Fifth Sunday of Great lent - Devotional

This week is the fifth Sunday of the lent. Our Lord was teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. There was a lady who had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years, and was bent over and could not raise herself up. For a human being, to live with out being able to raise one head or body and look up is horrible. The situation has similar effect if it is physical or spiritual. As believers in God, our will is to “lift up my eyes to the hills, from where comes my help” as the psalmist sings with faith.

 Physical inability to look up will make us unable to see or understand everything going on in front of us. The psalmist says to lift the eyes to the hills, to the heights; we believe that our Lord is in the heights, and therefore we wish to look to the heights while praying. God appeared to Moses in the heights. We always look to the heights while we worship our Lord.

 The woman in this story was physically unable to lift her body up to worship Lord. Physical inability does not always hinder our will to worship our Lord lifting our minds towards Him. Moreover, it not the heads which has to be with Him but our minds, hearts and intellects as we hear in the Holy Qurbana. Our minds, hearts and intellects have to be in the heights at the right side of our Father. And therefore, physical inability does not always hinder the mental ability of the mind to be spiritually unified with our Lord.

 Jesus saved the woman who was physically unable to stand upright. Even though her body was bent over, her mind must have been with Lord and that should be the reason why Jesus saved her as he saw her. Scripture says that Jesus called her to Him when he saw her. For all of us who are not crippled, the message or insight we should get from this is that, Jesus who cured the physical inability of the women is able to cure the mental inability of us too. How many of us have bent over minds which is unable to look up to the Lord and praise Him. The light is always kept at the highest point, and therefore to see its full glory, we should be able to look up.

 Different reasons can make us unable to look to the heights and praise God. A Christian community does not need to be explained about the reasons which will make our minds bent over. To be brief, when are not following a life as it was commanded by our Lord, we are unable to look up. Some do not have the knowledge to look up and find the light, some do not bother to, and some are ashamed to. Our Lord is the strength for us during these situations and he can definitely save us from our mental crippleness.

 The women glorified God, but the synagogue ruler as we read in the 14th verse argued against Jesus for healing the women on Sabbath. Jesus answered, “You hypocrite, does 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 has bound, see, these eighteen years, is loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” Quoting St. John Chrysostom from Homily XL on Mathew XII, 1, 2. B#, pp. 259-260.

Holy Father says, “So first in the case of the blind man, He does not so much defend Himself to them when He made the clay: and yet then also they were blaming Him. But the manner of the creation was enough to indicate the Lord and the Owner of law. Next, in the case of the paralytic, when he carried his bed, and they were finding faults, He defends Himself, now as God, and now as man, and as man, when He says, ‘If a man on the Sabbath day receives circumcision, that the law should not be broken’…’are you angry at be because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath day?’(John 7: 23). As God again, when He say, ‘My Father works hitherto, and I work’ (John 5: 17). But when blamed for His disciples, He said, ‘Have you not heard what David did’ (Matt 12: 3, 4)… He also brings forward the priests…

And the other evangelist (Mark) says that He also looked about on them when asking these questions, so by His very eye He might win them over; but not even so did they become better… None of these things made them meek, rather while the man was healed; they become worse by his health. For His desire was indeed to cure them before them, and He tried in numerable way of healing, both by things He did in their presence, and by His words, but since their malady was incurable after all, He proceeded to work… They have received no injury, yet they went about to slay Him. So great an evil is envy. For it is ever warring, not only against strangers, but even against our own.”

In the gospel according to Mathew we read, “³But he said to them, Have you not read what David did, when he was an hungered, and they that were with him; ⁴How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the show bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? ⁵Or have you not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? ⁶But I say to you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. ⁷But if you had known what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. ⁸For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.” (Matt 12: 3 – 8)

Faith in our Lord is a blessing we receive from Him and not some thing which we will be able to acquire by our intelligence. This faith is what makes us believe in Christ.  To receive the blessing, there should be a will to understand and accept our Lord. Moreover, there should be an urge to understand the truth and the true God. We read in the epistle to Galatians 3 :1 that, “¹O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” Our lives are greatest examples for His blessings, and therefore we should not remain blind any more. The light is up there to lighten our hearts and minds, and we all should look up to the heights, up to the skies so that our Lord answers our prayers from there. Our minds do not need to be bent any more; our Lord is there to heal us all.

Praise Him!!!