Friday in the First Week of Advent, December 6, 2024

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.

The sight would have roused up pity in the hardest of hearts: two blind men, ragged, hungry, and bruised, struggling up the road, trying to keep pace with a man they could not see.  Someone must have alerted them to the fact that it was Jesus who was passing by, perhaps urging them to ask him to cure them.  They had been begging all day but ceased at this faint hope that they could come before him.  Someone must have had mercy on them so as to assist them.  “Son of David, have pity on us!” Their prayer, brief, to the point, from the heart, and devoid of posturing and bargaining.

They would have knocked up against people in the crowd who would have knocked them back.  They may have tripped and fallen more than once.  Jesus continued walking as they cried out after him.  Finally he arrived at Peter’s house in Capernaum where he was staying and the men staggered in, the dirt and grime of years ground into their faces, their hair and beards long, matted, and scraggly.

“Do you believe that I can do this?”  The Lord has led them a distance to test them, to make them take part in their own healing.  This may seem cruel to our modern eyes but Jesus wanted to make them grow in their faith, by which they might be saved.  The question he asks them seems unnecessary: they have proven their belief that he can give them sight.  He wants them to profess their faith, to make a public statement of belief.  St. Paul says, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10, 9).  This public act of faith committed a person to loyalty to Jesus and obedience to his commands.  It is not merely a one-time statement that is over and done.  When Jesus heals a person, his power does not cease when the person regains his sight or rises from his sick bed.  The power sustains the person’s health over time.  If the power ceased, the person would return to blindness or sickness.  The faith that Jesus demands is one that abides and does not fade.  And for this reason, after they have professed their belief, the Lord Jesus says to them: “Let it be done for you according to your faith.”

“And their eyes were opened.”  The Evangelist makes this simple declaration behind which hides the joy of the men whose sight has been given to them.  And how amazed they must have felt!  The weariness and suffering of years has now vanished.  They can work now and take care of themselves.  They are part of society again.  They are no longer hopeless forlorn on the road.  It is as though they have been reborn.

Matthew’s account, though, closes sadly, for though the Lord who had given them their sight had warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this”, and they spread the news abroad.  Their faith, their loyalty, did not survive long.  We might wonder if their sight disappeared along with it.