Today, brothers and sisters, it’s already the fifth Sunday of Pascha and the Sunday of the blind man, and in keeping with all the other Sundays it is a day in which we read about someone who is enlightened and the process of their enlightenment, and we have another important characteristic of enlightenment especially shown today. It is shown in some of the others too, in St. Thomas, in the Samaritan Woman, but especially here we see incredible courage; we see incredible character. You can’t be saved unless you have character. God’s not going to give it to you. You can’t be saved unless in your heart you want to be honest and in your heart you want to be courageous. You won’t be saved unless you have good character. Don’t depend on God to give it to you. You have to have it. You have to have a desire to be good. This is good character. Whether or not you make mistakes and you have sins – that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about what is it that you desire and what is it that you value and how do you order your life? …

The Orthodox dogma about the cross is often displayed in the Sunday hymns for Vespers and Matins. Many or even most who identify with Christianity and are not Orthodox only have a legal view of what happened on the cross. For us Orthodox, what happened on the cross was the destruction of death, and our healing. We have a relational view. What good is it to be forgiven and not also healed? Two hymns from the Sunday Octoechos help illustrate a part of our understanding of the significance of the cross: “By Thy cross, O Christ our Savior, the dominion of death hath been destroyed, and the deception of the devil hath been abolished; and the race of man, having been saved by faith, doth ever offer praise to Thee” (Lord I have cried, Sunday Octoechos, Tone 3), “Thy precious cross do we worship O Christ, and Thy resurrection do we praise and glorify, for by Thy wounding are we all healed.” (Lord I have cried, Sunday Octoechos, Tone 3)

The healing of the paralytic teaches the doctrine of baptism and gives important baptismal admonitions.

Today, brothers and sisters, we continue on the Paschal theme, which is the enlightenment of the Resurrection and how it occurs in real life, not in our fantasy, but how it really occurs. In this story there are basically three things that the Lord is teaching to be made whole. It all depends how we answer the question "Wilt thou be made whole?". We must learn to hear this question reverberating in us ALL THE TIME, and answer it in three ways EVERY TIME.