Ephesians
6:10-17; 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 celebrated yesterday 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 or culture over another or to set up an earthly
kingdom of any kind in any part of the world, but to fulfill our original
calling as those created in the image and likeness of God. 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 supremely honored position of the
Theotokos in the life of the Church reminds us of the falsehood of such
assumptions. 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
once 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. As St. Paul taught, we must “put on the whole
armor of God,” grounding ourselves in truth, righteousness, peace, faith,
salvation, and the Holy Spirit. Unlike
those throughout history to the present day who have foolishly identified their
spiritual enemies with their earthly adversaries, he teaches that “we
are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities,
against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against
the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
While there are certainly dangers in giving too much
attention to the demons, there is even greater danger in becoming careless and
complacent before the familiar temptations that habitually weaken us. To receive Christ’s healing for the passions
that keep us spiritually crippled, St. Paul advises that we must “be strong in
the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that
you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” We should never presume that we are so
spiritually strong that this guidance does not apply to us. That is why we must embrace the basic
spiritual disciples particularly stressed in seasons such as the Nativity Fast,
like prayer, fasting, generosity to the needy, and confessing and repenting of
our sins. That is why we must read the Scriptures
and learn from the example and teaching of the saints. These are basic building
blocks of the Christian life, not because they meet some legal requirement, but
because they are channels through which we open ourselves to receive His
healing strength.
When we are
tempted to despair that we will ever receive Christ’s healing, we should
remember that He is present with us even more so than He was to the woman who
could not stand up straight, for we are living members of His Body, the Church,
having put Him on like a garment in baptism.
We are “one flesh” with Him in
the Eucharist and He dwells in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. The way to healing and restoration is not through
obsessing about our sins or giving up hope, but through persistently turning to
Him with love. As St. Porphyrios taught,
“If you give your heart to Him, there will be no room for other things. When you have ‘put on’ Christ, you will not
need any effort to attain virtue. He
will give it to you. Are you engulfed by
fear and disenchantment? Turn to Christ.
Love Him simply and humbly, without any demand, and He Himself will free
you.”
Let
us use the remaining weeks before Christmas to turn to the Savior in humble
love, trusting that He is born to heal 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.
