ruled unjustly, the people asked for a king so that they could be like the other nations.  God told Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.”  (1 Sam. 8:7)

We do not have to know much about the Old Testament to know that wanting to be like the other nations is the exact opposite of what God intended for His people.  Their kings abused their authority like the rich and powerful of any period with David, the greatest of them, infamously taking Bathsheeba, the wife of his soldier Uriah, and then having him killed.  Far from hiding these horrific events, Matthew highlights them, for he writes in the genealogy that “David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.” He could not have made the point about David’s sin any clearer than that. 

Even David’s son the wise Solomon later fell into the worship of false gods.  Because of Israel’s ongoing unfaithfulness, the kingdom divided into two, with both eventually going into exile after being defeated at the hands of their enemies. Those who returned from Babylon were then dispersed yet again by the Romans, under whose authority the Lord was crucified. If we are truly entrusting ourselves to Christ, Who rejected the temptation to set up an earthly kingdom, we must follow the example of Abraham, who “looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” “For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” (Heb. 13:14) We must not place our ultimate allegiance and hope in any arrangement of the powers of the world or allow any earthly affiliation to blind us to welcome Christ in every needy neighbor and stranger, especially those we are inclined to reject as enemies.   

The shock of exile from the Promised Land for the Hebrews was so profound that Matthew describes the Lord’s genealogy accordingly: “So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ were fourteen generations.”  The prophet Daniel and the three holy youths Ananias, Azarias and Misael all went into captivity in Babylon, where they refused to worship other gods and were miraculously delivered from death, respectively, in the lions’ den and the fiery furnace.  Christ, before His Incarnation, was with the youths in the flames.  Being unconsumed by the fire, they also provided an image of the Theotokos, who contained the Son of God within her womb without being consumed by the divine glory.        

It was not by worshiping their ancestral homeland or doing whatever it took to gain earthly power that these and other prophets foreshadowed and foretold the coming of Christ.  No, they steadfastly entrusted themselves to God, regardless of the cost. Far from making self-serving political calculations or seeking their own vengeance, they refused to abandon hope in God and to worship idols, even when their refusal seemed certain to lead to their deaths.  Consequently, they are among those who “suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”  They remained faithful as they lived in expectation, despite their displacement and disappointment, of the fulfillment of a promise that would not come in their lifetimes and transcended all conventional boundaries, “since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.”

No one forces us to choose today between idolatry and faithfulness, but we so often freely worship false gods when we ground the meaning and purpose of our lives in some vision of cultural success or personal fulfillment that inflames our passions and blinds us to the humanity of those who seem to stand in our way.  Even without being taken away into exile, we often hope for nothing more than a more comfortable life in Babylon, however we may envision that.  We face the same temptations that our Lord’s ancestors did, and we regularly fall into some version of the sins they committed. In addition to recalling David’s grave sins, Matthew lists Judah, who fathered children with his daughter-in-law Tamar. He also mentions Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute, and Ruth, a Moabite.  The Old Testament warns Jewish men against marrying Gentile women many times, but here are their names in the family tree of the Savior.  Their presence in the genealogy foreshadows the scandalous, but also completely innocent, conception of the Lord by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.  By including their names among the ancestors of Christ, Matthew reminds us that He is born to bring healing to all the broken, scandalous people of the world as we know it, not only to those who appear respectable or who are members of this or that favored group.  That is certainly good news for us as strangers and foreigners who have been grafted into the olive tree of the Hebrews by faith in Christ Jesus.  (Rom. 11: 17-18)   

When the Son of God became a human person, He did not do so by birth into a family of wealth, power, or fame.  There was certainly no sin involved in the virginal conception of our Lord, but the circumstances were hardly conventional.  Joseph, the older man to whom the Theotokos was betrothed as her guardian, would have divorced her quietly, had not an angel told him the truth about the situation in a dream.  Living under the brutal military occupation of the Roman Empire, they had to go to Bethlehem for a census at the time of His birth, where He came into the world in the lowly circumstance of being born in a cave used for a barn with an animals’ feeding trough as His crib. 

  Despite the temptation throughout Christ’s ministry to overthrow the Romans by force and set up an earthly reign as a new King David, He refused to be distracted from His vocation to conquer death itself, which required that He submit to execution on a Roman cross and wear a crown of thorns, being mocked as the failed king of the Jews.  Though the false hopes of His disciples had been crushed and He appeared to fail by all conventional standards, the Savior rose in victory on the third day.  His disciples then learned to hope anew for the fulfillment of God’s promises in ways that required a complete change of mind and heart, for they took up their crosses as they learned to serve a kingdom not of this world.  Like those who had foretold the coming of the Messiah across the centuries, they repudiated the idolatry of serving themselves or any earthly agenda as they came to hope only in the Lord.

  In order to welcome Christ at His Nativity, we must fulfill our calling to hope in nothing other than the God-Man Who is born to heal and fulfill all who bear the divine image and likeness.   His human lineage shows that He came for people as conflicted, confused, and compromised as we are.  Many of His ancestors wanted to be like the other nations and endured exile in foreign lands as a result. We exile ourselves from the everlasting joy of His Kingdom whenever we put devotion to any worldly goal before obedience to Him.  We exile ourselves from His blessed reign whenever we view or treat anyone as a foreigner or stranger who is excluded from the same divine mercy that we ask for ourselves.    Like Daniel and the three holy youths, it is time for us to refuse to worship false gods of any kind and to trust that the Savior is with us and with all who endure the lions’ dens and fiery furnaces of life in a world still enslaved to the fear of death.  Having been prepared by prayer, fasting, generosity, confession, and repentance, let us receive the God-Man born for our salvation at Christmas, for He alone is our hope and the hope of the entire world. His family tree shows that He came to save us all.      

 

      

 

 

Homily for the Sunday of the Forefathers (Ancestors) of Christ in the Orthodox Church

 

Colossians 3:4-11; Luke 14:16-24

 

             If you are like me, you know how easy it is to come up with excuses for not focusing on what is most important when you would rather be doing something else.  When that happens, the problem is not so much with the circumstances of our lives as with ourselves, for we have chosen not to keep our priorities in order and to become distracted from putting first things first.    

 

            The people in today’s gospel reading did precisely that when they rejected the invitation to enter into the joy of the great banquet that represents the Kingdom of God.  They made excuses based on the blessings that they had received:  One owned real estate, another had animals, and a third was married.  These commonplace conditions are certainly not evil or even temptations in and of themselves.  They preclude no one from seeking first the Kingdom of God.  They provide opportunities for offering all the good things of this life to the Lord for the fulfillment of His gracious purposes for the salvation of the world.  Nonetheless, all the invited guests in the parable used them as excuses to refuse the invitation to the feast.  That is when the master commanded his servant to “Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame.”  Because there was still room, the master ordered him to go out even further to “the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.”  

 

There may be deeper spiritual significance to the symbolism of the yoke of five oxen in the parable, for there are five books of law in the Old Testament.  Having a field of land may represent those who wanted the Messiah to set up a nationalistic religious kingdom in the Holy Land.  Marriage may represent the belief that God’s blessings were only for their particular family line or ethnic group.  Many rejected our Lord because He interpreted the law in a way that challenged the legalism of the Pharisees, repudiated the temptation to become a military or political leader, and extended the blessings of His Reign even to those considered foreigners and enemies.

 

In the historical setting of the passage, “the poor and maimed and blind and lame” and those brought in “from the highways and hedges” represent us as Gentiles who are not the descendants of Abraham and have no ancestral connection to the law and prophets of the Old Testament.  Especially as we prepare for Christmas, we must remember that we have no claim to the blessings of the Messiah on the basis of nationality. Apart from the mercy of the Savior, which extends to foreigners and outcasts like us, we would have no part in the great spiritual heritage of those who foreshadowed and foretold the coming of the Christ across the centuries before His birth. To see ourselves and our neighbors in light of the divisions of our fallen world is simply to make yet another excuse for not embracing the gracious healing that He offers even to unlikely people like us.  As St. Paul wrote, “Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.”

  

The Hebrews who looked forward in faith for God’s fulfillment of the promises to Abraham did not do so simply on the basis of their observance of the law, which came later through Moses.  The law was necessary for sinful people as a tutor in preparation for the coming of Christ.  The ancestors of the Lord longed not merely for a great teacher, but for liberation from slavery to sin and death, which the law lacked the power to accomplish. The forefathers of the Savior trusted God that their hope would not be in vain.  Though often overlooked at the time, the original promise to Abraham extended to the Gentiles, for God told him, “In you all the nations of the world will be blessed.”  (Gen. 22:18) Now all who are in Christ “are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. 3:29) Jew or Gentile, “those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.” (Gal. 3:9) The Savior is born to bring all who bear the divine image and likeness into the joy of the heavenly banquet.

 

The Hebrews of the Old Testament who prepared for the Messiah’s coming through faith did so of their own free will in response to their calling as the children of Abraham.  That is true also for the Theotokos, who is the highest offering of the Jewish people and became the God-Man’s living temple in a unique way as His virgin mother.  She was chosen for this astounding vocation and responded in freedom to the message of the Archangel Gabriel.  No one forced her, but she chose to remain focused on hearing and obeying the Word of God.  Likewise, no one forces us.  No matter what excuses we have made so far in our lives, we all have the ability to respond to Christ with the obedience of humble faith. Doing so means that we will obey the Apostle’s teaching: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”

 

Unfortunately, those in the parable who had convinced themselves that the normal cares of life excluded them from entering into the joy of the heavenly kingdom responded differently.   As the master said in the parable, ‘”For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’  For many are called, but few are chosen.”  Those who are chosen are those who follow the Theotokos’ example of making receptivity to Christ the top priority of their lives.  Like her, we must use our freedom as those who bear the image of God to seek first His Kingdom.  Doing so requires that we obey the Apostle’s teaching: “But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth.  Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.”

 

Contrary to what we like to tell ourselves, the conventional responsibilities of life are invitations to love and serve Christ in our neighbors each day of our lives.  Nothing but our own lack of mindfulness can keep us from making our daily responsibilities points of entrance into eternal joy.  What St. Porphyrios taught about the spiritual possibilities of our daily work applies to the rest of life also: 

 

At your work, whatever it may be, you can become saints—through meekness, patience and love.  Make a new start every day, with new resolution, with enthusiasm and love, prayer and silence—not with anxiety so that you get a pain in the chest.[1]

 

Let your soul devote itself to the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me” in all your worries, for everything and everyone.  Don’t look at what’s happening to you, look at the light, at Christ, just as a child looks to its mother when something happens to it. See everything without anxiety, without depression, without strain and without stress.[2]

 

We make the choice every moment whether we are going to offer our blessings and struggles to the Lord as opportunities for finding the healing of our souls or whether we are going to use them as excuses to fuel our passions.  The path we take will lead us either into the joy of the heavenly kingdom or into the despair of those who have wasted their lives on what can never truly satisfy the living icons of God.  Before His holy glory, we are all “the poor and maimed and blind and lame” from “the highways and hedges” who must open our hearts for healing through prayer, fasting, generosity to our needy neighbors, and confession and repentance of our sins.   That is how even unlikely people like us may accept His gracious invitation to dine at the Heavenly Banquet with those who looked forward to the coming of the Messiah with faith across the ages.    Let us use the remainder of the Nativity Fast to do precisely that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] St. Porphyrios, Wounded by Love, 144.

[2] St. Porphyrios, 145.

Homily for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday After Pentecost & Tenth Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

 

Ephesians 5:8-19; Luke 13:10-17

 

            It would be impossible to make sense of this time of preparation for Christmas without recognizing the essential role played by a woman, the Theotokos who miraculously contained God in her womb as His virgin mother.  Near the beginning of the Nativity Fast, we celebrated the feast of her Entrance into the Temple, where she prepared to welcome Christ into her life in as His living temple.  Every expectant mother prepares for the birth of her child, but the Theotokos’ preparation was surely unique, for as we sing in these weeks before Christmas: “On this day the Virgin cometh to the cave to give birth to God the Word ineffably, Who was before all the ages. Dance for joy, O earth, on hearing the gladsome tidings; with the Angels and the shepherds now glorify Him Who is willing to be gazed on as a young Child Who before the ages is God.”

            Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote in For the Life of the World that all generations call the Mother of God blessed “Because in her love and obedience, in her faith and humility, she accepted to be what from all eternity all creation was meant and created to be:  the temple of the Holy Spirit, the humanity of God.” (101-102) He teaches that she did so by fulfilling “the womanhood of creation,” for the Church is the Bride of Christ in which “the world…finds its restoration and fulfillment.” (102)  For both men and women, the Theotokos is the ultimate model of humble obedience and receptivity to the Savior’s healing of the human person.  She shows us what it means to embrace our identity as living members of the Church, the Body and Bride of Christ, as a sign of the salvation of the world.

             Today’s gospel reading presents Christ’s interaction with a woman who was bent over and had not been able to straighten up for eighteen years. He saw her in a synagogue on the Sabbath and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” When He laid hands on her, she was healed.  When the woman stood up straight again, she glorified God.  As was often the case when the Savior healed on the Sabbath day, there were religious leaders eager to criticize Him for working on the legally mandated day of rest.  He responded by stating the obvious:   People do what is necessary to take care of their animals 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?”  Then “all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by Him.” By restoring the woman in this way Christ showed that He is truly “Lord of the Sabbath” and that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  (Mark 2:27-28)

            The woman whom the Lord delivered from her infirmity represents us all who are weakened, broken, and paralyzed by our passions and by the corruption that has been our common lot from generation to generation. Like her, we are not in need of more religious rules and practices that lack the power to heal and restore us as the beloved children of God.  Instead, we need to be set free from bondage to all that cripples us from becoming like the Theotokos in freely offering herself to fulfill the vocation of all humanity and of the creation itself to become the living temple of God.  That is precisely why the Savior is born at Christmas as the God-Man, the Theanthropos, in Whom all people may share by grace in the divine life. Nothing else could truly liberate those who bear the divine image and likeness from the pernicious corruption of sin, which leads ultimately to the grave. 

            We all have diseases of soul, of personality, of behavior, and of relationships that cripple us, keeping us from acting, thinking, and speaking with the joyful freedom of the children of God.  We are all bent over and crippled in relation to the Lord, our neighbors, and even ourselves.  We have all fallen short of fulfilling God’s gracious purposes for us, as has every generation since Adam and Eve stripped themselves naked of the divine glory.   Indeed, “the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.” (Rom. 8:22) That is why we need these weeks of the Nativity Fast to purify our hearts through prayer, fasting, generosity to the needy, and confession and repentance of our sins.  We must grow in acquiring the spiritual clarity necessary to say with the Theotokos, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

If we want to straighten up like the woman who had been bent over for eighteen years, we must become the Lord’s holy temples as we open our hearts to receive His gracious divine energies for strength and restoration infinitely beyond what we could ever give ourselves.   In baptism, we have put on Christ like a garment, receiving the robe of light that our first parents lost through their disobedience.  In chrismation, we have received the fullness of the Holy Spirit, our personal Pentecost. In the Eucharist, we are nourished with the Body and Blood of our Lord as participants in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.  Nothing constrains us from being healed of our infirmities of soul other than our own stubborn refusal to receive the healing, transformation, and fulfillment of the human person that Christ was born to bring to the world. 

In our epistle reading, St. Paul instructed the Christians of Ephesus to resist the spiritual and moral corruption of pagan culture.  In contrast to the darkness of worshiping false gods, engaging in sexual immorality, and making pride and power their highest goods, he called them to “walk as children of light…and try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.”  He told them to “take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”  Like the Ephesians, we live in a time in which we must be vigilant against corrupting the way of Christ with practices and beliefs that are completely contradictory to our vocation to become His holy temples.  From all points of the cultural compass today, we face temptations to remain stooped over by our passions.  That is why we must obey St. Paul’s teaching as we prepare to receive Christ at His Nativity: “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.” 

Evil is the corruption of good, and we must not simply condemn the creation or pretend that we can completely isolate ourselves from the world.  Our calling, instead, is to call the world to find its fulfillment as the Church, as God’s holy temple, the Body and Bride of Christ.  In order to do so with integrity, we must personally bear witness to the Lord’s healing mercy in our own lives as we mindfully turn away from all that tempts us to remain enslaved to our passions.  That is why the Apostle tells us “not [to] get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but 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.”

 It is so easy today to fill our eyes, ears, and minds with messages and images that are full of darkness and lead us to become living temples to our own self-centered desires and the corruption that is all around us.  Doing so is the complete opposite of the way of the Theotokos.  More than anyone else, she shows us how to be liberated from our infirmities so that we may welcome the Savior into our lives at Christmas in humble obedience and purity of heart.   In the remaining weeks of the Nativity Fast, let us follow her example in becoming living temples of the Lord who embody this joyful proclamation: “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.”