Homily One 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's Gospel, beloved brothers and sisters, preaches to us about the omnipotence of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Giver of Life, Who gives life and breath to all, as well as health to the incurably ill and all natural and grace-filled, or natural and supernatural gifts: namely, in today's Gospel that it is said about the Lord's resurrection from the dead of the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, and about the healing of a bleeding woman who had been suffering from her illness for twelve years, and who could not be cured by any doctors. I will not repeat the details of the story about these miracles, because you have heard them from the Gospel you have read, but I will only try to deduce from it instruction and edification for myself and for you.
The direct teaching, directly revealed from the sacred story of the resurrection of Jairus' daughter, is that there will undoubtedly be a resurrection of the dead, for the Lord raised the dead, as is evident from the Gospel, most of all in order to show that He is the Resurrection and the Life and God of all. "I am," He says, "the Resurrection and Life" (John 11:25). The moral teaching is that we must all go through the whole time of this life with a vigilant heart and sober mind, in anticipation of the general resurrection of the dead and the terrible day of the appearance from heaven of the Lord of Glory with all His Angels at His second and terrible coming. Another teaching, also true and indubitable, although not so directly deduced from the Gospel reading heard, is that before bodily death we all die daily and every hour in our souls, falling into innumerable sins, which means that we die spiritually, and that for those who die a spiritual death there is also a spiritual or psychic resurrection, granted by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to all truly repentant sinners, and the rule or commandment, the moral teaching from this is that every sinner, if he wants to avoid the eternal death of the soul before the ordinary, natural, bodily death, must by unceasing repentance arise or be resurrected from spiritual death to life, that is, to accustom ourselves to live according to the commandments of the Lord, which for us are life and peace, to suppress our passions, to dominate them, to mortify them, to try to assimilate every virtue to ourselves so that it would be as it were natural for us, penetrating our whole soul, our flesh and blood, and as it were wrapped around our ribs and all our inward parts, just as in unrepentant sinners, or in general in those who sin gravely, sin and passion penetrate the whole mind, the whole heart, the whole will, all the flesh and blood, the very bones.
Brothers and sisters! Spiritual resurrection is necessary for us, that is, we need to take care with all our might to raise our souls from sinful death before bodily death; for otherwise, spiritual death will be eternal. Do you want to see the terrible, disgusting image of sinful death that embraces the sinner? Listen to the universal teacher Saint John Chrysostom about this: "The soul given over to sin stinks disgustingly. It becomes like a coffin, containing every stench. And to be a grave for him in whom Christ lived and the Holy Spirit worked, in whom so many Mysteries were accomplished – what a disaster! What weeping and lamentation is worthy of this, when the members of Christ, that is, Christians, become a sepulchre full of impurity! Consider how you were born, what you were honored with, what clothes you received; how He was made an incorruptible, beautiful temple, adorned not with gold or pearls, but with the Holy Spirit, which is incomparably more precious than that. Consider that in the city they do not keep a single coffin with a dead person; therefore you cannot appear in the heavenly city. If this is forbidden here, then all the more there. Or better yet, even here they would laugh at you if you began to carry a dead man, and not only would they laugh, but they would also run away from you. Tell me, if someone were to carry a dead body with him everywhere, would not everyone immediately retreat and flee from it? Think thus in the present case. You present a far more terrible spectacle, you carry everywhere a soul dead from sins, a soul given over to decay. Who will pity such a person? If you do not pity your soul, will anyone else pity such a cruel and destructive enemy to himself? If someone buried a dead body in your bedroom or dining room, what would you not do? But you bury your soul not in the dining room or in the bedroom, but among the members of Christ, and you are not afraid lest a thousand thunders and lightnings from heaven strike your head? How dare you go to the church of God and to the Holy Temples, being filled inside with such a disgusting stench?
If someone were to bring a dead person into the royal chambers and lay him there, he would suffer the most severe punishment. But you enter the sacred precincts and fill the house of God with such a stench; think what punishment you will undergo? But you do not feel the stench? This is the extreme degree of the disease! This means that your disease is incurable; that it is much worse than the disease of those whose body rots and gives off a bad smell. This latter disease makes one feel like a sufferer and does not deserve any blame, even worthy of pity, but the former is worthy of disgust and torment. Think what you say when you sing: 'Let my prayer be set forth as incense before You' (Psalm 140:2). So if not incense, but foul smoke ascends from you and from your deeds, then what punishment are you worthy of undergoing?" But enough from Chrysostom. I have borrowed all that has been said above from the universal teacher in order to more clearly and strikingly, more graphically characterize the spiritual death that every sinner dies daily, and which, however, many do not feel, and therefore do not see their danger, and do not care about repentance and correction.
Concerning the healing by Jesus Christ of a woman whom no doctors could cure, I will tell myself and you this moral lesson, that in all spiritual and physical ailments and infirmities we must first of all turn with a prayer of faith, in heartfelt repentance, to our almighty Physician of souls and bodies, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is quick to intercede and save. The woman with an issue of blood, by faith alone, received from the Lord healing in one moment from a long-term, grave infirmity. We also will not be denied any of His mercy, when we constantly, with undoubting faith, in sincere repentance resort to Him in sorrows and illnesses. He Himself says to us: "Call upon Me in the day of your trouble, and I will deliver you" (Ps. 18:7, 33:5), and you will glorify Me. To Him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.