Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, God bless you, thanks a lot for tuning
Speaker 1: in and good strength, good strength to you all.
Speaker 2: Stop sinning, stop sinning.
Speaker 1: I know that sounds maybe too direct or too simplistic.
Speaker 1: I must say that I have said it many times
Speaker 1: in the confessional, not without compassion, with compassion, but also
Speaker 1: just a clear word. As a matter of fact, recently
Speaker 1: one of my lovely parishioners raised the question and said, Father,
Speaker 1: what can I do to help the perish in this
Speaker 1: very great task of starting another church. I responded by saying, simply,
Speaker 1: this is for everyone. Stop sinning. Stop sinning. It is,
Speaker 1: in fact the most important thing that you can do
Speaker 1: if you want your parish. If your parish needs more love,
Speaker 1: be more loving. If it needs more zeal, be more zealous.
Speaker 1: If it needs more enlightenment, be more enlightened. And when
Speaker 1: there is sinful behavior that causes problems, nothing burdens a
Speaker 1: priest more than that. Nothing hurts a shepherd's heart more
Speaker 1: than seeing his flock in disarray or acting inappropriately in
Speaker 1: a way that isn't good for them and disgraces the
Speaker 1: name of God. But this is a very very important word,
Speaker 1: and it comes directly from our Lord Jesus Christ and
Speaker 1: his word to the man who was paralyzed to the paralytic.
Speaker 1: This is one of the gospel texts during Poscletide in
Speaker 1: the Orthodox lectionary.
Speaker 2: And this was the case.
Speaker 1: This was the story when our Lord Jesus came to
Speaker 1: the pool and there were all the sick people waiting
Speaker 1: for the movement of the water, because occasionally an angel
Speaker 1: would come, dip his finger in and move the water,
Speaker 1: and the first one into the pool after the moving
Speaker 1: of the water would be healed. Jesus came and ignored
Speaker 1: the whole pool and healed a man then came and
Speaker 1: approached him. Later found him on another occasion after he
Speaker 1: had been healed and said this to him. He said,
Speaker 1: stop sinning. And then the Lord went on he said,
Speaker 1: stop sinning lest something worse happen to you. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine those are some very strong words. Those are that's
Speaker 1: an arrow to the heart. First, our Lord is saying, look,
Speaker 1: your paralysis is about your sins.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Of course, Jesus is very clear in many other texts
Speaker 1: that we can't presume that there's any sort of a
Speaker 1: one to one correspondence between them. Many very pious people
Speaker 1: that are very sick, and many terrible sinners are very healthy,
Speaker 1: so we don't make any conclusions about that. But in
Speaker 1: this case, this man's paralysis had to do with his sins,
Speaker 1: and the Lord said, look, I've healed your paralysis, but
Speaker 1: your real problem is not that. Your real problem is
Speaker 1: your sin. Stop repent and stop sinning. It's an incredible
Speaker 1: word from our Lord, and I want you to see
Speaker 1: Jesus's care about spiritual health, about the health of your soul.
Speaker 1: He's far more concerned about the health of the soul
Speaker 1: than he is about the health of the body. If
Speaker 1: his job concern was the health of the body, he
Speaker 1: would have healed easily, just by an expression of his will,
Speaker 1: all the people who were at the pool who are sick.
Speaker 1: He healed a particular man, and he did it to
Speaker 1: provide an opportunity to cure his soul as well, and
Speaker 1: to provide a model for everyone of exalting the matters
Speaker 1: of the soul far above the matters of the body.
Speaker 1: If you heal your soul, if you find forgiveness and
Speaker 1: health for your soul, it will without fail lead to
Speaker 1: the resurrection of your body. If you neglect the health
Speaker 1: of your soul, because of your obsession of bodily health,
Speaker 1: which would make you basically an American. Today, we are
Speaker 1: obsessed with bodily health and often at the neglect of
Speaker 1: our souls.
Speaker 2: We must reverse our priorities.
Speaker 1: If we care about the body that much and we
Speaker 1: neglect our soul, will lose both will lose the health
Speaker 1: of our soul because we're not attending to it, and
Speaker 1: that will lead, in fact, to the loss of our
Speaker 1: life and our being unable to inherit the Kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: This isn't just the thematic pedagogical focus of our Savior.
Speaker 1: In this one account, he does this over and over
Speaker 1: and over again. Think of the healing of the man
Speaker 1: who was carried the paralyzed man who was carried by
Speaker 1: his friends. This is in the Gospel of Mark chapter two.
Speaker 1: They went to such effort to bring their friend through
Speaker 1: the crowds. They dug a hole in the roof. They
Speaker 1: let their friend down so that they could be he
Speaker 1: could be near Jesus. And then Jesus looks at the
Speaker 1: man and says, your sins are forgiven. Who's talking about sin?
Speaker 1: All of the friends were there because their buddy was paralyzed.
Speaker 1: They came to get physical healing of his paralysis, and
Speaker 1: Jesus completely ignored it. He said, your sins are forgiven you.
Speaker 1: Jesus did heal the man, but he healed the man
Speaker 1: about what he really should have been concerned about, which
Speaker 1: was his sins. And then to prove that he was
Speaker 1: not joking, that he wasn't just saying that because he
Speaker 1: was incapable of healing the man, like some people were whispering, Oh,
Speaker 1: Jesus only did that because he couldn't actually heal the man.
Speaker 1: Jesus said, rise and walk, and the man got up
Speaker 1: and was able to walk. Jesus used the physical miracle
Speaker 1: to demonstrate the greater miracle, which was the forgiveness of sins,
Speaker 1: and that he has authority as the son of God,
Speaker 1: as divine himself co eternal with his Father, he has
Speaker 1: the authority to forgive sins, which is everything for us.
Speaker 1: This is the message, stop sinning, Stop sinning, and you know.
Speaker 1: Saint John Chrisostom and his commentary on the on the
Speaker 1: Paralytic in Saint John, Chapter five his commentary. In his commentary,
Speaker 1: he mentions that this account also is an example scripturally
Speaker 1: of proving and showing the doctrine of hell of eternal punishment. Oh,
Speaker 1: I can hardly say the word without wanting to cover
Speaker 1: my face. It is such a frightening reality. And anyone
Speaker 1: who's trying to trivialize it, like some heretics do, it's
Speaker 1: making a very, very terrible mistake, say John Chrissostom says,
Speaker 1: this gospel account of the healing of the paralytic teaches hell.
Speaker 1: He said, thirty eight years of suffering for a sin,
Speaker 1: and the sin probably took a moment. Chrisism rights people
Speaker 1: ask I committed adultery in thirty minutes? Am I to
Speaker 1: suffer forever for it? His answer is yes, unless you repent.
Speaker 1: I killed a person in a dispute and it only
Speaker 1: took five minutes. Why should I suffer forever? Chris system answers,
Speaker 1: you will suffer forever unless you repent. The gravity of
Speaker 1: a sin is not measured by how long you did it,
Speaker 1: but by its own nature, its own grievousness, the nature
Speaker 1: how terrible the thing is. It could take only a minute,
Speaker 1: But if it is a terrible sin like murdering someone,
Speaker 1: the gravity of that is necessitating calling for eternal punishment.
Speaker 1: And christisdom here points out this man, whatever his sin
Speaker 1: was thirty eight years. He had been suffering for thirty
Speaker 1: eight years. He had been paying the price. This shows
Speaker 1: that sins are massively grievous, and some of them are
Speaker 1: even mortal. Some of them are even sins that the
Speaker 1: weight of justice calls for eternal condemnation. And it's only
Speaker 1: by repentance and forgiveness of sins, as Jesus so generously
Speaker 1: gave to this man here when he declared to the
Speaker 1: paralytic in Mark two, your sins are forgiven.
Speaker 2: That's what we need. That's what we need.
Speaker 1: So, dear ones, my word to you is stop sinning,
Speaker 1: and my word to myself is the same, and made
Speaker 1: the grace of God provide us this victory.
Speaker 2: God be with you.
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, I hope you've downloaded the Patristic Nectar app
Speaker 1: on your phone. It is a treasured trobe of soul
Speaker 1: nourishing content, and I hope you'll consider becoming a regular
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