We see in this reading how men of all conditions
come to our Lord and how our Lord treats individually each person according to
his ailment. There is not a one size fits all remedy to the various diseases
and severity of these diseases that our Loving Physician applies to all
mankind.
We
see in the case with the blind men that had been instructed in the old Law of
Moses and knew Jesus to be the Messiah, Son of David, our Lord helps them to
come to a fuller understanding of the deep truths of Theology about Who He
really was.
He
asks them, Believe ye that I am able to
do this? to teach them about His Divinity. He was bringing them further to
the Truth by showing that He had no need to ask God for the miracle to occur,
but that He was their Lord that governs the world and all therein.
Responding
correctly to our Lord's instruction, the blind men responded, Yea, Lord. They showed their eagerness
to grow in their knowledge of God as true sons of God, hungering and thirsting
after God.
Next
our Lord states that it was according to their faith that He was willing to
heal their blindness. Our Lord was teaching us that His love toward man has a
kind of proportion, depending on the faith of them that are healed.
He
also is teaching us about the synergy necessary for our healing. We are
participators in our healing, just like patients that work with their physical
therapists.
This
miraculous healing of the blind men can be symbolically interpreted for all
mankind that is spiritually blind. As St. Gregory Palamas says, "The
Lord's principal reason for coming to earth was not to open men's physical
eyes, but the eyes of their souls, which receive their sight through the preaching
of the gospel."
Then
next a mute man possessed with a devil is brought to our Lord. Our Lord asks
nothing of this man, knowing that in his severely sick state, he was capable of
contributing very little. Our Lord Jesus quickly casts out the demon and gives
the man speech, enabling him to advance in healing so as to eventually reach
full recovery.
Then
we are given the example of the sickest of all men, the Pharisees that rejected
our Lord Jesus. They were the ones truly blind in the most serious sense.
As St.
Nikolai Velimirovich says, "The blind saw, and beheld Him; the deaf heard,
and listened to Him; the mad came to themselves, and knew Him; the dumb spoke,
and confessed Him, but the wise men of this world, with minds clouded by the
wisdom of earthlings and hearts ossified by vanity and envy, were unable to
see, hear, know or confess the Son of God, for the wisdom of this world is
foolishness with God."
And
finally we are told of Christ going into all places, cities and villages, He
was not a respecter of class as many of us are. He performed three things
everywhere, 1. He taught by interpreting the Old Creation and the Old Law. 2.
He preached the gospel of the kingdom, laying the foundations of the New
Creation, the Kingdom of God, the Church of the Saints. 3. He healed diseases
to give testimony to His teaching and preaching by His miraculous acts.
May
we come to Christ in our infirmities willing to work alongside our Lord for our
healing. So that on the last day we may hear from our God about our deliverance
from sin and the devil, According to your
faith be it unto you!
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