Third Sunday after The EPIPHANY: Homily

“HEALED THIS SAME HOUR”

Saint Matthew 8. 1-13

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany: 26 January 2014

(edited & revised from an earlier preached version)

Fr. Jay Watson SSP

In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost

   When Moses came down the mountain, great multitudes were caught with their pants down. The stiff-necked and willful Israelites had given up waiting for their fallible pastor. This is what sinners do. Today’s congregations are true brethren of those Hebrew hedonists. It’s what sin does. The “old Adam” can’t wait in patience or pray in watchfulness.  Fallen nature does not abide things unseen and un-proven.

   The Jews wanted a God Who was grand the way they desired Him to be grand. The miracles worked on Pharaoh and in the desert were good, but too far and few between to keep their spiritual immaturity 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.  Many of them were slain that day. The ground ran red with the blood of unbelief.

   The Law of one’s own choosing is more acceptable.  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 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.

   All sinners, all humans are diseased and lazy. Sin brings the wages that terminate the symptoms of hurt, unhappiness, depression, old age, sickness, estrangement.  That pay-off is death.  Congenital and in-born spiritual sloth results in sinners refusing, indeed being incapable of, fixing things themselves. 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 was thundered into the rotting puss-filled face of a Leper whose own tears and pleas showed that the Law had 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.”

   The Leper believed Jesus was the only person Who could heal him.  He believed Jesus was the long-promised Messiah.  It wasn’t the man’s faith that loosed him from his physical ravages; rather 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 but he had faith that the Rabbi from Nazareth could. 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 (baptized into + Christ most holy), 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 rotten neighbor—the one that defamed your family or spouse, that hurt your feelings, that let you down when you trusted in them—love them perfectly or die. Repent.

   Breathe deeply through your ears beloved leprous brethren, 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 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