Sermon on the 24th Sunday after Pentecost [2011]
Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord,
in the face of death, many of us try to be Jairus [Luke 8, 41]. And when comes word to disease, the incurable disease, we are woman with issue of blood, „who had a hemorrhage for twelve years” [Luke 8, 43, acc. NAU].
For that and Jairus, and the woman came to the Lord, as the last instance, and He helped them both.
Although Jairus was the chief of synagogue…when he saw dying his daughter, his only daughter…he stepped on the heart and he went to ask the Lord to heal her.
Woman suffering from blood leaking…after what she gave her wealth to physicians and she still could not cure [Luke 8, 43]…she was healed immediately what she touched the margin of His garment [Luke 8, 44].
And the two are living examples for us to approach to the Lord. Because today’s Gospel [Luke 8, 41-56] has in prime-plan just the proximity of faithful man with God, in that reside the real life.
Jairus „fell at Jesus’ feet, and began to implore Him to come to his house” [v. 41].
His prayer is the close and direct.
Lord accepted his request and go to the house of Jairus. But on the way to a resurrection from the dead…the Lord heals the woman [v. 44], for that show us that the road to a good deed does not exclude another good deed.
And, especially, the Lord tells us through His example, that no matter how big the pain or need of a man…but any need or pain should be helped.
But the woman has approached the Lord with decency. Because she comes behind Him and she touched the border of His garment [v. 44, acc. GNT]…without that she to say something.
The divine omniscience sees with power from the verse of the 46th, where the Lord speaks about the power that came from Him and healed the woman.
And together with His omniscience, we find here a new proof about the life of God, about the life-creating power of God and, implicitly, about the fact that our God is living God.
For that this power or dynamis from greek is correlative of the grace and the grace is life of God, which shares all those who breathe it in faith.
Life in the Church makes us fill us with grace. And we are full of grace just because God is alive and irradiant, His life is mixed with ours and we live with Him in all our days.
And life with God in the Church, we escape the temptation to perceive God as a philosophical concept or as Someone far away from us.
For that at every service of the Church, we feel the breath of life of God’s grace and, making this experience, we do not expect the scientific evidences for the existence of God because we are with God.
The Church and its Tradition are a cloud of witnesses for believers, because these present the historical and current evidences of the presence of God in history.
The Divine services, the Holy Relics, the Holy Icons, the Lives of Saints, the testimonies of the Fathers, whole theological, ascetic and mystical experiences, all together and each in part, are signs of life, testimonies of God’s presence, the truth about a mode to be ecclesial.
What she felt closer to the Lord, we feel for each day serving in the Church and wherever we are called.
The living God, Which we serve, makes us to live joy, strengthening, healing of sins in every day. He always touches our souls and bodies and this touch of His is our spiritual life.
Thus there can not exist the spiritual life without intimacy with God and without you feel, on every day, His breath life into your life.
The thermometer of faith is feeling of grace, of the life of God in our lives. And if we do not feel His grace in our lives it means that we are tomb stones, whitewashed tombs.
From the 52th verse we understand that death is a sleep in the eyes of God. God does not see death as eternal but as a passage between two ways of life.
Therefore life now is so important for orthodox christians: because it is preparation for the eternal life. Life now is serious, for that eternal joy is serious, is full of beauty.
And people who do not believe stupid laugh…as those of the 53th verse.
But the laughter without reason is a laughter for nothing. For that silly laughter is devoid of truth.
And against that unbelieving laughter…God rises from the dead on the child…and fills with theological wonder on her parents.
The life, with other words, is the ultimate reality and life with God is the supreme eternal achievement of man.
He who seeks life seeks God.
The death is the creation of sin and it is not of God! Therefore death is not sustainable than through the will to evil.
And when we do not want the evil, when we feel it clogged up over head…then we want life, ie the good, and it is unsurpassed. Amen!