In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ!

Christ healing a shrinking woman. Kosovo. Visoki Decani Serbian Orthodox Monastery. XIV century.

In today’s Gospel Reading we have heard the story about a sick woman who was healed by Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Sabbath Day. We may ask ourselves a question: what was the fault of “a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years?” (Luke, 13. 10-17) Our Church offers us to put it in another, more soul-saving way and instead of asking: “For which fault?” and “Why?” – inquire ourselves: “For what purpose?”
Being still in Eden, the humans turned around from God, from His Divine Joy and eternal Life, and, consequently, as a result, had to face sufferings and death. In this sense, of cause, every infirmity, every suffering comes from satan, who deceived people. “Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward,” – says Saint Iov, the Long-Suffering (Iov 5.7).
Jesus Christ calls us to repent in order to save our souls and not to perish… He calls us to “change our mind”, to make an effort and choose Life and not death! But how hard it is for us, who “have been snared by satan for many years”, to start this struggle!
Our Lord cures the suffering woman and He forgives our sins not because we deserve this forgiveness, but because He is Love and His love embraces all of us!
It is very hard for a man, who is experiencing misery from his own sins, to perceive this ultimate goodness of God.  The ruler of the synagogue from today’s reading, for example, is trying to defend and endorse the literal execution of the law. He does not even realize that by doing that he calls to obey not the God’s law, but his own personal understanding of this law… Being so deeply mistaken, the head of the synagogue in reality demands everyone to comply and adhere to the law of his own…
The meaning of one of the Commandments of the Old Testament is in the fact, that it is essential to give people one Day as the Day of God’s Remembrance. People need to have the ability to live at least one day a week not for themselves, but for God, and in the long run – for other people, for God’s love towards others…
Jesus Christ came to this world not to trespass the law, but to fulfill it (Mat.5.17). He calls us to repentance and to the change of our way of thinking. He wants us to see the true meaning of the Commandment about the Sabbath, answering thus to the reproaches for healing on the Consecrate Day: “Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?” (Luke 13.15-16)
The woman, who was cured from her infirmity, received from Jesus Christ not only alleviation of the sufferings of her body, but also, as the gift of Faith, redemption from the sufferings of her soul. “He laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God” (Luke 13.13).
Let us, brothers and sisters in Christ, always remember that only Jesus Christ is able to free our souls from the burden of sins and from the devil’s ensnarement; only God possesses power to liberate and make us strait! Amen.

St. Mary’s Dormition Orthodox Church, Shiskovtzi. December 9, 2012.