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.”
