In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today, the Lord heals the paralytic by the Sheep Pool. When He heals the paralytic by the Sheep Pool, He tells the man who is healed : “‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’”. It should be emphasised that this man had been paralysed for 38 years, not just a couple of days. For most of his life, he had been lying beside the Sheep Pool waiting for someone to put him into the water when the waters would be stirred up by an angel, so that he could be healed. However, no-one ever did – and then the Saviour came.
The people knew very well who this man was. Nevertheless, they saw him on the Sabbath day, walking, carrying his bed. That is against the Law according to Jewish law because carrying a bed is considered to be work. They did not pay any attention to the fact that this paralysed man was walking normally. They did not, as they ought to have done, give glory to God straight away. Immediately they noticed what was obvious to them – that he was breaking the Law. Of course, when they found out everything, they were angry with the Saviour Himself, too, because He healed on the Sabbath. Healing on the Sabbath was considered by them to be work.
Nowadays, we are in a very crippled condition ourselves. Even though the Sabbath was not done away with after Christ came to us, we do not keep it any more. We do not even keep the Lord’s Day properly any more. Except perhaps for going to church, the Lord’s Day is no different from any other day. Even if people might go to church, very often for them the rest of the day is filled with all sorts of work and all sorts of other busy activities. All this activity fills up and occupies what the Lord gave us as a day of rest for our own good. The Lord, however, always emphasises that : “‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath’” (Mark 2:27). That is another thing that was forgotten by the critics of the Saviour. What better day, the Saviour shows us in another place in the Gospel (see Matthew 12:11-13), what better day on which to do good : to heal, to restore people who are created in the image of God ? “This is the day that the Lord has made : let us exult and be glad in it” (Psalm 117:24). What better day, indeed !
Today we have all this brought into sharp focus for us in the healing of the paralytic at the Sheep Pool. We have also the healing by the Apostle Peter of another paralysed man. However, this was not accomplished by the Apostle Peter himself because he always said : “In the Name of Jesus Christ, arise”. He, and all the apostles always did that. They never took credit for themselves for anything that they did. Rather, they always gave glory to God. They always recognised that it was Jesus Christ Himself who was doing whatever was being done through the apostles.
The apostles’ greatness is found in their transparency. It was because the Apostle Peter had become transparent in Christ that when Dorcas (also called Tabitha) had died, and he was called to come, he came and he prayed, and he discerned what was the will of God for Tabitha. It was not that he was praying, girding himself up so as to energise himself by some mysterious technique in order to work a wonder. Not at all. This apostle, or any apostle, never did anything so base or blasphemous as to try to apply some non-existent technique so that by his own will he could, as they used to say in the American south : “Haul off and make a miracle”. It is not like sorcery in any way whatsoever. What he was doing was discerning what was the will of God for Tabitha. When he had listened long enough to understand in his heart that the Lord was going to raise her, the Apostle Peter spoke for the Lord. He told her to get up, and she did. However, it was because the apostle was transparent in Christ’s love that he was able to understand what the Lord directed him to do. Then he did it.
Therefore, why should we not be quiet on the Lord’s Day, and spend time with our families ? We will have just been in the Temple of the Lord, and we will have received the Body and Blood of Christ. In the past, in every monastery I have been in, normally after the Divine Liturgy, those who have been in the Liturgy (and especially those who have received Holy Communion) take a “PLN” (which is a post-liturgy-nap). We take a rest after we have done the work of praising the Lord, and after we have received the Grace of God. When we take this rest, we allow ourselves to rest in Christ, focussed on Christ, and we allow His Grace to renew us inside. Then, getting up, we spend time as quietly as we can. This is the ideal, but the devil comes and tempts us, and stirs us up. If we can, we should spend quiet time afterwards, just being with the Lord, and being with each other in the joy of the Lord. That is the purpose of this day.
In my grandmother’s time, however, on the Lord’s Day people went to church, and then they did nothing. Everything had to be cooked the day before because they would not do anything on Sunday. They drew the window-blinds ; they sat in relative darkness in the house, and if they read anything, they read the Bible, and that was all. It was like this because they chose to obey the Mosaic Law of the Sabbath. It was very strict. This strictness included obedience by force. It was because the obedience was oppressive that my grandmother and grandfather did not go to church for a long time in their lives. It was too strict. On my grandmother’s side it was extremely strict Presbyterian, and on my grandfather’s side it was very strict Baptist, although there was a similar mentality. Their families seemed to be oppressed by the rules, the rules and the rules. It was strict Calvinism. It can be said that they read too much Old Testament and neglected the New Testament. To be sure, they were God-loving people, but rules, rules, rules ! It kept their children away from the church for a while. In Scotland or in southern Ontario in those days it might have worked, but in western Canada it did not work any more. People would not accept those rules.
What they would likely have accepted was the truth of love. They would probably have willingly done those things and they would have been quiet on the Lord’s Day, if it had been understood by them that the parents did the very same things with joy. However, the parents did not transmit that joy very well to the children. If the children had understood that being at peace and being quiet with the Lord, simply being with each other in the Lord was a joyful thing and a good thing, and that one could read something other than only the Bible, that one could read something uplifting, then I am quite sure it would have been all right. Nonetheless, those children never stopped being believers, even though they were rebellious for a time.
Nevertheless, the whole point of everything is not so much how precisely we will observe the Lord’s Day, but rather what sort of person we are. We, as Christians, are loved by God. At least some of us may have been raised in an environment in which God is loved in return. Thus, it is in an atmosphere of loving God that we would have been nurtured. It is a life-giving atmosphere. It is a life-creating atmosphere. This is what we want to provide for each other, even if we are not strictly observing rules about no work. At least on the Lord’s Day in particular, we try to slow down, and we try to keep the Lord in the fore-front of our heart and our memory during that day especially. By doing that, we have hope that when we go to work the next day, the memory of the Lord is going to be with us.
Every day of our lives as Orthodox Christians, we are tested. “Do I love Jesus Christ more than anything ? I know He loves me, but do I love Him ? Is He in the fore-front of my everyday life ? Do I let His love carry me through all the difficulties and the trials of everyday life ?” When people are testing me by snarky remarks or other sorts of teasing remarks, or even by lying, or whatever else people do, when I am confronted with all these difficulties with other human beings, am I listening to my heart to see what the Saviour is guiding me to do and to say in any of these particular situations ? On the other hand, do I forget, and give vent to my negative emotions ? Do I analyse and calculate with my mind, and forget the Saviour ? When I run away with my emotions, and when I am calculating in my mind what is the best thing to do and to say, every time, I am out of kilter. This wild, emotional and tumultuous way is always away from the right way. There might be some good in it, but that is because the Lord makes good out of bad. If I am going to calculate and try to assess something mentally, it has to be with Jesus Christ. If I am going to have my emotions involved in something, those emotions still have to be in, and subject to, Jesus Christ. I have to involve Jesus Christ in everything. If I do, I will be helped. If I do, I will be mostly peaceful. If I do, I will be well-directed. If I do, I will, even without thinking, be able to speak for the Lord, and the Lord will say, through me, what the other person needs to hear. I do not have to think up what someone needs to hear ; the Lord will give it.
However, our hearts have to be open. We can notice, by the way, that when the apostles are doing everything that they are doing, and going everywhere that they are going, and enduring everything that they are enduring, they are doing all of this in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. It was Jesus Christ who, when He washed their feet, said that they should be like Him, and do as He does. Therefore, wherever those apostles went, whatever they did (even if they were speaking about Jesus Christ), they always behaved as servants. They were always putting themselves at the disposal of people they were with, and they were helping them in one way or another. The Apostle Peter was definitely helping the paralysed man, and he was helping Tabitha. He was helping not only Tabitha, but all the people around her who depended on her, because she was such a strong believer.
Today, God willing, we are going to be ordaining n to the Holy Diaconate. By how he serves, by how he exercises the particular gifts that God has been giving to him amongst the people, he will be trying to show how Jesus Christ is serving us. He will be trying to show how a Christian is supposed to live. He will also be trying to show how we must serve each other, because serving is the essence of being a Christian. The word “deacon” means servant (actually it means “slave”). We understand in our democratic environment that the word “servant” is nicer. But still, for people who have their noses in the air, being a servant is not at all a pleasant thing. No matter who we are, we Christians must be like Christ : a servant. Deacon n will be exercising this in front of us, and amongst us. It is important for us to pray for him so that we can support him in his serving, so that he will be the best example possible for us of the meaning of Christian service.
Let us, brothers and sisters, do our best to keep our Saviour in the fore-front of our hearts. Let us ask Him to remind us daily (because we do need those reminders) that He is with us, that He loves us, that He is supporting us, that He is educating our hearts and minds, as He promised, and that He will not abandon us. He is always with us, but we need those reminders. Let us ask Him to keep reminding us, so that we will be able to serve Him faithfully and well, with the whole heart and with love, and glorify Him, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.