27 And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed him, crying, and saying, Thou son of David, have mercy on us.
28 And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord.
29 Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you.
30 And their eyes were opened; and Jesus straitly charged them, saying, See that no man know it.
31 But they, when they were departed, spread abroad his fame in all that country.
32 As they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil.
33 And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake: and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel.
34 But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.
35 And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
In today’s Gospel reading we hear of the healing of two blind men and the casting out of a demon from a mute man.
It is interesting that these blind men followed after our Lord as He walked through the city even though they did not have sight. They were able to use their remaining senses in a useful way to run after our Lord and beseech Him to have mercy on them and heal them of their blindness.
He does not heal them out on the streets, but rather He enters the house, the Church, where the Sacraments are given to ailing mankind for their healing. And as at Baptism, the men are asked what it is that they want and if they believe that Christ can give them healing. Once they made their profession of faith our Lord touched their eyes and spoke the words, “According to your faith be it unto you.” Each Sacrament of the Church has the elements of the physical and the spiritual, accompanied with words that bring forth the Grace of God. The touching of the eyes is the physical aspect, and the spiritual aspect was the healing of the spiritual blindness that each human is born with due to the inheritance of original sin.
Sacraments do not work completely by themselves like magic. Only according to the recipient's faith does the sacrament provide God’s Grace. Of course, it is only by God’s Grace that we are able to have faith, but God provides this opportunity to all mankind in various ways. And to make it very clear that our participation is vital, He credits the miracle of the healing solely on the faith of the blind men saying it was done “according to their faith.”
We also read a few weeks ago about the importance of the eye to the body. It is called the lamp of the body. Likewise, this account is symbolic of the healing of the spiritual eye, the nous. With this sight restored we are able to have knowledge of and communion with God.
After reading this account, many are confused about the fact that our Lord strictly forbid them to tell anyone about the miracle and then they went and told everyone in the land about Christ. The reality is that our Lord was teaching the importance of not boasting about performing miracles. He was showing by example how we are to not bring attention to ourselves for any good deeds we might do. But by the man spreading the news to everybody, we learn that we should not keep God’s healing to ourselves but proclaim it to the world so that they too can go to Christ and be healed.
Then we hear about these men going out and bringing a demon possessed mute man to Christ Who immediately expels the demon from the man so that he is able to speak.
This man represents all of mankind. We were in the possession of the demons for following after them in their wickedness. We were like dead men walking. When our Lord became incarnate and destroyed the power of the demons, He gave us the ability to be freed from their grip.
The two healed blind men represent members of the Church who go out into the world spreading the Gospel message that we have been freed from the demons’ possession. We only need to contribute very little at this stage, merely recognizing that we are in fact ruled by demons and are mute because we don’t know what say because we have been in delusion. Seeing these healed blind men is enough for us to take the first steps toward healing, by being freed of the demons’ possession. Then we are able to speak and ask for our Lord to have mercy as did the blind men.
Then we sadly hear the Jewish leaders say that our Lord cast out demons by the power of Satan. This is just like heretics that claim that Orthodox Christians are under Satan’s control. They accuse us of all sorts of things from being idolators to being practitioners of necromancy. Any apparent good done by the faithful is said to be accomplished by the demons to deceive mankind.
Today we celebrate the holy fathers of the first six ecumenical councils that condemned great heresies that threatened the Church. These heretics like Arius accused the Church of believing doctrines inspired by the devil. Today we have our own heresies like the Jehovah’s witnesses and Protestants that accuse the Church of believing demonic doctrines.
If only these heretics would humbly look into the history of the Church and read the holy writings of the Holy Fathers, they would see that their accusations are unfounded and novel. But just like the pharisees in Jesus’ time, these men are so full of pride that they would accuse Christ of being possessed by Satan. The Church is in fact the Body of Christ.
But amidst this persecution, we, like the healed blind men can find people that have had enough of the demon’s cruel ownership and are willing to come with us to Christ to also be healed. If in our lifetime we are able to bring even one such person to Christ, it will be worth thousands of persecutions, for we would help bring eternal life to someone in exchange for temporary afflictions.
May our Lord grant that we live such a life and give witness to God so as to bring as many as possible to Christ, to Whom be the glory, honor, and worship, together with the Father and the most Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
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