“HEALED THIS SAME HOUR”
Saint Matthew 8. 1-13
The Third Sunday after the Epiphany: 22 January Anno Domini 2006
Fr Watson
When Moses had come down from the mountain, great multitudes were caught with their pants down. The backsliding and degenerate Israelites had given up on waiting for the old man. This is what all sinners do. All of you are likewise “kit and kin” of those Hebrew hedonists. It’s the way you are; it’s what sin does to you. The “old Adam” can’t wait in patience. The “fallen nature” won’t long abide things unseen and un-proven.
The Jews wanted a God Who was grand, to be sure, but “grand” the way they desired Him to be. The mighty miracles wrought on Pharaoh and in the desert were good, but too far and few between to keep the lustful dilettantes stimulated after only 40 days of silence.
The multitude didn’t follow Moses they fled from Him; they fled from the consequences of the real Law of God: obey or die. A whole bunch of them were slain that day. The ground ran red with the blood of unbelief.
The Law of one’s own choosing is more palatable. People, just like children, love to follow easy rules that provide rewards. It’s more “do-able” to worship a Golden Calf than an unseen Being of unwavering expectations. It’s far more affirming to bring tithes and perform activities of one’s own choosing than to be brought in to a Liturgy of the great “I AM” Who not only does all the doing, but still demands perfect Love.
To be a sinner, and that means to be a living human being, means to be both diseased and lazy. Sin brings all the wages that go with the ultimate pathogen: hurt, unhappiness, depression, old age, sickness, estrangement and then death. Congenital and in-born laziness results in the sinner refusing, indeed being incapable of, fixing things himself. The best that the pagan, or the sinful “old man” can do is to dance around the Golden Calf.
When the Lord came down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him. “For the Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” [St. Jn. 1.17]
You don’t need Moses making you drink the ground up tablets and ordering your death by sword if you already know you’re dying and have given up hope in your own abilities to save the situation. Even as the Law need not be preached the same way at a funeral as it is on Sunday (it still needs to be preached but in a subtle way), so too the Law need not be thundered into the fractured and fissured face of a Leper whose own tears and pleas show that the Law has already done its work. It had. “And behold, a leper came and worshipped Him, saying “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.””
We can argue all day about whether the Leper simply viewed Jesus only as a person who could indeed cure Leprosy or whether He truly believed Jesus was the long-promised Messiah. The point is that it wasn’t the man’s faith that healed him from the physical ravages of leprosy; it was the Grace of Christ. Jesus is the Way and the Truth, yes, but He is also the Life. Only in Christ is there life now, through forgiveness of sins, and life hereafter through salvation worked by Grace through Faith.
The Leper knew he couldn’t cure himself. The Leper had faith that the Rabbi from Nazareth could cure him. The Leper experienced first-hand, in his own body, a miracle of almost unprecedented wonder. The healing was almost singular but for the fact that even in the distant past times of Moses, God had healed Miriam of her temporary leprosy. God had healed her as only God can. And in today’s Gospel, for this newly washed and clean man, the light went on, if it hadn’t already prior to his plaintive request, Jesus is God!
Yes, you too flee from Mt. Sinai, either pretending that it doesn’t exist or doesn’t really pertain to you--after all, you’re pretty good, you love your kids and spouse and are a patriotic citizen. And while the mountain doesn’t chase after you, the two Stone Tablets are always there sitting on your chest with all the weight of the universe: Love God perfectly or die; love that despicable skank or loser of a neighbor perfectly or die. Repent.
Breathe deeply beloved brothers and sisters, for the crushing weight has been lifted off of your windpipe; the cancerous tentacles have been cut off your spiritual spine, the leprosy has been washed away by the Second Mountain, Mt. Calvary. And yes, that mountain doesn’t come for you itself, but the God-Man Who suffered and died there does. The same Lord Jesus who healed the leper and Who healed the Centurion’s servant comes right up into your face this morning in the third and most intimate mountain; Mount Zion--the Church itself. It is in this mountain; here today, that Christ applies Himself into your ears and upon your tongues. It is here in His “means of Grace” that he puts out His hand and touches your forehead, your chest, your heart, soul, spirit and mind, and says “I Am willing be cleansed.”
“Go your way, the way of Him Who is The Way, and as you have believed, so let it be done for you”
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost