Friday in the First Week of Advent, December 4, 2020

Matthew 9:27-31

As Jesus passed by, two blind men followed him, crying out, “Son of David, have pity on us!” When he entered the house, the blind men approached him and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I can do this?” “Yes, Lord,” they said to him. Then he touched their eyes and said, “Let it be done for you according to your faith.” And their eyes were opened. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” But they went out and spread word of him through all that land.

According to St. Matthew, Jesus performs this miracle after healing the woman with the blood issue and raising the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of a Galilean synagogue.  In both of these miracles, Matthew shows that for Jesus, faith plays an essential role.  In the case of the raising up of the little girl, Jairus approached the Lord and said to him, “Lord, my daughter is even now dead; but come, lay your hand upon her, and she shall live.”  We can try to imagine the man’s state.  His treasured daughter has died, presumably of an illness, but he thinks of Jesus, whom he knows is in his town, and he leaves his house and grieving family, finds Jesus, and has the composure to make this request of him, showing extraordinary faith.  And then, on the way to the man’s house, a woman with an illness that has caused her untold suffering for a number of years, comes up behind him in order to touch only his clothing, thinking, “If I shall touch only his garment, I shall be healed.”  The Lord rewards her faith both by healing her and by commending her aloud: “Be of good heart, daughter, your faith has made you whole.”

And then, “as Jesus passed by, two blind men followed him, crying out, ‘Son of David, have pity on us!’ ”  These two probably sat together on the street, begging for alms, perhaps hoping that the sight of the two of them together would evince mercy from passers by.  Perhaps one of them could see just a little and could assist the other in getting around.  They would have made quite a sight, scrambling along behind Jesus and his followers, knocking into other people, slipping on loose or broken stones on the street.  They would have clung to each other for safety and support, and helped each other up when they tripped.  They would have looked scraggly in their ragged clothes, and people probably shoved them away when they got too close.  But desperation drove them on.  

“Son of David, have pity on us!”  They knew who he was.  Perhaps they had heard him preach or one of the crowd told them who was the cause of the commotion on the street around them.  To call on him as the “Son of David” was at least partly flattery on their part, an attempt to gain the Lord’s attention.  But there must have been some admixture of faith in this as well.  They were not addressing him as a passing physician, after all, but as a wonder worker, and maybe something more.

“When he entered the house, the blind men approached him.”  Jesus tested their faith and their perseverance in it by continuing all the way to the house in which he was staying.  They did not give up, no matter how great their difficulty in trailing him.  Did some of the crowd take pity on them and assist them, even taking them by the hand?  We would like to think so, but Matthew does not tell us.  “Do you believe that I can do this?”  The Lord poses an interesting question.  The answer would seem self-evident, so why does he ask it?  He wants them to make a public statement of their belief that they can be cured.  He also wants them to show that they believe that he can cure the blind, and that he can cure them.  He wants them to confess their belief that he has power and authority over their blindness.  “ ‘Yes, Lord,’ they said to him.”  Their answer is plain and clear.  They put themselves in his hands.  “He touched their eyes.”  In doing so, he entered into their blindness and cured it from within it.  The Lord does not remain on the outside, unaffected, but goes into the depths of our misery and cures it by taking it upon himself.  “Let it be done for you according to your faith.”  That is, according to their capacity for receiving the grace of the healing, which is according to the extent of their faith.  “And their eyes were opened.”  The first thing they saw in the moment of their healing was the face of Jesus.  They blinked, they rubbed their eyes, they looked around.  They could see.  Thus did Jesus show his power, but also the faith of the two men, especially to themselves.

“Jesus warned them sternly, ‘See that no one knows about this.’ ”  The Lord’s words indicate that they must have been alone in the house.  Possibly the Apostles were present, and the owner of the house.  Still, the Lord makes a seemingly impossible demand.  Surely, these two men were known in the town: someone was bound to ask them how they could see now.  And as for the men, even if no one asked them, how could they keep silent about this incredible gift from the Son of David?  Nevertheless, the Lord “warned them sternly”.  The Greek word translated as “warned” actually means “to scold”, “to groan”, “to express displeasure”, even “to snort”.  St. Mark uses the word to describe how the dinner guests reacted to the sinful woman anointing Jesus (cf. Mark 14, 5).  This phrase is usually translated as something like, “They murmured against her”, which is not strong enough.  Elsewhere, St. John uses the word to describe the Lord’s reaction to Mary the sister of Lazarus saying to him that her brother would not have died if he had been present (John 11, 33).  This is usually translated along the lines of, “He groaned in spirit.”  In the case of the two formerly blind men, Jesus may have been displeased by their expressions of joy.  Did they thank him, or were they merely congratulating each other?  Or is Jesus putting their faith to the test?  If they truly believed that he was the “Son of David”, then they ought to obey him.  If they believed that he had power over their blindness, then he had power over them as well.  If they submitted themselves to his power for healing, then they must submit himself to whatever command it pleased him to give them.  The “stern” command he gave them to see to it that no one learned of this was a hard one, but they had shown their ability to overcome difficulties in coming to the house.  

The two formerly blind men must have agreed to do this before leaving, but they do not seem to have made any attempt to keep their promise, for “they went out and spread word of him through all that land.”  They may have had faith sufficient for their cure, but not enough for them to obey the Lord’s command.  They were not thinking of the Lord, at this point, but only of themselves.

The Lord’s commandments to love our neighbors as ourselves, to despise our possessions, to be prepared to leave our families for his sake, to preserve our chastity, to forgive our enemies, may seem as impossible to carry out as what he ordered the two cured blind men, but the Lord does not command what we cannot do: “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tested above that which you are able: but will allow you to be tested in such a way that you may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10, 13).  The proof of whether we really believe is in whether we can and will carry out his commands, which we know lead to life.