Lent devotions: April 2, 2014

April 2, 2014                           Psalm 146

Wednesday                             Isaiah 60:17-22

                                                Matthew 9:27-34

                       

Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983)

For the Life of the World

Healing is a sacrament because its purpose or end is not health as such, the restoration of physical health, but the entrance of man into the life of the Kingdom, into the “joy and peace” of the Holy Spirit. In Christ everything in this world, and this means health and disease, joy and suffering, has become an ascension to, and entrance into this new life, its expectation and anticipation.

In this world suffering and disease are indeed “normal”, but their very “normalcy” is abnormal. They reveal the ultimate and permanent defeat of life, a defeat which no partial victories of medicine, however wonderful and truly miraculous, can ultimately overcome. But in Christ suffering is not “removed”; it is transformed into victory. The defeat itself becomes victory, a way, an entrance into the Kingdom, and this is the only true healing.