Finding Healing and Rest in Christ
In this powerful sermon, Fr. Nicholas reflects on the profound story of a woman healed by Christ, drawing connections to our spiritual lives today. Through examples of humility and compassion, Fr. Nicholas invites us to prepare our hearts during the Nativity Fast.
Transcript
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I don't mind that. Sorry.
Beloved in Christ, on this fourth Sunday of the Nativity Fast, the Holy Church sets before us the healing of the woman bowed down for 18 long years, a woman who, as St. Luke tells us, was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.
She lived her life looking at the ground. Years passed, seasons changed, children grew and became adults, and still she remained unable to lift her gaze. Her body revealed outwardly what many human souls experience inwardly. A heaviness, a spiritual weight, an interior bending under burdens that seem too long-lasting to ever be changed.
And yet the gospel begins simply. Now who is preaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath? Christ is teaching as he always is, teaching with words but also teaching through his gaze, his attention, his love. Before the woman calls out to him, before she asks for anything, before she even lifts her eyes, Christ sees her. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are freed from your infirmity."
Christ sees the suffering we do not even know how to articulate. He sees the words which we have accepted as just the way things are. He sees the spiritual habits, the longstanding sins, the internal fears and distortions that have bent us over for years. And in this season of preparation for his holy nativity, the Lord once again calls to each of us, inviting us not only to look toward him but to allow him to touch us gently, personally, precisely where we are most wounded.
The gospel tells us that Christ laid his hands on her and immediately she was made straight and she glorified God. The healing is complete, instantaneous, and transformative. St. Ambrose states, "The soul of that woman breathed once more and stood up like a vine around which the soil had been dug and cleared."
But the moment Christ reveals his power and compassion, the ruler of the synagogue reveals something else. The coldness of a heart that has allowed the law to eclipse mercy. He says there are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed and not on the Sabbath day.
His concern is not truly the Sabbath. It is control, propriety, personal authority, human orderliness. He represents the mentality that says not now, not like this, not today. But Christ reveals that true Sabbath, true holiness is found in mercy. It is found in compassion that is not delayed. It is found in doing good at the moment good is possible.
Our Lord responds with divine clarity. You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?
The Lord does not break the Sabbath. He reveals its meaning. For the Sabbath is the day of rest. And what rest is greater than freedom from bondage? What rest is more perfect than healing? What rest is deeper than being restored by the touch of the creator himself?
As we continue through the nativity fast, the church urges us not to slip into the mentality of the synagogue ruler who preserved religious practices but neglected the heart. Fasting without mercy becomes a burden. Prayer without compassion becomes pride. Asceticism without softness of heart becomes merely another kind of bent-over posture, one we may not recognize because it hides behind religious language.
The healed woman becomes our model. She receives the mercy of God and immediately glorifies him. Her healing becomes praise. Her restoration becomes thanksgiving. Her straightening becomes worship. She embodies what this fast is meant to accomplish: a lifting up of the soul, a rekindling of hope, a realignment of our whole being toward God.
As we prepare for the coming feast, Christ desires to straighten what is bent within us, the cynicism that weighs down our hope, the impatience that bends our love toward anger, the wounds to the past that twist our vision of the present. The sins we have carried for so long that we no longer believe freedom is possible.
The bowed-down woman did not free herself. She did not heal herself. She did not argue for her healing. She simply came into the presence of Christ and received what he desired to give. Her posture of humility allowed her to receive the mercy that pride would have rejected.
This nativity fast is a journey toward the cave of Bethlehem, a place of humility, simplicity, vulnerability. To meet Christ there, we must allow him to lift our gaze. We must let him straighten us, heal us, and soften us, and restore our capacity to love.
This is the meaning of preparation. This is the meaning of fasting. This is the meaning of Advent.
The gospel concludes, "All his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things done by him."
There is always division when Christ acts. Pride is shamed, but the humble rejoice. Those who prefer rigid control are unsettled. Those who desire salvation rejoice.
Beloved, every nativity fast invites this same division within our own hearts. Which part will dominate? The fearful part that tries to manage God or the trusting part that simply comes when he calls. The rigid part that clings to habit or the repentant part that longs for healing. The anxious part that worries about being worthy or the childlike part that knows Christ desires to touch us today.
Christ stands in our midst as surely as he stood in that synagogue. He sees us. He calls us. He extends his hand. And he desires to straighten the soul of each one of us.
May we hear his voice. May we come to him without fear. May we let him lift us up. And may our healing become thanksgiving as we draw near to the glorious feast of his holy nativity.
