What we hear in the Gospel is a man asking Jesus to come and heal his son who was ill. And the man was persistent in this request to Jesus, for he said a second time, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” From this Jesus sees the man’s belief, and because Our Lord sees this man’s belief, He tells him, “Go; your son will live.” And Saint John affirms the point for he tells us that the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and went on his way. He soon finds out that his son is recovering, and that the healing began at the same hour when Jesus had said to him “Your son will live.” The point is clear that it was not the son’s faith in Christ but the father’s faith that was responsible for Christ’s healing to be effective in the son. Thus this episode described by Saint John elaborates upon the Gospel episode from two Sundays ago, the healing of the paralytic. There, as well as here, when persons were sick, they were healed by the faith and belief of others. When Jesus saw their faith, He healed the sick.
The Church understands this moment to teach us that God’s salvation–His spiritual healing–upon people happens through the strong faith of others. God’s grace flows through the faith of a group upon those in need. The Church names this, and speaks of the faith of the group by the term “vicarious.” Something or someone is vicarious when it acts on behalf of others. Christ was vicarious on the Cross: saving all humanity through His suffering. His suffering was vicarious, one on behalf of others. The four men who carried the sick man on his bed and lowered it through the roof so the sick man could be close to Jesus: their actions brought salvation to the paralytic, and Jesus said it was their faith that made him well. They were vicarious, the faith of the group on behalf of the man.
The fullest application of this is to see that a parish itself is vicarious. A parish gathers for liturgical worship and in community is together for apostolic fellowship, and it does so on behalf of the whole neighborhood, this town of New Smyrna Beach, and all the surrounding towns of Volusia County, and on behalf of the whole world. A parish must always have in mind its calling to be vicarious: we worship, we receive the Sacraments, on behalf of others: that through our strong faith and belief in God, others will be made well by Christ. The liturgical worship of a parish serves Christ, and because of the faith and belief and the regularity in worship of the parishioners, the parish’s liturgical worship serves the world by the vicarious principle seen in the Gospel. The faith of parishioners, expressed through the liturgy of daily Offices and Mass, and from this into their devotional life, makes the local neighborhood well, and heals their spiritual diseases.
It is because of Christ’s call to be vicarious that Saint Paul writes to us today in the way he does. His exhortation is to be strong as a parish. Strong, so that we are equipped for battle against the schemes of the devil. For, he teaches, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. We wrestle, in other words, against the Devil and his dark armies not only for ourselves, but even more so for the benefit of others. Like Christ on the Cross, our battle against the unholy angels is a battle to benefit others, and to heal others. Because a parish battles vicariously, on behalf of others, so that the others can be healed by Christ.
What does Paul say? He exhorts us to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. The Christian life involves “unseen warfare.” We must take up the whole armor of God. We must fasten on the belt of truth. We must put on the breastplate of righteousness. We must take up the shield of faith, with which we can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. We must put on the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit. And our feet must be shod with the readiness given by the Gospel of peace. This unseen warfare against the powers and principalities of this world is conducted through prayer, knowing that the Devil and his dark army is fighting for control of our hearts
The Devil wants us to return to Egypt, to the life of bondage to our sins under the control of Pharaoh, who according to the Church Fathers, is a clear symbol of the Devil. He wages a war of deception, and seeks to bring fog to our minds to confuse us and weaken us. As we are confused and weakened by our temptations, we lose sight of the Light of Christ, what the Fathers call “spiritual blindness.” Paul’s teaching about the whole armor of God uses symbols to convey the importance of being equipped by Christ, equipped by God’s eternal Word, against the unseen but powerful Devil, who prowls around, seeking souls to devour.
Yet as the battle that Christ waged on the Cross was victory by one for the benefit of all, so is the battle a parish wages through liturgy and prayer a victory for all around us. This parish has been called since 1769 to fight this battle, and be an oasis for the Gospel. In a fallen world prone to fall under the illusory power of the Devil, Christ calls each of His parishes to be “light shining in the darkness.” Each parish is to be “light in the Lord,” and we are to “walk as children of light.” A faithful parish that serves Jesus Christ is an oasis of God’s refreshment and love. A parish that is an oasis provides living water to the world thirsty for righteousness: “Out of our heart shall flow rivers of living water.” This is our parish: our vicarious parish, with our mission to know, love, and serve Jesus Christ, and proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven has come near, through Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
