December 2, 2022 – Matthew 9:27-31
The gospel speaks of the healing of two blind men. It is a story we find in Mark’s gospel but here with significant differences. For example, Mark has only one blind man while Matthew has two. We should not simply read this as another miracle, another proof of Jesus’ divine power.
It begins with two blind men chasing Jesus desperately calling out to him, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!” There is already an element of faith in calling Jesus by this messianic name and it also indicates Jesus’ healing power: he is more than an ordinary rabbi. When they reach Jesus, he asks
them, “Do you believe that I can do this?” Without their trust in him, Jesus cannot do anything for them.
Let us reflect on blindness. First of all, at that time, being blind meant being condemned to a very difficult life. There were not all the provisions that exist today for the blind, there were no means to enable them to go to school, nor could the blind perform many jobs. They were condemned to an ugly existence. Moreover, and perhaps worst of all, there was no hope for them. There were no doctors who could heal them. All the money in the world would not have been enough to provide them with a cure. The blind could do nothing to gain their sight. They could not be saved from blindness either through their own abilities or through any other man.
In this, we see a clear parallel with spiritual blindness. By nature, man does not see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and therefore does not see his own sin, nor, consequently, his own state of condemnation, under God’s judgment. By nature, man does not see God’s truths in God’s word.

Those men understood that only Jesus could help them. They also knew that no man could help them. Their problem was too big to be solved by men. Only God could solve it. And they had understood, as we will see in a moment, that Jesus was the Christ! That is, they had understood that Jesus was the One who was then called the Son of David, which means the Messiah, the Christ promised by God. Therefore, Jesus was the only hope, and therefore, it was convenient to keep seeking help from Him.
Those two men not only followed Jesus, but they called Him “Son of David.”
It is very important for us to understand the meaning and importance of this title. If you read the Gospels, you will find that few people used that title to address Jesus. The reason is that that title was the title used by the Jews for the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God. The Jews knew that, for centuries, God had promised to send the Christ into the world as Savior. They had been waiting for him. Nevertheless, few people understood that Jesus was the Christ. Therefore, few used that title to refer to Jesus.
In light of this fact, it is very significant that those two men called Jesus “Son of David!” In other words, those two blind men, although they could not see Jesus Christ physically, had seen Jesus with the eyes of faith and had seen what so many others did not see-they had seen that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, sent by God as Savior.

For good workers…
– We become aware of our blindness and deafness. We often have difficulty in truly hearing and accepting God’s Word, and how many of us can claim to be able to see Jesus as He really is?
– We must ask with perseverance, seek with perseverance, knock with perseverance, and it will be given to us, we will find, and it will be opened to us.
Fr Joby Kavungal RCJ