Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It’s hard to know just where to start this morning with this rather famous passage from St. Paul and his “thorn in the flesh” for which he prayed and found no relief. In some ways, it epitomizes a leitmotif running through, at least, his two Epistles to the Corinthians, beginning back in 1 Corinthians when he tells us that the preaching of the Cross is utter foolishness and an obstacle to those who are perishing but salvation to those who are being saved, and that God in His infinite wisdom has elected to use the very things deemed by the world as worthless and impotent for His own divine purposes – including St. Paul who, by his own confession, is a most unnoteworthy soul, very much unlike those “super apostles” – the Joel Osteens of his day – who are so impressive but misleading to St. Paul’s flock (1 Cr. 1:18-31).
A messenger of Satan was sent to buffet him, he says, and three times he besought the Almighty to relieve him of the beatings. Now, according to several of the Fathers, the number three was “code” to imply a number of times while inferring something divine. The long and the short of the Apostle’s experience is this: sometimes we’re healed of our infirmities – whatever they may be – physical or spiritual – according to the will of God, and sometimes we’re not, according to that same omniscient will of God. We must remember that St. Paul himself was a worker of a number of miracles in Sacred Scripture, but here, in this instance, such miracles defy his prayers. What he receives instead is a word from God – a word spoken to him and to us all alike. Jesus says to him, “’My grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’” This sustaining and all-powerful Word from God is what inspires the Apostle to declare, “Therefore I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong” (1 Cr. 12:10). This faith, too, becomes a predominant theme with St. Paul. “If I must boast,” he says, “I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity [weakness]” (2 Cr. 11:30). “For I determined not to know anything among you,” he says, “except Jesus Christ and Him crucified . . . that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power [grace] of God” (1 Cr. 2:2, 5). For, from the Apostle’s perspective, he was in very good company, being united with the very Passion of his Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ Who “was crucified in weakness, yet [alive] by the power of God.” And, if this is the case – as it truly is! – then who is St. Paul to ask for anything greater or better than what his Lord and Master experienced? “For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live by the [same] power of God . . . .” (2 Cr. 13:4). Why? Because the grace and power of God is sufficient for us all who have been sealed with the sign of the Crucified One Whose sanctifying grace is being perfected in our weaknesses and frailties submitted to Him. At the great risk of repetition and sounding like a broken record: “For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” For, “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power of God may be of God and not of us.” “For all things are for [our] sakes, that grace, . . ., may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God” (2 Cr. 4:7-15). “[W]hen I am weak, then I am strong” because of the grace of God abiding in me.
This is applicable to us whether we are experiencing infirmities of the body or ailments of the soul – pains and sufferings or trials and temptations. There are those Fathers and certain others who believe the Apostle’s “thorn in the flesh” was some sort of physical malady sorely afflicting him such as a severe eye problem, based on some things he has said elsewhere in Sacred Scripture. While for others, like St. John Chrysostom, the “thorn” and “messenger of Satan” was the so-called self-appointed, self-proclaiming, self-promoting, self-aggrandizing influencers of his day – those pernicious “super apostles” whose self-glory benighted the Church in Corinth much to the chagrin of the Apostle! St. Paul is nearly beside himself as he watches the true and saving Gospel being supplanted and subverted by these “all talk/no action” preachers! It is with them, then, St. Paul must contend continuously, vying for the souls of his enamored flock who are at risk of losing their salvation, because of these messengers of Satan who are a thorn in his side, undermining his apostolic authority at every chance! Yet, Almighty God chooses not to rid His holy and blessed Apostle of their presence, but instead infuses him with divine grace and glory so that St. Paul might be further conformed to the crucified image of the Son of God which is our destiny as crucified ones (Rm. 8:29).
Though our prayers may seemingly go unanswered, according to our poor wisdom, they are, in fact, being answered by our God for our good “that thanksgiving may abound to His glory.” As Fr. John of blessed memory was famous for saying, “This is for your salvation,” so it is if we are the legitimate sons and daughters of God. For what does Sacred Scripture teach us? A loving parent chastens or chastises, that is, disciplines, his/her children. And God is no different. For those whom God loves He chastens (Pr. 3:11-12; Hb. 12:5-6). St. Paul even goes so far as to say that if we do not experience this divine chastening and discipline, then we are “illegitimate and not sons.” If our human parents disciplined us so as to guide and re-direct us in our errant ways, how much more, then, does our heavenly Father “Whose power is incomparable, Whose glory is incomprehensible, Whose mercy is immeasurable, . . . Whose love for man is inexpressible,” Who is Himself omniscient (Divine Liturgy Prayer of the 1st Antiphon)? He does so, ultimately, so that “we may be partakers of His holiness.” Of course, St. Paul candidly admits (and who would disagree?), “[N]o chastening [discipline] seems to be joyful . . ., but painful. [N]evertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hb. 12:7-11).
This image of God preserved by St. Paul in both today’s Epistle and that of the Hebrews is quite foreign to our culture and nearly anathema. I know of persons who would recoil almost violently to entertain the notion that our kind and gracious heavenly Father Who loves to dote on His children would chastise or discipline because in such thinking, poisoned by such heresy, the God of love could never do such a thing. Marcion the heretic never dies! Marcion, if you recall, could not accept the God of the Old Testament, so he deleted Him in favor of the God of the New Testament Whom he perceived was kinder and gentler and certainly not a bully! Quite honestly, we’re seeing the fallout of such Marcionite fallacy in our world today with the world’s distorted views of God. St. Augustine rightly points out something our culture simply cannot accept, “’Not everyone who spares is a friend,’” he says, “’nor is everyone who strikes an enemy’” (ACCS VII.306).
God does not heal all the time, according to our whims, but all the time, God is working for the good of those who love Him, according to His divine will and purpose (Rm. 8:18-39). As St. Tikhon of Zadonsk in his magnum opus observes, what may be “sorrowful for our flesh [can be] healthful for our soul” (On True Christianity VI.13). St. Ambrose of Optina once confessed that “Illness gave him experiential knowledge of the Truth, ‘that it is in our weakness that the power of God is revealed’ (2 Cr. 12:9).” Later on, St. Ambrose affirmed, “’It is good for a monk to have passed through illness. When he is sick he ought not strive to be cured completely, but only by half’” (Synaxarion 10 October).
Sounds absolutely crazy, doesn’t it? Yet, he knew the spiritual value of having to cast yourself utterly upon the God Whose love is all-sustaining, all-preserving, all-sufficient or, in the words of St. Paul, Whose grace is being perfected in our weakness. Isn’t this what we’re being taught in Sacred Scripture – to clothe ourselves with humility because God resists the proud, and that we are to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God so that in His own holy timing He may lift us up – all of this because He cares for us (1 Pe. 5:5-7)? When we are permitted by God to experience affliction – whether it be physical or spiritual in the form of trials and temptations, even, yes, of besetting sins that plague us and haunt us – we learn obedience as sons and humility without which we cannot be saved (Hb. 5:8). Affliction, beloved, humbles us and leads us to God; it cuts off our fleshly passions, crucifies us so that we can be raised up by the grace of God. “So that God’s power may be all the more evident.”
This is exactly how Paul comes to see God’s silence regarding his Satanic “thorn in the flesh.” God allows His hand-picked and beloved Apostle to experience this unmitigated weakness in order to keep his self-confessed pride in-check, “lest [he] be exalted above measure.” All of this, as we have been reminded, is for our salvation. Better to be humbled now, on this side of eternity where repentance remains a grace and a mercy of God, than to be humbled in Hell for all eternity “’where [the] worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched,’” and repentance no longer avails (M k. 9:44, 46, 48).
Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
PROPERS:
2 Cr. 11:31-12:9
Lk. 8:5-15