Hey, everyone, God bless you, thanks a lot for tuning in and good strength, good strength to you all.
Stop sinning, stop sinning.
I know that sounds maybe too direct or too simplistic. I must say that I have said it many times in the confessional, not without compassion, with compassion, but also just a clear word. As a matter of fact, recently one of my lovely parishioners raised the question and said, Father, what can I do to help the perish in this very great task of starting another church. I responded by saying, simply,
this is for everyone. Stop sinning. Stop sinning. It is, in fact the most important thing that you can do if you want your parish. If your parish needs more love, be more loving. If it needs more zeal, be more zealous. If it needs more enlightenment, be more enlightened. And when there is sinful behavior that causes problems, nothing burdens a
priest more than that. Nothing hurts a shepherd's heart more than seeing his flock in disarray or acting inappropriately in a way that isn't good for them and disgraces the name of God. But this is a very very important word, and it comes directly from our Lord Jesus Christ and his word to the man who was paralyzed to the paralytic. This is one of the gospel texts during Poscletide in the Orthodox lectionary.
And this was the case.
This was the story when our Lord Jesus came to the pool and there were all the sick people waiting for the movement of the water, because occasionally an angel would come, dip his finger in and move the water, and the first one into the pool after the moving of the water would be healed. Jesus came and ignored the whole pool and healed a man then came and approached him. Later found him on another occasion after he had been healed and said this to him. He said,
stop sinning. And then the Lord went on he said, stop sinning lest something worse happen to you. Can you imagine those are some very strong words. Those are that's an arrow to the heart. First, our Lord is saying, look, your paralysis is about your sins.
Now.
Of course, Jesus is very clear in many other texts that we can't presume that there's any sort of a one to one correspondence between them. Many very pious people that are very sick, and many terrible sinners are very healthy, so we don't make any conclusions about that. But in this case, this man's paralysis had to do with his sins, and the Lord said, look, I've healed your paralysis, but your real problem is not that. Your real problem is
your sin. Stop repent and stop sinning. It's an incredible word from our Lord, and I want you to see Jesus's care about spiritual health, about the health of your soul. He's far more concerned about the health of the soul than he is about the health of the body. If his job concern was the health of the body, he would have healed easily, just by an expression of his will, all the people who were at the pool who are sick.
He healed a particular man, and he did it to provide an opportunity to cure his soul as well, and to provide a model for everyone of exalting the matters of the soul far above the matters of the body. If you heal your soul, if you find forgiveness and health for your soul, it will without fail lead to the resurrection of your body. If you neglect the health of your soul, because of your obsession of bodily health,
which would make you basically an American. Today, we are obsessed with bodily health and often at the neglect of our souls.
We must reverse our priorities.
If we care about the body that much and we neglect our soul, will lose both will lose the health of our soul because we're not attending to it, and that will lead, in fact, to the loss of our life and our being unable to inherit the Kingdom of God. This isn't just the thematic pedagogical focus of our Savior. In this one account, he does this over and over and over again. Think of the healing of the man who was carried the paralyzed man who was carried by
his friends. This is in the Gospel of Mark chapter two. They went to such effort to bring their friend through the crowds. They dug a hole in the roof. They let their friend down so that they could be he could be near Jesus. And then Jesus looks at the man and says, your sins are forgiven. Who's talking about sin? All of the friends were there because their buddy was paralyzed. They came to get physical healing of his paralysis, and
Jesus completely ignored it. He said, your sins are forgiven you. Jesus did heal the man, but he healed the man about what he really should have been concerned about, which was his sins. And then to prove that he was not joking, that he wasn't just saying that because he was incapable of healing the man, like some people were whispering, Oh, Jesus only did that because he couldn't actually heal the man. Jesus said, rise and walk, and the man got up
and was able to walk. Jesus used the physical miracle to demonstrate the greater miracle, which was the forgiveness of sins, and that he has authority as the son of God, as divine himself co eternal with his Father, he has the authority to forgive sins, which is everything for us. This is the message, stop sinning, Stop sinning, and you know. Saint John Chrisostom and his commentary on the on the
Paralytic in Saint John, Chapter five his commentary. In his commentary, he mentions that this account also is an example scripturally of proving and showing the doctrine of hell of eternal punishment. Oh, I can hardly say the word without wanting to cover my face. It is such a frightening reality. And anyone who's trying to trivialize it, like some heretics do, it's making a very, very terrible mistake, say John Chrissostom says, this gospel account of the healing of the paralytic teaches hell.
He said, thirty eight years of suffering for a sin, and the sin probably took a moment. Chrisism rights people ask I committed adultery in thirty minutes? Am I to suffer forever for it? His answer is yes, unless you repent. I killed a person in a dispute and it only took five minutes. Why should I suffer forever? Chris system answers, you will suffer forever unless you repent. The gravity of a sin is not measured by how long you did it, but by its own nature, its own grievousness, the nature
how terrible the thing is. It could take only a minute, But if it is a terrible sin like murdering someone, the gravity of that is necessitating calling for eternal punishment. And christisdom here points out this man, whatever his sin was thirty eight years. He had been suffering for thirty eight years. He had been paying the price. This shows that sins are massively grievous, and some of them are even mortal. Some of them are even sins that the
weight of justice calls for eternal condemnation. And it's only by repentance and forgiveness of sins, as Jesus so generously gave to this man here when he declared to the paralytic in Mark two, your sins are forgiven.
That's what we need. That's what we need.
So, dear ones, my word to you is stop sinning, and my word to myself is the same, and made the grace of God provide us this victory.
God be with you.
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