8 July 2013
Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Teaching sophomore religion, I spent many weeks considering Jesus’ healing miracles. Jesus came to heal people in mind, body, and spirit, I would remind my students. “Do you believe that he really did that?” my students would ask. They’d lean in closer and ask again, “I mean,really believe it?”
In today’s Gospel from Matthew, we read two stories of healing: the woman who had been hemorrhaging for 12 years, nested within the story of Jesus bringing to life the official’s daughter. The official begs Jesus,
“My daughter has just died. But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live.” …When Jesus arrived at the official’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd who were making a commotion, he said, “Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they ridiculed him.
In so many accounts of Jesus’ healing miracles, a chorus of voices is there to scorn, belittle, and doubt Jesus’ capacity to heal. There are plenty of voices and attitudes in our time that keep us from entrusting our hurts and pains to the living God. Cutting through all the external voices and distractions, we Christians must consider a simple proposition of our faith:
Jesus comes to me to heal me in mind, body, and spirit. Do I believe it? I mean, really believe it?
The poet D.H. Lawrence writes,
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
But it is a much more fearful thing to fall out of them.Save me from that, O God!
Let me never know myself apart from the living God!
Let the grace today be a deepening trust that Jesus comes to heal me – today – in mind, body, and spirit. Where do I need to let Him in?