{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Homily - Live in Grace (The Raising of Jairus' Daughter)","description":" St. Luke 8: 41-56 Drawing on St. Nikolai Velimirovi\u0107\u2019s image of divine grace as electricity, this homily on the raising of Jairus\u2019 daughter (Luke 8:41\u201356) invites us to become  living conduits through whom God\u2019s uncreated energy continually flows. Christ\u2019s tender command, \u201cTalitha koum,\u201d reveals the greater reality that in Him even death is but sleep, for the fire of His love transforms all who see with eyes full of light into partakers of His eternal life. Homily on Jairus\u2019 Daughter  St. Luke 8:41\u201356 Glory to Jesus Christ! It is a blessing to be with you this morning. I have really appreciated your hospitality throughout this weekend. In his homily on this beautiful event in the history of our salvation, St Nikolai Velimirovi\u0107 compares our Lord to electricity\u2014or perhaps to magnetism, and to light. What he is describing is what we in the West call grace. The idea is that the Lord\u2019s uncreated energy \u2013 His spiritual electricity - is continually available; and those who allow themselves to be connected to Him become receptacles and conduits of that spiritual electricity\u2014of that grace, of that beautiful light.  We see this especially at Pascha, when the priest sings \u201cCome receive the light,\u201d and one candle lights another, and the flame spreads from person to person. Magnetism is a similar image: not only does it attract, but it also bestows magnetism in a lesser degree to some of the objects it touches. This a lovely and apt metaphor\u2014though, as St Nikolai warns, don\u2019t take it too far or you\u2019ll end up spouting heresy\u2013 for instance, a screwdriver that has received magnetism from a magnetic source retains the magnetism even after the source is removed.  As we discussed yesterday, anything that is removed from the Source of Divine Energy loses its spiritual life.  Going back to the metaphor of electricity, our hope is not to become a sort of battery that receives grace and then stores it separate from its source; rather, our hope is to increasingly become pure conduits of divine energy through whom it continually flows.  Switching metaphors again, Jesus Christ describes this as living water in the Gospel according to St. John when He says; If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.  He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (St. John 7:37; also St. John 4:14) The grace that we share as Christians is flowing to and through us from its source, and that source is God. There is another lesson here.  St. Nikolai points out that there were many people in the crowd that day, but only one was healed. Let me develop a point from yesterday\u2019s talk.  You may remember my sharing that the scripture about the newly healed blind man seeing \u201ctrees walking\u201d as a metaphor for our need to work on seeing the world as it really is.      A related scriptural metaphor from Christ Himself has to do with the \u201ceye of darkness;\u201d    \u201cThe light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!\u201d (St. Matthew 6:22-23). In part, these are eyes that fail to see the Lord even when He is present among us. Imagine that He turned to you and healed you after you had endured fourteen years of suffering. How would you respond? Lord willing, you would respond with thanksgiving and joy; a thanksgiving and joy that never fades. But the eye of darkness might quickly slip from thankfulness and joy back into bitterness and think or say: \u201cWhere have you been these fourteen years?\u201d Do you see the trap? Do you see how such a response, such an attitude, misses the whole point of God\u2019s work among us \u2014 it\u2019s kind of like saying to Christ the God-man when He appears in His glory to bring us into His Kingdom; \u201cO Lord, I thought you\u2019d be taller.\u201d The eye of darkness is a terrible thing. For those who see truly, the world is permeated with the grace of God.  Let us strive increasingly to the world with these eyes of light. Another lesson the Fathers draw from this story is that the healing itself wasn\u2019t even the main point. Do you remember the plot line we are following in the Gospel lesson? A ruler of the synagogue\u2014a leader of the Jews\u2014comes to Christ and begs: \u201cMy daughter lies dying. Please come to our house.\u201d As the Lord goes with him, the crowd presses in around Him. And even along the way, miracles happen. This is a lesson we need to learn: with the Lord, there is no such thing as \u201calong the way.\u201d His grace is always active. Every moment with Him is transformed in Him and by Him.  For the Christian, every moment of grace is an experience of eternal glory\u2026 and that moments lead in time to the next which is similarly transformed and transformative. For the Christian, after such an encounter, there is no darkness left to return to, only life in Christ so full that we can say with St Paul, \u201cIt is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.\u201d (Galatians 2:20)  When we are connected to Him in this way, His grace\u2014like living water, or electricity, or magnetism, or light\u2014flows through us and straightening our connections with the world around us. This is what St Seraphim of Sarov meant when he said, \u201cAcquire the Holy Spirit, and thousands around you will be saved.\u201d   And this is the same things that we celebrate in the life of St. Nektarios, whose memory we celebrate today, when we proclaim this verse at Orthros: \u201cSince thou drunkest the nectar of life eternal, thou gushest, O Nektarios, streams of healings. Again, there is no such thing as being merely \u201con the way\u201d; rather, all of life is \u201calong the Way\u201d\u2014in Christ, growing in Him forever.  Every moment is an opportunity to grow and share in this, the great Mystery of the Sacrament of our salvation. Now, about this man\u2014Jairus. Jairus had great power in his community and a relationship with God through the Law. Yet here he found himself powerless in the face of death. Everyone who tries to find salvation through secular power or the Law alone eventually meets that same limit. At that time, the Jews were deeply divided over what death meant and whether there was truly a resurrection. So this became a teaching moment for the Lord. The other Gospels describe how the mourners had gathered, the flutes were playing lamentations, and the house was filled with grief. A twelve-year-old girl\u2014the only child of a leader in the community\u2014had died. And Jairus, for all his authority, was utterly powerless. To make the moment even more striking, Jesus said something that caused the people to laugh Him to scorn: \u201cShe is not dead, but sleeping.\u201d  He said this precisely so that they would affirm\u2014beyond any doubt\u2014that she was truly dead: the body cold, the breath gone. And then, having confirmed the reality of death, He revealed the greater reality of life. He went in, took her by the hand with such tenderness; this pointed out most clearly in the version shared by St. Mark, in which he is recorded as having said in Aramaic, \u201cTalitha koum\u201d\u2014literally, \u201cLittle lamb, arise.\u201d (Mark 5:41) \u201cTalitha\u201d is a term of affection, something like \u201clittle lambkin.\u201d And she arose and He told her parents to give her something to eat. All those who had mocked Him now faced undeniable evidence of a miracle. They could not rationalize it away or pretend they were mistaken. They had declared her dead\u2014and now she was alive. There was only one explanation: the life-giving power of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Him is life, and in Him there can be no death. (John 1:4; John 11:25) Now, here is a more difficult lesson.  Some steak for us to chew on.  Jesus did not spend His earthly ministry going to every grieving parent to restore every child. I\u2019m sure that\u2019s hard for you to hear\u2014it\u2019s hard for me, too. But He did not come simply to prolong life in this world; He came to transfigure it. What good would it be to restore someone to this mortal life, only for them to die again after a few years? Instead, He performed this miracle so that we would know that when He says, \u201cI go to prepare a [better] place for you,\u201d that He has the power to fulfill that promise. (John 14:2-3) There will be times\u2014there have already been times\u2014when we are the ones saying, \u201cShe is dead.\u201d But the Church uses a different language: \u201cfallen asleep\u201d and \u201cin blessed repose.\u201d These are not naive phrases. They are reminders that for the Christian, death is but a rest before the age to come. (1 Thessalonians 4:13\u201314) And honestly, we long for that age, don\u2019t we? Life in this world can be exhausting \u2014wars, suffering, the loss of children, \u2014 all the griefs that weigh us down. But as we sing in our funeral service; in the age to come, there will be \u201cno sighing, no sorrow, no sickness, but life everlasting\u201d  This is the time, quoting both the funeral and Revelation, \u201cGod will wipe away every tear.\u201d If I may change metaphors one last time: our God, who was earlier described as electricity, is also called a consuming fire. (Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29) Those of us raised in the South have heard preachers use that image as a warning. But for the Christian\u2014for the ones who live in Christ so completely that it is no longer they who live but Christ who lives in them (Galatians 2:20)\u2014that fire is not torment but glory. It is the radiant warmth of divine love. For those purified by grace, the fire of God becomes the very source of joy and life. So when you find yourself saying, \u201cOur beloved, our little lamb, is dead,\u201d remember this: our Lord, who loves our beloved even more than we do, holds her hand and says, just as He did in today\u2019s Gospel, \u201cMy dearest one, arise.\u201d That is the future that awaits all who have given their lives to Him. May we be strengthened by this as we grow in Him. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. ","author_name":"OrthoAnalytika","author_url":"http:\/\/orthoanalytika.libsyn.com","html":"