The Second Week of Great Lent

The sermon was delivered at Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville NY

March 8th, 2015, in the second week of Great Lent

Subdeacon  Stojanche Andov

        In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

     Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men... When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you” (Mark. 2. 3-5).

          My dear brothers and sisters,

      We are in the second week of the Lent, in the week that we commemorate St. Gregory Palamas. At the beginning of the Liturgy we heard very profound words from the Gospel and I am going to talk in depth about it. Specifically about the faith of the paralytic man and his friends.

     While Christ was surrounded by a huge crowd in a palestinian house, there was a paralytic man who desired to see Christ and ask him to be healed. Obviously he could not walk by himself, therefore his friends were there for him to help. Their persistence and faith made them climb the roof, take away some boards and with ropes lower down the paralytic man. What would today's man say if he saw something similar to this? He might say: “they must be out of their minds.” Yes, for the wordly men those four could be out of their minds, but for us Christians they are not. The Orthodox Christians never give up their faith. Their faith is constant, intensive, productive. Even if the road is closed one way, faith seeks another one. This was the faith of the paralytic's friends. With their selflessness, they had faith and through the roof lowered the sick one. Have you ever wondered how Christ reacted when he saw this? Imagine Him looking up to the roof seeing something come down to Him. This is a great example of faith inspiring people, in this case the four friends of the paralytic, to do all they could. I've heard many times by my close ones or some of my Orthodox fellows telling me: “I could not come to Church this Sunday, but I was there with my heart.” I assure those who think in such way are completely wrong. This is just as if a person who is physically sick, did not go to a doctor, but said to himself: “I can not go to a doctor, but I'll just pretend that I went in and I'll get better.” If someone's heart was in Church at the Liturgy, his body would be there too. Faith can not be prevented from not going to Christ. It will find a way to get to our sweet Lord.

       Let's consider something else that is really important to keep in our minds: we go to Christ to be healed, but that is not enough. After we've experienced the beauty, the sweetness of the Lord, we continue to stay in it; likewise, we bring others so that they could also feel that grace. St Gregory Palamas teaches us the following: “Without communion with Christ there is no true faith in his person or real confession of his name. The true Christian does not believe objectively in Christ, neither does he confess his Godhead as a general belief. Faith in Christ is to be in Christ. Confession in Christ is to confess being in Christ.” Is there any greater gift than to give someone Christ? Let's go back to the Gospel's event: those four friends of the paralytic man could not heal him, but they brought him to the One who could, which was Christ Himself.

     My dears, “the measure of love of neighbor reveals the measure of the faith,” says St. Symeon the New Theologian. Before Christ healed the paralytic, He said to him: Son, your sins are forgiven you (Mark. 2. 3-5). This is a affirmation that when we become physically ill, we first become spiritually ill because of our sins, then it affects our body. What does this healing mean? - writes St. John of Kronstad. It means that the illnesses that befall us are the consequences of our sins, and that it is impossible to be completely free from illnesses unless we first cleanse ourselves from our sins, just as it is impossible to destroy the consequences without first destroying its causes. We first have to start receiving medicine to heal our inner, our soul through repentance. Thus Christ first told the paralytic Son, your sins are forgiven you (Mark. 2. 3-5). To demonstrate this, I will give you an example that I recently read about this issue. If someone is a bad driver, he would destroy every car that is given to him, even the best one. The optimum therapy, in that case, is not the frequent fixing of the car, but the teaching of the driver. Sin is the biggest paralysis. Sin, Orthodox Christians, captures the body and the soul of man. We should not be in despair if we want to get out of this. All that we have to do is to go to Christ, as paralyzed, and leave from Him healed. We go to Him, as paralyzed from the fear of death and we leave with a hope of everlasting life. We should keep in our mind that everyone who perform sins and stay in it, is a paralytic.

    All of these events bring us to one meaningful and essential point. You wonder what is it? It is FAITH. The Faith, my beloved. Christianity is a Faith of light in two senses: first, it elevates man above chance, above all things, and above the spirits of darkness; and second, it subordinates man only to the authority of the living , Wise and Almighty God” (Prolog of Ohrid, 21 day, Reflection). It is vital for us to understand that when we approach Christ, seeking forgiveness of our sins, we must approach with faith and with humility for without humility there is no true faith; and without faith there is no true humanity, writes St. Gregory Palamas. “ Our sweet Christ teaches everyone of us: Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says (Mark 11.22). We ask God to heal our soul with faith. We ask Him to forgive our sins with faith and humbleness.

      In the church of Saint Sophia in Constantinople, on a marble slab, were engraved the following words: “Wash not only the face, but also the sins.” Whoever entered into that glorious church and read that sign would be reminded that the Christian faith requires a moral purity: purity of the soul, of the heart and of the mind, for Christ said: “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5.8). Who are we? Who are the Christians? The Christians are “those who believe” (I Tess, 1,10). In such a way let us make our souls and bodies fight this evil world with the shield of the faith and have our hearts burn for Christ.

     This is the week of St. Gregory Palamas. He had very simple teaching, but for some Christians it is hard to understand and to accept. He talks about uncreated light. To be a Christian is to become perfected. Christianity is not only about believing in God. Christianity is also about being completely healed of someone's sins and to become united in God. Unfortunately, this idea even among the Christians is not well known. Many of us think it's enough for us only to go to church, take communion once in a while and that's the end of the story. No. That's wrong. Christianity is to clean one's heart, open and so that the Holy Spirit would come and dwell in it. The model for perfection is Jesus Christ. Accordingly the more we become like Him, the more perfect we are. Perfection is possible. Attain that perfection that gives you eternal life and joys in the Lord while you are on earth.

     Our purpose is to become perfected, as God is, and become gods by grace. The abundant dinner is prepared for those who have obstained from performing iniquities. Do we want to be part of that dinner? Do we want to be partakers of the eternal joy? I am sure we all do. Therefore let us all exclaim and tell God: “I want to incline my heart towards You and remember that everything comes from You: sun and rain, joy and sorry, temptations. Everything. I was one of the hundred sheep that was lost, and You rushed to bring me back with the ninety nine.”

      Now is the time for repentance. Now is the time for crying for our sins and healing our souls, then our bodies. It is the time to humble ourselves and receive Christ, through His life-giving Mysteries, His Divine Body and Most-Pure Blood (Season of Repentance, pg. 106). Therefore, let's diligently visit and attend the church services ordinarily as possible, read the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, and study the Scripture. It is true, during Great Lent our churches sometimes are full of worshippers, like that house in which Jesus Christ was, so much so that the people barely fit in it. Glory be to God! If only the churches were filled with Christians more often! Yet the theater is filled much more often than our churches (St. John of Kronstadt).

     Dear Orthodox Christians, I want to close this sermon by telling you something: I wished we all had as mush faith as that paralytic man and his friends. Amen!