Homily on the 24th Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 8:41-56.
In today’s Gospel we have the account of the healing of the woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years as well as the healing of the daughter of Jairus (a master of a synagogue). What shines through both these accounts is the faith of the people involved - the women who believed that to touch the hem of our lord’s garment would heal her and Jairus the ruler of the synagogue who begged Jesus to come to his house to heal his sick daughter. Both the women and Jairus firmly believed that Christ could and would bring about the healings that they desired and in the end their faith was rewarded.
What relevance does today’s Gospel have for us Christians today? Well often times in life we face challenges that can seem difficult to rise above and these challenges can seem to be never ending! What we must remember as Christians is that Christ came so that all may have life in him and live- meaning that Christ as our Lord and Master wishes us to come to him and to trust in him. Trusting can sometimes be difficult and like the people in today’s Gospel (who were at Jairus’s House) it can be all too easy to mock and ridicule than to have faith!
I remember many years ago I was looking for a job and I seemed to be having no luck – an extraordinarily stressful situation. I remember going to an Orthodox Church and sitting in front of the iconostasis praying in front of the icons of Christ and the All Holy Theotokos begging for assistance in my job hunt. As I prayed I suddenly felt this reassurance that if I persisted in my job hunt and absolutely trusted in God then I would not be without a job for long. Indeed, the next day I got a call from a business to set up an interview time which lead onto a new job - highlighting to me the importance of faith and trust in God as He will never let us down. Furthermore, trusting in God does not mean sitting there and doing absolutely nothing to bring about the desired result! In fact, in today’s Gospel both the woman and Jairus acted on their faith and approached Christ which ultimately brought the healings they both desired. Meaning if you want to bring about a certain outcome firstly pray to the All Holy Trinity and then do what you can in your power to bring about the desired result. God will always help any person who firstly trusts in him but importantly is prepared to work with Him to bring about the desired result! Implying, one has to ensure that one not only has faith in God but also one needs to be prepared to do things to bring about the desired result!
Think about it in this way when I stand at the altar at the Divine Liturgy and ask the All Holy Spirit to turn the bread and wine in to the very Body and Blood of our Lord and Saviour(epiclesis) - I not only have faith that the All Holy Spirit will make the change but also, I humbly ask the Holy Spirit to make the change. So, in essence at this moment not only do I have faith that the change will happen but like Jairus through prayer (in the action of asking), I ask the All Holy Spirit to make the change. If I just had the faith and did not ask the All Holy Spirit to make the change then the bread and wine would not be changed into the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ!
Also let us reflect on today’s epistle Ephesians 2:14-22 in which Saint Paul notes that – ‘Christ is our peace having broken down the middle wall of separation’. What does this mean exactly? Well in the days of the Jewish temple there was a veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple – God was separated from his people. The only person allowed to enter beyond the veil was the high priest and this he did only once a year. However, in Christ this veil is torn and removed as through Christ we as Christians can approach the Father through Christ, as Christ says clearly in John 14:6 – ‘I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’. Furthermore, the old law is fulfilled in the death of Christ on the Cross and his resurrection on the third day- meaning that the regulations of the old law are no longer, and the commandments of love are caused to come into full effect (These commandments being to love God and to love one another as Christ loves us). In conclusion through Christ ,now all rightly believing (Orthodox) Christians, can through the Holy Mysteries of Church be confident that they are indeed part of Christ's Mystical Body (the Church) making them part of the Communion of Saints.
Finally, I want each and every one of you to reflect on how much Christ loves you and desires for you to come to Him who is our Saviour. This Friday at liturgy the Gospel was Luke 12:2-12 in which Christ states in verse 7 that every hair on our heads is numbered and finally that we are worth more than a few sparrows - meaning that we are valued extremely highly by the All Holy Trinity to the point that he sent His own Son (through the incarnation) into this world to die on the cross and rise again on the third day for our salvation. This is the same love that Christ shows in today’s Gospel in both of the healings - one only has to read how tenderly He addresses the women that was healed after her healing! Furthermore, this is the same love that is present in the form of the Holy Mysteries of the Lord’s Body and Blood which are made present on the altar at every Divine Liturgy!
Let our prayer this week be that our faith may grow deeper in the All Holy Trinity and that we as Christians may always know that God is a God who loves mankind! Let us never lose sight of this Love (God) that is beyond any love we could ever know on this Earth.
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