46. Беседа о прикосновении веры ко Христу 258

(Printed in the 1844 and 1848 collections) And all the people sought to touch Him: for power came from Him, and He healed all. Luke 6:19. The Holy Evangelist Luke shows us a wonderful sight. The Lord Jesus, after all-night prayer on the mountain, and after choosing twelve Apostles for himself in the morning, descends to the plain; The apostles follow Him; the council of His other disciples meets and receives Him; a great crowd of people, not only from populous Jerusalem, but from the whole land of Judea, and even from the seaside places of Tire and Sidon, surrounds Him. They want to hear His teaching; they want to receive healing from Him: but as usual, crowds make it difficult for themselves; what are the people doing? He presses closer to the Teacher and Healer, no longer in order to listen, or inquire, not in order to ask for healings, and wait, or the laying on of hands, or the word resolving sins; but he rushes to Him, as it happens to anyone, only to reach Him and touch either His life-giving body, or His robes, consecrated and, so to speak, infused with the saving power flowing from Him. “All the people sought to touch Him: for strength came from Him, and He healed all.” The spectacle is truly wonderful, and worthy not just of surprise, but also of reverent reflection, and not only of reflection, but also of jealousy. Who would not desire a saving touch from the Lord, from Whom comes the power to heal everything? Let us look in the Gospel at how those who desired achieved this, and we will see how we must achieve this too. So that those who wanted a saving touch of Jesus Christ could achieve this by doing this, for this it was necessary for His condescension, and extreme condescension. When He was on the mountain; they could not touch Him: for, probably, they did not even know where to find Him, and how to approach Him. It was necessary for Him to descend from the mountain to a level place where 259 His people were waiting: and this descent was only a small, sensory image of His great and manifold condescension. Think about what He should have left on the mountain: a sweet and blissful prayer conversation with His heavenly Father: however, He descends. What will He find below? - a mixed crowd, in which some want to listen to Him, and others, perhaps, catch Him in the word; in which everyone is ready to approach Him with their demand, but, probably, there are those who do not know what they are asking; in the multitude of those seeking to touch Him, there are probably such sick people to whom we, subject to such infirmities, would not want to approach; there are also such sinners from whom we, being also sinners, would move away if we saw their hearts as He sees. However, He descends; He's getting closer. And what else? These unfortunate and perishing people, who need Him as a Helper and Savior, act towards Him, apparently in violation of the reverence due to the Divine Wonderworker, and obviously in violation of ordinary human respect and decency. They, as one of the Apostles himself explained in another case about a similar action of the people, will “overpower” Him “and oppress” Him (Luke 8:45); those disfigured by diseases, covered with wounds 260 throw themselves on Him indiscriminately, the demoniac are drawn and driven to Him by others: He endures everything; everything is condescending. Just as a clean and deep river accepts all those who draw from it, without being indignant or exhausted, so His infinite saving power allows all those who approach Him, without being exhausted by their multitude, without being indignant at their unworthiness. “Strength came from Him, and all things were healed.” Christians! If the condescension of the Divine Savior is needed, as without a doubt it is necessary, so that we too can touch Him savingly: then there will be no lack of this on His part. He did not just descend from a mountain to a place equal to several thousand of the people of Judea and those neighboring Judea: He descended from the heights of heaven for all the millions of people who lived, are living, and have ever had to live on earth. Because His Divine power, being higher than heaven itself, and purer than heaven itself, was unattainable by low and unworthy human nature: He brought it down into humanity itself; influenced it into the vessel of flesh servile to us, except for sin, for healing from which we especially need this power; out of the abundance of His mercy towards us, He, so to speak, filled the vessel of His most pure flesh with His Divine power, so that His very clothes were watered with it, and He healed the bleeding; and when, after the resurrection, “all authority in heaven and on earth was given” to Him (Matthew 28:18), when He took up our flesh that He had assumed with Him, and seated it at the right hand of God the Father, then “he who descended... and He who ascended above all the heavens” filled “all things” (Eph. 4:10), consequently, the whole earth, for all times, with His Divine, saving power, not only physically, but especially spiritually, “with all healing power.” Do you even now desire tangible proof of the closeness and condescension of Jesus Christ to us? – We have it every day on this Altar, where He always covers the same as before, His Divine and saving power, this “fulfillment of the Divinity” living in His “bodily” (Colossians 2:9), covers us with the form of bread and wine, and allows us not only to touch Him, but to eat His Flesh, and drink His Blood for healing and eternal life. But we see further in the Gospel that in order to achieve a saving touch with the Lord Jesus, it was necessary not only His condescension, but also mutually on the part of those who wanted this good - seeking and approaching. “All the people sought to touch Him.” Search should not be understood simply here; and the approach should not be imagined only physically. There were seekers who were looking for Jesus - to kill; there were those approaching Him to hit Him on the cheek: without a doubt, it was not for such people that the all-healing power emanated from Him. Christ Himself clearly distinguishes the approach to His all-healing power from any other approach to Him, when, pressed by the multitude of surrounding people, He does not feel anyone’s approach except the approach of one person: “I will touch,” he says, “I have no one; I sensed the power that came from Mene” (Luke 8:46). What is this special image of approaching Christ, accompanied not by a dead attack, but by a living touch that draws saving power from Him? “The Lord also clearly shows this in the face of the bleeding woman, who, out of the multitude of people crowding towards Him, alone knew how to approach Him and touch Him, and through the touch received healing. For what does He say to her? - “Be of good courage, daughter, your faith will save you” (Luke 8:48). And so, that which was approaching and “touched” before the eyes of the body, according to spiritual contemplation, the Lord calls “faith.” This is how we should understand that search, approach, touch, as a result of which the power of the Lord, healing everyone, was evident over a multitude of people. By faith they sought Him, with faith they approached Him, with faith they spiritually touched His power, physically touching His most pure body or vestments. So “the whole people sought to touch Him,” or, at least, those of the people who, by their faith, served as a model for others. And what faith is visible in these people! Not that small and seemingly inconspicuous thing that needed to be sought, just as the Lord Himself truly sought it in two blind men who asked for sight, asking them: “Do you believe that I can do these things” (Matthew 9:28)? Not the weak and wavering faith with which the father of the demoniac youth asked the Lord for help, and at the same time did not hope: “help if you can”; which he recognized in himself, and at the same time did not believe his own confession: “I believe, Lord, help my unbelief” (Mark 9:22, 24). Not the slow and half-dead faith that in the blind man of Bethsaida, after the life-giving spit of the Lord on his eyes, after the double laying on of His hands, barely awakened to accept perfect healing. The faith of those who sought to touch Jesus does not expect excitement from Him, is not shaken by doubt about His power, is not embarrassed by the thought of its unworthiness, does not require any action from Him, below the word; She goes directly, firmly and freely to the Source of grace and draws from it; as if by force she was stealing the all-healing power of the Savior. “The power came from Him and all healing came.” But what in such extreme abundance revealed this healing power? - Nothing other than the extraordinary boldness of the people’s faith: “the people sought to touch Him.” After this, Christian, if you say that you too would like to be worthy of a saving touch of the Lord; The answer to this is not difficult. Seek, draw near, touch: only by faith seek, draw near by faith, touch by faith. Where, you tell me, should I look for the Lord? how to approach and touch Him? Seek Him with your thoughts - in heaven, with love - in your heart, with reverence - in the church, look for Him everywhere - with deeds acceptable and accomplished for Him. Approach Him, like this believing people, with the desire to listen to Him, and the desire to be healed, that is, by teaching in His word, and by prayer to Him. Touch Him in the sacred signs and Sacraments, with which He, like a robe, clothes His Divine and saving power in the Church, and especially touch Him in the sacrament of His Body and Blood. It depends on you to be more or less successful in such a quest; it is in your will to more or less take advantage of this approach and touch to the Lord, for your salvation and bliss. Whatever your spiritual ailments may be: the more completely you believe, the more completely you will receive healing from them by the power of Christ, which will enlighten the blinded eye of your mind with the knowledge of the truth, and strengthen the weakened strength of your spirit for virtue, and will deliver you from the spirits of tempters, and will resurrect you from dead works into a spiritual and holy life. But if you look for Him inattentively, approach Him only with your lips, touch His shrine only externally, without living faith and zeal: then you become like those people who only oppressed the walking Jesus, but did not achieve His saving power. The Lord Himself made a bitter reproach to some who sought Him incorrectly, that is, to those who sought Him not out of faith: “Amen, amen, I say unto you, ye seek Me, not as ye saw the sign, but as ye ate the loaves, and were filled” (John 6:26). Oh, if none of those who came now to seek the Lord in this church deserved such a reproach, by not paying attention to the treasure of faith and grace, by seeking only visible and temporary benefits and sensory consolations 262! Let us add to the remembrance of the Lord’s reproof, the Lord’s admonition: “do good things that do not perish”; do “the works of God”; “This is the work of God, that you may believe in Him whose messenger He is” (John 6:27–29). Amen. According to Jew. collection: Homily on the day of St. Nicholas, spoken in the St. Nicholas Perervinsky Monastery, May 9, 1825. According to Jew. collection: where I expected with my students... According to Jew. collection: disfigured by disgusting diseases, covered with stinking wounds,... According to Jew. collection: once... According to Jew. collection: and touch the miraculous image of the Saint of Christ, in which the power of Christ lives and acts to heal believers - oh, if none of those who came to this holiday deserved such a reproach for turning the triumph of faith and grace into only bodily food and saturation, into sensual and abstinence-free joy! You might be interested in: