We witness through the Gospel today the healing of two blind men, and through this life-changing encounter in which Christ’s power as God is in full evidence, we’re presented with the opportunity to grow to a fuller understanding of healing and salvation in Christ. Responding to their plea for mercy, the God of mercy, Jesus Christ, receives the two blind men into His presence and He heals them. But Jesus doesn’t perform this great miracle randomly. Rather, like the healing of the paralytic last week, we’re taught a lesson in faith and healing that is also applicable to our own need for Christ’s healing touch.
Sometimes we assume that it’s God whose withholding growth or healing from us. But what we learn over and over again 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 get ourselves into Christ’s near presence, to have the faith to present ourselves to Him for the healing we need, to persevere in prayer and the Sacraments, in humility and obedience before Christ and the Church.
Summing up St. John Chrysostom on this topic, he instructs us that Christ doesn’t run after those in need of healing everywhere, lest anyone think He’s healing out of vainglory. No, there’s more at work here: Christ’s healing presupposes a participation, a cooperation, from those who need 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, so our healing bespeaks a reciprocal relationship as well.
In fact, in most of the healings we see in the Gospels, those in need of healing must personally seek out that healing from Christ. In other words, they desire that healing and change in their life; they desire Christ’s touch to cleanse them from their sins. What we witness over and over is that their desire is strong enough to seek Christ out, 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 trust, that He alone is the Great Physician of our souls and bodies.
We see this humility exhibited by the two blind men; they seek Jesus out, they follow Him, they cry out to Him, “Son of David, have mercy on us!” These two men know the Source of mercy; they know 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 of their souls 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, not everyone receives physical healing. It 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 God and His salvation.
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, our getting to the divine services, regular Confession, proper preparation for the Eucharist, so that it 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. 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 as a means to find freedom from our passions; we do not neglect the opportunities given us to participate in the divinely-inspired cooperate worship, 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 the knowledge and love of God is meant to be active, never ‘static,’ never status quo. To be deified, we cannot be ‘couch potato’ or ‘arm chair’ Christians. It’s easy to fall into a rut, preferring our own opinions and ways to those of the Church, listening to the culture instead of Christ, taking Orthodoxy on our terms, but that isn’t Christianity and it won’t bring us the healing and growth in the Kingdom that you and I 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, its necessary that we physically fast from food before receiving the Gifts. And so through all of this, we see that our healing in soul demands something of our material bodies in our turning to Christ God 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. We’re saved through our 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 with sin and our obedience to what Christ teaches us through His Church. Christ asks the blind men, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” We’ve been shown the way if we would just make use of it.
May we each cultivate the attitude of soul and body to follow Christ with all that we have, 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, 19 July 2015
The Healing of the Two Blind Men
Epistle: Romans 15:1-7
Gospel: Matthew 9:27-35
