We witness in the Gospel today the healing of two blind men, and through this life-changing encounter Christ’s power as God fully revealed. Responding to their plea for mercy, the God of mercy, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, receives the two blind men into His holy presence and heals them. But the Lord doesn’t perform this great miracle randomly. Rather, like the healing of the paralytic last week, we’re taught a lesson in faith that’s also applicable in our own lives in Christ.
Sometimes we assume that it’s God who is withholding growth or healing from us. But what we learn through the witness of the Scriptures and the lives of the Saints is that it’s we who have to be ready and willing to accept God’s healing, to draw closer to His near presence, to fan the embers of faith in us, to quicken that desire for more of God, for His intervention into the sin-sick aspects of our lives. We need to muster the courage to present ourselves to Him for the healing and increase of faith we need to persevere in prayer, repentance, and the Sacramental life, in humility and obedience before Christ and the Church. There is no other way, but the way that Christ has entrusted to us.
St. John Chrysostom instructs us that Christ doesn’t run after those in need of healing everywhere, lest anyone think He’s healing out of vainglory. No, Christ’s healing presupposes a participation, a cooperation, from those who need and desire that healing. Just as our relationship and communion with Christ God necessitates a participation on our part, a return of love, an act of repentance, an abandonment of self-will, a consistent striving. So too with our healing: there is a part we must play also.
In fact, in most of the healings we see in the Gospels, those in need of healing personally seek out that healing from Christ. In other words, they desire that healing and change in their life; a new way of being; they desire to get themselves to Christ. What we witness over and over is that their desire is strong enough to seek Christ out single-mindedly, to entrust themselves to Him, to humbly acknowledge their need for Him; they desire healing enough to step forward in faith, recognizing that Christ God is worthy of their trust, that He alone is the Great Physician of our souls and bodies. And this desire, this recognition, is enough faith for the Lord.
Today we see this humility and single-mindedness exhibited by the two blind men, who seek Jesus out; follow Him, cry out to Him, “Son of David, have mercy on us!” These two men know the Source of mercy—that God alone can show them such mercy, such miraculous healing.
To test their faith further, Jesus asks them even after such a demonstration of faith and humility, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” And they say to Him, “Yes, Lord.” But note what Christ says in response, “According to your faith, let it be to you.” Christ’s question has a way of making their faith even stronger, even more apparent, even more of a witness through which God can work, but there’s no mistaking it—their faith plays a key role in their healing.
Do you see the involvement, the cooperation of their souls and will here, the relationship which Christ God develops between them and Him? Their volition, their will, was to be healed of their physical infirmity, their blindness, but it demanded ‘eyes’ of faith and strength of soul.
Even still, physical healing remains a mystery. To some, like St. Paul, who petitioned God to remove the “thorn in his flesh,” God’s response was, “My grace is sufficient for you for My power is made perfect in weakness” (II Cor. 12). In other words, there was something about that ‘thorn’ that St. Paul ‘needed’ if he was to trust in God for his strength, to be humble before Him, to serve God to the amazing extent he did, converting whole nations to the truth of the Gospel.
While our physical healing necessarily involves our will, our souls, the inverse is also true: the spiritual healing of our souls involves our bodies, our participation, our presentation of ourselves before God in daily prayer, our getting ourselves and families to the divine services of Christ’s Church, regular Confession, proper preparation for the Eucharist, fasting, so that the ascetic disciplines of the Faith can work noetically in our souls for our deification, healing, salvation.
When it comes to healing our eternal souls, we know that God desires this above all else. The truth is that all of us are to one degree or another sin-sick, that is, we’re ‘works in progress;’ as St. Paul says, we must “work out our salvation with fear and trembling,” (Phil. 2:12). If we’re to grow in our relationship and communion with God, be deified, and find spiritual healing, we need to have the eyes of faith to see where our spiritual blindness still lies.
And God gives us a sure and prescribed path for our healing, growth, and salvation through His Church: He teaches us how to pray and fast, and so, we pray daily the prayers of the Church and follow the fasting prescriptions as closely as we can. He gives us Confession, which, if taken seriously, grants us release from our passions; we make use of the opportunities to participate in the divinely-inspired worship of the Church, assured as we are through the Scriptures and the witness of the Church that this worship is deifying for our souls; we prepare with humility and obedience to receive the Eucharist and never with a spirit of presumption, so that through all these ‘tools’ we may progress in our knowledge and love of God, our healing, and our salvation.
This progress in communion with God is meant to be active, never ‘static,’ never status quo. To be deified, we cannot be ‘couch potato’ or ‘arm chair’ Christians or be pleased at where we are currently in our spiritual state. It’s easy to fall into a rut, to avoid the hard ‘spade work’ of mustering the faith to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. How easy it is to prefer our own opinions and ways to those of the Church, taking Orthodoxy on our terms or giving up the spiritual battle, but that’s not Christianity and it won’t bring us the healing and growth in Christ we need.
The prayers for reception of the Eucharist presuppose Confession and its purification as a preparation for worthily receiving Christ’s precious and holy Body and Blood. Likewise, it’s necessary that we physically fast from food before receiving the Gifts. And so, through all of these ascetic disciplines, we see that our healing in soul demands that we physically turn to Christ God and come to Him just as the blind men did, crying out, “Lord, have mercy on us.”
Our ongoing willingness to be healed, to progress in our healing, is an integral part of our salvation as Orthodox Christians. We’re saved through a faith that manifests itself thru our actions and deeds, the living out of that faith, the pushing of ourselves to live for Christ and prioritize the life in Him above all else. Why? Because what else is that important? We can’t afford to lay aside our struggle against sin and our struggle for obedience to what Christ teaches us through His Church. Christ asks the blind men, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” Brothers and sisters, we’ve been shown the way if we would just make use of it. Do you believe? If so, then act on it.
The Lord help us that we may cultivate the attitude of soul and body to follow Christ with all that we have and all that we are, crying out to Him for healing as did the blind men, “Lord, have mercy on us,” knowing that Christ is the Lord who loves us and, indeed, has mercy on our souls.
Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Sunday, 15 July 2018
The Healing of the Two Blind Men
Epistle: Romans 15:1-7
Gospel: Matthew 9:27-35
