A paralyzed man was brought to the Lord Jesus Christ by four of his friends; and seeing their faith, Christ told the paralytic that healing was possible and commanded him to rise.
There are two things in this account that I would like us to consider. First, the man was ill, he was in need; perhaps he was unable to speak of his need or to express faith in the possibility of healing; but his friends had faith: faith in Christ, faith in His power to heal, to make a person whole. And they took the paralytic and brought him to the Lord.
But their faith alone would not have sufficed: there were many paralyzed, many sick who had no friends to bring them to the Healer.
And so it was not only their faith in Christ but also their love for their friend that compelled them to act. Precisely because this man, in the years when he was still whole and healthy, had awakened in their hearts love, friendship, devotion, and loyalty, in his hour of need they came to his aid.
Here we have a twofold lesson. First, we can bring to God the needs of others — physical, spiritual, and otherwise — if we have sufficient faith in His healing power, and our faith can open the doors of salvation for those who may lack faith, who perhaps cannot even say, “I believe, Lord; help my unbelief!”, or who doubt, who waver, who are not even sure that we can bring them to Christ.
But this becomes possible only if the person in need has somehow awakened love in us — a love so personal, so faithful, that we become capable of action. Or perhaps our life in God has such depth that God has sown in us so much of His compassion, His own love, that we can turn to a stranger, to someone we have never heard of, moved only by his need, and bring him to God for salvation and healing. The faith of these people was effective. They undertook the labor of carrying this sick man to Christ.
True faith does not regard obstacles. It overcomes all things. “Take heart, child; your sins are forgiven,” says Christ, because He sees that these people have genuine faith. They do not even, strictly speaking, pray to Christ — nothing of that is said. They simply laid the paralytic at Christ’s feet, and that proved sufficient.
We are shown, in a sense, what prayer is. Prayer is not necessarily words; it is necessarily a standing before God in which we ourselves stand before Him and bring to Him those who need God’s help. Every concern we bear for our personal sorrow, for the sorrow that befalls the whole people, when it is offered in Christ, when we present that sorrow before Christ God — that is prayer.
Let us remember, too, that we must become able to love and to awaken and evoke love around us. We must also learn boldness in faith so that when we see need around us we bring it to God, Who alone can resolve the need and heal, making whole not only body, mind, and soul, but also the complex relationships between people. This is our vocation, this is our call; let us listen attentively to what God tells us in this Gospel account, in this good news about the power of love, divine and human, and about the power of faith to which God’s love and mercy respond. Amen.
Митрополит Антоній Сурожський
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