In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, our man, Christ is risen. (Amen.) Meciahtam. Christos. Sinestim.
There are many healings performed by Christ that we read about in Scripture. The healing of lepers, the blind, the death, the mute. And as we heard in this morning’s Gospel, the healing of the paralytic. There are actually two accounts in the Gospels where Christ heals paralytics.
One account, if you remember, we read on the second Sunday of Lent when the four men lowered the paralyzed man through the roof, in order to be healed by Christ. And then the second account, which we read in this morning’s Gospel, was of the paralytic that was lying at the pool, waiting for angel to move the water that he might be healed. What’s interesting is that when you compare the healings of the two paralytics to other healings, you notice that Christ connects their healings directly to the forgiveness of sins. In one account, before healing the paralytic that was lowered through the roof, Christ says, “Your sins are forgiven you,” and today’s account, after he heals the paralytic, lying at the pool, he says to him, “Sing no more, that nothing worse befalls you.” It’s very telling, very interesting, that Christ connects the healing of the paralytics with the forgiveness of sins, but he doesn’t do this with other healings.
The Holy Fathers tell us that this miracle, the healing of the paralytic, speaks more about the paralysis of the soul than it does the paralysis of the body, more about the paralysis caused by sin than about paralysis caused by physical ailments. And this is why, with the healing of the paralytics, Christ speaks about the forgiveness of sins. The greatest of all ailments is the paralysis of the soul because it leads to spiritual death, and what exactly is the paralysis of the soul? It is spiritual laziness, not willing or even wanting to do anything.
The Holy Father is referred to this as the passion of Akhiviya, it is a carelessness in neglect of the spiritual life, and the fathers warn us that the demon of Akhiviya is a most dangerous demon because he inspires in us a little warmness that leads to spiritual death. As we read about this in the book of Revelation, Christ says, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot, I could wish that you were cold or hot, so then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.” Those are the words of Christ. And we see this type of lukewarm disposition initially in the paralytic into this gospel. Christ asks him, “Do you want to be healed?” And the paralytic answers, “Sir, I have no man to put me in the water when it is moved, when it is troubled, and why I am going another steps in before me?
That kind of response is that.“ Christ asks, “Do you want to be healed?” The paralytic should have shouted, “Yes, I want to be healed.” But instead, he complains about his situation and explains to Christ why he can’t be healed. “I have no man to help me.” Does that sound like someone enthusiastic about walking again? No, it sounds like someone who feels sorry for himself. Someone who doesn’t want to do anything and even prefers not to do anything.
Someone has become accustomed to laying on his bed of passions. Someone has become comfortable with his sinful passions. This is spiritual laziness and carelessness. This is a kivya.
Christ responds to the lukewarm answer of the paralytic by saying, “Rise, take up your palate and walk.” And here we have to read between the lines. What is Christ actually saying when he says to him, “Rise, take up your palate and walk?” He is saying, “Denoise yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” In other words, if you want to be healed from spiritual paralysis, from spiritual laziness, which leads to death, you must rise from your bed of passions. Take up your cross and walk towards Christ, brothers and sisters. Get off of your bed of passions that paralyze you and keep you from doing God’s work and God’s will.
Get off your bed and fight. Get off your bed and conquer your passions and do not be conquered by them. Do away with the spirit of deep warmness, which is everywhere. Christ asks us, “Do you want to be healed?” Yeah, but I really don’t want to wake up early enough to do my morning prayers.
Do you want to be healed, yeah, but I really don’t want to fast and deprive myself of food. Do you want to be healed, yeah, but I really don’t want to grow to confession and ask for forgiveness. Do you want to be healed, yeah, but I don’t want to give up looking at pornography or listening to inappropriate music. Do you want to be healed, yeah?
Yeah, but I don’t want to cultivate humility in my life and put others first. God will vomit you out of his mouth if you have this warm disposition towards the spiritual life. My beloved family, spiritual laziness is only remedied by spiritual askisis, by asceticism. The Holy Fathers are clear, passions and pleasures defile the heart, but ascetic struggle in pain, they cleanse the heart.
We do not grow spiritually when life is easy. We do not grow spiritually when there is no struggle. The easy path, the comfortable path offers us nothing in terms of spiritual growth. Have you ever seen a bodybuilder build his physical muscles without an intense schedule of working out and being very careful about what he can and cannot eat?
This is not how he sees results and grows his physical muscles. The exact same thing applies to our spiritual muscles. They have to be worked out. We only grow when we struggle through spiritual askisis.
When we take up our cross, we deny ourselves, we struggle against the passions and we follow after Christ. This is the only way to grow spiritually and find salvation. Do not imagine you are spiritual, or that you are spiritually built or spiritually buffed if you ignore every workout the church offers you. If you ignore her liturgical services, not only literally but vespers and overflows and daily services in feast days, if you ignore your rule of prayer, if you ignore illustrations and tasks in confession and forgiveness and humility, if you ignore arms giving charity donating to your church daily reading of scripture, if you ignore the lives of the saints and the writings of the church fathers, you may be on top of things at work, at school, at home, with your health, maybe even administratively at the church, but if we are spiritually lazy and that letful of cultivating the inner spiritual life, then all that does not matter because our lukewarmness will cause us to be vomited out of God’s mouth and all of that which we worked for will be for what.
Now if you find that you have been spiritually lazy, do not despair and do not be discouraged, but do not waste any more time, schedule your confession and make things right. As long as you rise, take up your palate and walk, you can recover from spiritual paralysis. In other words, as long as you rise from your passions, take up your cross and you begin to walk, coach Christ, I cannot emphasize it enough, schedule your confession. Let me close with a quote from our father among the saints, John Chrysostom.
He says, discouragement does not allow the one who falls to get back up, and laziness throws down the one who is upright, laziness throws us down even from heaven while discouragement hurls us down even to the very abyss of wickedness, indeed we can quickly return from there if we do not become discouraged. So let us rise, take up our palates and walk. In other words, let us deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow after Christ. Remember the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, our man Christ, is risen.