The reading from the holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (8:41-56)

Today’s reading is a familiar one to many of us. It is a beautiful story about healing. The first healing is quite remarkable as a woman is healed of a sickness that she had for twelve years simply by touching the hem of the Lord’s garment with faith. This by the way, is where some of the faithful learned the practice of touching the hem of the priests vestments during the great entrance of the Divine Liturgy. It is not because they think the priest is personally holy or because they like his personality, but because the priest stands in the parish as representing Christ and partaking of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. The priest serves, but the Lord is the one who does the work.

The second healing which occurs is one of the most significant in the New Testament as Our Lord Jesus Christ performs the rarest of miracles by raising a young girl, only 12 years old, from death, back to life. In the context of our Christian faith and our understanding of who Jesus is, none of these miracles are very surprising. We are accustomed to hear such stories. But for those who were eyewitnesses, this was something absolutely extraordinary. And for those who were introduced to the Lord Jesus Christ through the hearing of the gospels, this was likewise completely amazing.

When we think about healing we frequently think about such miracles of physical healing. Indeed some of you have experienced great and miraculous healing over the course of your lives. But I want to remind you that how God heals us is not always how we imagine that God will heal us. The whole purpose of the Church is for the healing of the human person. The reason that God took flesh and became man was because He desired to heal the human race.

Is the Lord strictly interested in the condition of our bodies, and our bodily health? No. A human being is more than a mere body. He has a soul as well. So we can’t think about healing without realizing that true healing begins with the soul. The Church is the hospital of the Divine Physician Jesus Christ. Within the Church those who approach with faith receive various medicines that come through the grace of the Holy Spirit and are administered by the priests and deacons to the faithful. But as I said, sometimes the healing that is offered by God through the Church is not exactly as we expect it. There is a beautiful quote that was shared with me this week by a brother priest. It is from a modern holy elder named Father Panagiotis Tsiolis. He says,

“Modern man comes to church not as a sick person, but as a customer. “I like it,” “I don’t like it,” “it was too long,” “he spoke too loudly,” “I didn’t feel anything.” In this way, a person evaluates the liturgy as if it were a product. He no longer comes to be healed, but to be satisfied. If the sermon hurts him, he leaves. If he is told to change, he becomes upset. If he is asked to show patience, he looks elsewhere. He has forgotten that the Church is neither a theater nor a spiritual restaurant. It is a hospital; and one does not go to a hospital to be applauded, but to undergo surgery—to be cured, to be healed.

Whoever enters the Church without humility leaves without healing. Grace does not operate according to a person’s tastes, but according to his wounds. Yet, modern man no longer wants his wounds to be touched, because it hurts. He seeks comfort without truth, forgiveness without repentance, and communion without confession. And when he does not get what he wants, he claims that he “no longer feels anything.” It is not the Church that has grown cold—it is the heart that has closed… The hospital remains the same. The Physician remains the same. The treatment remains the same. Yet the patient refuses the surgery—and then wonders why the illness remains.”

That powerful quote reminds us of the deeper spiritual reality of healing in the Church. Healing requires our cooperation with the grace of God. Healing requires our participation as it required the participation of the woman who came with faith to touch the Lord. It requires us to be humble and to desire to change, to be healed. The healing of the soul often requires some pain. It may require some gentle correction. It sometimes requires us to be broken and reformed by God. “A broken and humble heart, God will not despise.”

It’s a process. It takes time, it takes effort, it requires soul searching, it requires real confession, it requires real prayer. But make no mistake, God is ready and willing to offer you the same healing that He once offered to the woman with the issue of blood and to the young girl who had died. The Lord came into the world precisely for this reason, to heal us, not according to our own human definition of health but to impart His healing which is far greater. He desires to make each of us holy. To make you a saint. But do you desire this? Do you really want to be healed? If so, run to Christ, as the woman ran after Him to touch His garments. Run towards Him as did Jairus who’s daugher was dying. Run to His teachings, run to His Church and to her sacraments, run to His saints. Because no one that runs towards Christ with their whole heart is ever, ever turned away. Glory be to God AMEN.

Source: Sermons