Gn 3:1-8 / Mk 7:31-37
There’s a curious pattern in the gospel accounts of Jesus healing of sick people of their various maladies. As often as not, Jesus will send them on their way with the admonition not to tell anyone about their healing by Jesus. It does seem curious. Why not share such wonderful and, especially for the newly healed person, exciting news? After all, we are social beings, and it’s in our nature to celebrate with our friends.
That’s all true, but Jesus had another deeper concern, which was based upon his unparalleled insight into human nature. He knew that the temptation would be to focus on the ‘magic’ and to get caught up in the ‘bread and circuses’ and to miss entirely the inner dimension which was the root and core of the healing.
Remember how Jesus almost always said to the persons he healed, ‘Your faith has made you whole.’ It wasn’t a magic formula or incantation that healed them. It was their open-hearted connecting through Jesus to God, whose power could then work in them.
And that tells us something crucial about our own lives. If we want our sin-wounds to be healed and if we want to grow whole, we have to give God unlimited access to where those wounds are, inside our hearts. God cannot heal us at arms length.
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