Homily for 11/20/16 - P22 - Complete Healing

Luke 8:41-56

Going against the opinion of his peers, Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue in the region of Galilee, came to Jesus openly, begging Him to come and heal his daughter who was ill and near death.  Jesus, filled with compassion not only for Jairus, but for all mankind, agreed to come to the home of this prominent man and to bring relief to his suffering daughter.  While traveling toward the house of Jairus, the whole crowd of people followed Jesus hoping to hear more from Him concerning the Kingdom of God and hoping perhaps to see more miracles.  In the crowd there was one who came in secret, seeking healing for herself, but out of shame and fear hiding her own weakness.  This woman had an illness which, if it were recognized by those around her, would have rendered her unclean and outcast.  She would have been a pariah and before she could even approach Jesus, she would be driven away.  And so out of fear and filled with shame for the nature of her illness, she sought to approach Jesus without being noticed.  Even when she got near enough to cry out to Jesus and be heard still she remained hidden and rather than ask Him for healing, she simply reached out to touch His tunic, thinking that if only she could do this it would be enough and she would be healed.  And so it was – she reached out and touched the hem of His garment and was immediately made whole.  Secretly rejoicing she began to withdraw, but Jesus calling out asked who had touched him.  The woman who had been filled with joy at being healed now was overcome again with fear of being found out.  The disciples seemed to help her case by suggesting that many people in the crowd must have touched Jesus as they pressed round about Him, but the Lord knew what had happened and so pressed His question seeking to reveal this woman who had approached Him so secretly.  Finally, knowing that she had been discovered by the One Who had healed her, she came and confessed her former illness and proclaimed the healing power of the Lord.

This woman had approached Jesus in secret and had been healed.  What reason was there in now revealing her and calling attention to her former illness – especially since she was no longer suffering and so no longer “unclean”?  Surely our Lord did not call her out simply to embarrass  her and to renew her shame.  Why did He not simply allow her to withdraw quietly since she had indeed been healed of her illness?  The answer to this lies in the fullness of our Lord’s knowledge of the nature of mankind and the desire not only to heal the body but also the soul.  The dual nature of the God/man Jesus Christ is also made evident in this healing.  In every instance of healing others our Lord not only addressed the suffering of the body, but also addressed the captivity and weakness of the soul.  He would point out the role of a person’s faith in the healing or He would pronounce forgiveness of sin in relation to the healing of the body.  Always there was this dual divine/human element to His actions.  This woman, in receiving healing of the body had only been partially healed – only the suffering of her body had been addressed, not the suffering of her soul.  In order to complete the healing our Lord calls her back for it would not be to her profit only to be healed in body but for her soul to remain to be bound by the chains of her spiritual weakness and sins.  And so He calls her back to be freed not only from the chains of her bodily illness, but also to be healed of the sickness of her soul.

Why then was it necessary to publicly call this woman out and for her to reveal before the whole crowd – even before the ruler of the synagogue (who would most certainly have the power to declare her again outcast for her audacity to enter the crowd while unclean)?  Why could not the Lord have returned to her quietly at a later date as He did with some of the others? What did this public admission of her desperation accomplish?  In the healing of men, we see our Lord act out of both of His natures.  In His human nature, He healed the body.  This power over sickness is within the purified nature of a man who lives in union with God.  In the lives of the saints we see this clearly and even after they completed their earthly lives we see that this healing power remains in their relics.  Even the enemies of our Lord were not angered because He acted out of His human nature and healed the body, rather they objected to the actions of His divine nature when He would proclaim the forgiveness of sin.   The healing of the body is within the nature of the deified man and so it was by the human nature of the God/man that this woman was healed.  Now it was necessary for the divine nature of the God/man to act and do what only God can do – to heal the soul.  In healing the body the woman was released from her physical suffering and from the chains of illness that bound her.  Now she was called to be released from the chains of the spiritual illness that bound her.  It was necessary to confess her sin and to repent of it.  Confession of sin is necessary for us to be released from the chains which bind the soul.  Here the woman was called to confess publicly her shame and fear and to lay them before the Lord – and in doing so they were made powerless and she received from the Lord not only health of body but also the restoration and peace of soul that completed her healing.

This is why it is important not only to repent of our sins privately in our daily prayers, but also to come to the sacrament of confession and to receive from the Lord the grace of forgiveness and spiritual healing that is bestowed upon the penitent.  When we come before God in confession with the priest as our witness and speak aloud the sins that bind us, we lay bare our soul before God and all the weakness and sickness that is in it.  When we have stripped away our own fear and shame and so exposed our sins they are then cut away from us by the divine power of God.  When we hide our sins and protect them from such exposure, then they remain to afflict us again.  It is necessary to expose our sins to the light of Christ and to allow Him to cut them off from us so that they no longer have any power or connection to us.  Confession is a very powerful weapon and tool in our struggle to live a righteous life for it is by this act – by laying bare the weakness and corruption of one’s heart – that those sins are exposed to the divine action of the God/man Jesus Christ Who then cuts them off and breaks the chains by which they hold us captive.

It was not to shame and embarrass the woman that Jesus called her to Himself.  He called to her that she, of her own free will, might come and confess her weakness and so be released from the power of sin which bound her soul even as her sickness bound her body.  Had she not come and confessed her actions, the fear of being found out would have continued to eat at her and produced in her anxiety that would have manifested itself in other illnesses or perhaps even in the return of the illness that had been miraculously healed.  She would have been only half healed.  But our Lord called to her to give her the opportunity to be completely healed, to be healed not only in body but in soul and to be delivered from the power of her own shame and fear which was born from the sinfulness of her heart.  So also our Lord calls to us with the voice of His Body, the Church and beckons us to come to the sacrament of confession that of our own free will we might expose and lay bare the sickness, the weakness and the corruption of the soul so that it might be cut off and healed by the divine grace poured out upon us by the Holy Spirit.  It is not enough just to be sorry for our sins, or to resist them and hold them off by force.  In order to be truly healed it is necessary to confess our sins before God, to lay bare our souls and to open even the darkest, dirtiest recesses of the soul to the light of His grace so that the chains which bind us might be shattered and we might be delivered from the power and torment of our sins.  “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1John 1:9).

Posted by: David Moser <[email protected]>