Ephesians 2:14-22; Luke 13:10-17
When Jesus Christ was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, He saw a woman who was bent over and could not straighten up. She had been that way for eighteen years. The Lord 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)
In these weeks of the Nativity Fast, we pray, fast, give to the needy, and
confess and turn away from our sins as we prepare to
celebrate the wonderful news of the Incarnation of the Son of God, the glorious
proclamation of our Lord’s birth at Christmas for the salvation of the world. Today’s gospel reading reminds us that Christ does
not come to place even more burdens on the backs of broken people that will
never help them to gain the strength to straighten up. He is not born to enslave us further to
chronic, debilitating infirmities of whatever kind. No, He has united divinity and humanity in Himself
in order to share His healing and restoration of the human person with all who
respond to Him with humble faith. That is a very good thing for us who are well acquainted
with illness, pain, disability, and death. We also 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
of the divine glory. Indeed, “the whole creation groans and
labors with birth pangs together until now.” (Rom. 8:22)
Joachim and Anna knew
long-term frustration and pain all too well, for like Abraham and Sarah they
were childless into their old age. God heard their prayers, however, and
gave them Mary, who would in turn give birth to the Savior Who came to liberate
us all from sin and death. We celebrate tomorrow the feast of St. Anna’s
conception of the Theotokos, which foreshadows the coming of the Lord to free us
from the infirmities that hinder our entrance into the blessedness of the
Kingdom.
The 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 receive Him
with faith, regardless of their ethnic or national heritage. Christ did
not come to promote one nation, culture, ethnic group, or political faction over
another or to set up an earthly kingdom of any kind in any part of the world. He is born to fulfill our original calling as
those created in the image and likeness of God so that we might become “partakers
of the divine nature” in Him. He unites divinity
and humanity in Himself and makes it possible for us to share in the eternal
life of the Holy Trinity as distinct, unique persons who become radiant with
the divine glory by grace. God breaks the laws of nature, at least as we know
them in our world of corruption, in order to save us, enabling elderly women like
Sarah and Anna to conceive and bear children and a young virgin named Mary to
become the Theotokos, the mother of His Son, Who Himself rose from the dead
after three days in the tomb. He is born at Christmas for nothing less
than our liberation through breaking the bonds of death and healing every
dimension of the brokenness of our life in this world of corruption.
The
Lord surely did not treat the woman in today’s reading as being undeserving of
His mercy due to her disability, her sex, or any other human characteristic. Instead, He revealed her true identity as a
beloved person, a daughter of Abraham, by enabling her to regain the basic
human capability of standing up straight for the first time in years. On
that particular Sabbath day, Jesus Christ treated her as a unique, cherished
child of God who was not created for slavery to a wretched existence of pain,
disease, and despair, but for blessing, health, and joy.
The good news of Christmas is that the Savior is born to set us all free from captivity
to the decay, corruption, and weakness that have taken root in our souls and in
our world. He comes to deliver us from being defined by infirmities of any kind
so that we may enter into the joyous freedom of the children of God. The
New Adam comes to us through the holy obedience of His virgin mother, the New
Eve, to heal every dimension of our brokenness, including the common temptation
for men to view women in light of their own passions and to treat them as being
somehow less in the image and likeness of God than themselves. The brokenness of the relationship between
man and woman stems from the fall of our first parents and is an abiding sign
of the corruption of a world that has not yet embraced its restoration in the New
Adam, Who was born of a woman, the New Eve, for our salvation. The supremely honored position of the
Theotokos in the life of the Church shows that the denigration of women is
antithetical to our salvation. As St.
Paul wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor
free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
(Gal. 3:28) Our Savior comes to deliver us all from slavery to the bondage of
seeing and treating anyone as less than a living icon of God for any reason.
Especially in these weeks of preparation for Christmas, we must
remember that salvation came to the world through the free, humble obedience of
a particular Palestinian Jewish teenaged girl who said “Yes!” to God with every
ounce of her being. The only way to prepare to welcome the Savior at His
Nativity is to become like her as we receive Him with humble faith, even as we
turn away from all that keeps us weakened and distorted by our passions,
including those that lead to hatred and condemnation of those we consider our
enemies. As St. Paul taught, “Christ is our
peace, Who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of
hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and ordinances,
that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making
peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the Cross,
thereby bringing the hostility to an end.”
The particular division that the Apostle addressed was between
Jew and Gentile, but the same truth applies to division among all who bear His
image and likeness. As Gentiles who have become heirs to the fulfillment
of the promises to Abraham by faith in Christ, who are we to say that anyone is
beyond receiving the merciful lovingkindness of the Lord for which we
pray? Who are we to look at anyone
through the darkened lenses of our own passions and to declare that they are
anymore beyond redemption than we are? If we, despite our sinfulness and lack
of any ancestral claim to the blessings of the Messiah, “are no longer
strangers and sojourners, but …fellow citizens with the saints and members of
the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone,” then we must treat every neighbor—male
or female and of whatever nationality, affiliation, or ideology-- as a beloved child
of God to whom the Savior’s gracious proclamation, “Woman,
you are freed from your infirmity,” is addressed.
Since
there is much within all of us that would rather condemn our enemies than see
them as being no more in need of the Lord’s healing mercy than we are, we need
these blessed weeks of Advent to pray, fast, give alms, and confess and repent
of our sins so that we will gain the spiritual clarity to see that the One born
at Christmas comes to loose us all from our infirmities and bring us into the
blessedness of His Kingdom. He delivered
Joachim and Anna from barrenness and comes to set us all free from the sorrow
of our first parents as daughters and sons of Abraham by faith. The healing force of His words, “Woman, you
are freed from your infirmity,” extends to us all. Now is the time to prepare mindfully to enter
into the great joy brought to the world by our Lord, the New Adam, Who was born
of a woman, the New Eve, for our salvation.
