Homily Two on the Seventh Sunday of Luke
(24th Sunday After Pentecost)
By St. John of Kronstadt
(24th Sunday After Pentecost)
By St. John of Kronstadt
Today during the Liturgy, the Gospel of Saint Luke was read about the resurrection by Jesus Christ of the dead daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the Jewish synagogue, and about the healing of the woman with a hemorrhage through a single touch of the hem of Jesus' garment (Luke 8:41–56).
Let us rejoice for the happy Jairus, who once again saw his deceased daughter alive; let us celebrate the recovery of the woman who had suffered from her ailment for twelve years and had completely despaired of help from earthly physicians, yet was healed by a single touch to the garment of the divine Wonderworker. Let us honor both for their great faith in Jesus Christ, for through faith in Him alone did they receive the greatest, miraculous help and mercy. “Do not fear, only believe,” said the Savior to the synagogue ruler, “and your daughter will be saved.” “Take courage, daughter! Your faith has healed you,” said the Lord to the healed woman. Yet let us also emulate their faith; and today, each according to our own needs and spiritual and bodily necessities, we will receive from the Lord the granting of our requests through the prayer of faith; for the Lord even now remains with us constantly, invisibly by His divine omnipresence, grace and power, and visibly in the Holy Mysteries of His Body and Blood. "Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20), He Himself says. "Christ is the same yesterday and today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).
Behold, the Lord is now with us in this holy temple, receiving our prayers, our repentance, our praises, and our thanksgiving, and He manifests His mercy within us — deliverance from sins and afflictions — enlightening, purifying, sanctifying, and comforting all who sincerely pray here and turn to Him. Here, in the temple, we can especially come into heartfelt contact with Him through our faith, just as that woman once did who suffered from the aforementioned ailment. Behold, I touch His holy altar, and a marvelous thing occurs! Immediately, I feel the life-giving, saving power emanating from Him who invisibly sits on the throne; I am healed from all unseen wounds of serpents, freed from all afflictions, from every tyranny of sin — and I receive peace, freedom, boldness, and spiritual strength. He is here, my Lord and my God. Do not demean Him from Heaven, for He once descended from the heavens for the sake of humanity and our salvation, and now He is always with us, even though He has ascended bodily into heaven.
So, what follows from this? All of you, reach out to the Lord with faith, like that healed woman. We all, from our youth, suffer from the continual outflow of various sins; we all endure the flood of impure, deceitful, blasphemous, evil, and vain thoughts and feelings – from this diabolical daily deluge. Who, besides the Lord, can heal us from this corrupt, filthy stream of sin? Which earthly physicians can cure these human ailments? None, except the Lord and His grace. Therefore, all of you reach out to Him with faith, in heartfelt repentance; and you will see and feel, in soul and body, how you are immediately healed. The Lord is an inexhaustible Source of mercy and healing. Let us only have faith, and we will always receive healing. Do not be afraid, only believe, and you shall be saved.
Let us learn simple and living faith in the Lord from the healed woman who touched the hem of the Lord’s garment. Many people followed Christ to such an extent that they surrounded and pressed upon Him; surely many touched His garment, but these were touches without faith, mechanical touches, just as today some come to the temple almost mechanically and stand there without heartfelt prayer and faith in the Lord present there. Only one woman touched Him with great faith, and she awoke in the Lord a miraculous power. Let us also come to the house of prayer in such a manner, so that by faith, repentance, and heartfelt prayer we may always invoke the Lord’s healing of spiritual and bodily ailments, sorrows, passions, and the purification of our countless transgressions; for the Lord delights in such a consummation of His grace by us.
I thank You, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, that You grant me, a great sinner, at every hour, to approach You, the Source of healings and the depths of mercy and generosity, Your merciful, healing, cleansing, sanctifying, and life-giving grace. I pray to You, teach all Your people, from the youngest to the oldest, to always come to You with boldness and freely, and to behold by faith Your all-saving grace.
Let us now go with the Savior to the house of Jairus, where his deceased daughter lies, and witness the miracle of resurrection wrought by the Lord through the faith of the father of the deceased. The Lord enters the room of the deceased with only Peter, John, and James, together with the father and mother of the deceased; all others related to or friends of Jairus wept and lamented the girl. The Lord said: "Do not weep; the girl is not dead, but sleeps," demonstrating that He is the Destroyer of death and Hades, and henceforth death will be completely defeated. Yet those who did not understand the Lord's words laughed, knowing that she was dead. He, however, having sent everyone out and taking her by the hand, exclaimed: "Child, arise." And her spirit returned; and she immediately rose, and He commanded that she be given food.
O You, our life and resurrection, Lord, glory be to You! O our hope! You have raised the dead! You will also raise all who have died from the beginning of the world by Your command, at the sound of the archangel’s trumpet, which will announce the last day of the world. This is beyond doubt. Yet even now You raise every day the souls of Christians dying in sin, raising them through faith and repentance. Here I am, dying daily countless times through my sins, and through repentance I am resurrected by Your infinitely great grace and mercy toward me, unworthy as I am. You grant me the experience of salvation every day and repeatedly. You give me life instead of death, renewal of the spirit instead of the decay of sin, space instead of confinement, light instead of darkness.
Thus, brethren, the Lord still raises to life today the souls dying in sin, raising them through repentance. Therefore, sinners like me, love repentance, and you shall not die a sinful death, but shall live, and you shall be made worthy of renewal by grace every day and hour; you shall celebrate every day the spiritual resurrection, the renewal of soul and body. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
