Romans 15.1-7

Matthew 9.27-38

The way our Gospel reads this morning, we could say that it’s the prayer, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David,’ that brings the two blind men into the LORD’s House. There, they gain an audience with the LORD, a chance to speak to Him heart to heart.

Here you are this morning. You have come into the LORD’s House. You are in the presence of the LORD. You have an audience with Him, a chance to talk with Him from your heart because the LORD is attending to you from out of His holy dwelling place on high. He is invisibly present to you, ready to grant your request as may be expedient to you, even to grant you in this world knowledge of the Truth and in the world to come life everlasting.

What will you say to Him? What is the desire of your heart? What is the request you would make of Him from your heart?

Do you remember what the Pharisees said to the LORD after He healed the Blind Man on the Sixth Sunday of Paschatide? They said to Him: ‘We are not blind, are we?’

And, well, we hear in what the Pharisees say to the LORD this morning what their sharp eyes could see: ‘He casts out demons by the ruler of demons.’

Because this is what they see Jesus to be, they never ask Him anything, and apart from those like Nicodemus, not a one of them is ever healed of his blindness. They follow Him, to be sure, even into ‘His House,’ but not to ask of Him what their heart longs for but to provoke Him, to accuse Him, to entrap Him, to catch Him in His words, because they do not receive Him as the Son of David, their King, let alone as their LORD and God – just like the generations of their fathers who murdered the prophets.

Do you remember what the LORD answered the Pharisees who insisted they were not blind? He said, ‘If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say that you see. Your sin remains.’ (Jn 9.41)

Understand the LORD’s WORD to the Pharisees in light of this morning’s Gospel: ‘Your sin remains. Your blindness remains, your paralysis remains, your muteness, your deafness, your lame feet, your withered hands, all your diseases and maladies remain.’ That means that you remain in the power of the demons, for all of these sicknesses are the physical form of idolatry. They are the bodily form of what the passions do to our soul – the passions of lust, greed, anger, pride, despair, sloth – when we give ourselves to them and not to the LORD Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the King. And if we do not acknowledge our blindness, our passions remain and they take possession of us, and they begin to swallow us, slowly, bit by bit, like a serpent that swallows its victim; and they will destroy us.

What is the longing of your heart? Or are you blind? We can see what our eyes find pleasurable and delightful. We can walk and follow after that; we can see it to reach out our hands to grasp it, but can we see what we long for in the hidden man of our heart?

Why can we not see what we long for in our heart? Is it because we do not cry out to Jesus, ‘Have mercy on me, Jesus, Son of David, Son of God!’ Is it because we are like the Pharisees, accusing the LORD in anger and hatred? And, do we not cry out to the LORD for mercy in love for the LORD because we do not acknowledge our blindness? And is it because we do not cry out to the LORD for mercy that we do not follow Him into His House? But we do follow our passions into their house of destruction where they devour us like serpents devouring their victims!

Do you know what the House of the LORD is? Perhaps many of us would say, the Temple; but the Temple is but the visible image of the invisible Temple that is your own body. ‘Do you not know,’ St Paul says, ‘that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.’ [1 Co 6.19-20] And the inmost sanctuary of the temple of your body is your heart. In our heart, we find our true selves. We are given to know from Holy Scripture – Holy Scripture must tell us because we cannot see it in our blindness – that in our heart we open out onto God in the deep, beyond all things. (Jer 17.9 LXX) And, the LORD in His Holy Resurrection stands at the gate of our heart in the deep beyond all things, crying out, ‘If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.’ [Rev 3.20]

Dear faithful, what is the longing of our heart? If you can see no further than carnal desire, you are blind. If you can see no further than anger, you are blind. For your heart is deep, beyond all things, beyond all carnal desire, beyond all anger. If you can’t see the desire of your heart that is beyond all things, how will you come to see it?

With your ears, listen to the Psalmist: ‘I acknowledged my sin to Thee, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, I will confess my transgressions to the LORD; then Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. [Psa 32.5]

Listen to St John the Theologian: ‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [1 Jo 1:8-10]

The blind men follow the LORD into His House. They follow Him into the ‘hidden man of their heart,’ crying, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!’ In their blindness, they cannot see the LORD; but in the longing of their heart, they can hear His voice speaking to them in the tenderness of His compassion: ‘Do you believe I am able to do this?’ Do what? Is it not to have mercy on us and give what our heart longs for beyond all things?

Dear faithful, if you can’t see what your heart longs for, then listen with your ears to Solomon: ‘Wisdom – Jesus Christ (1 Cor 1.24) – is the Brightness of the everlasting Light, the unspotted mirror of the uncreated Power of God, the Image of His goodness (Col 1.15). She is more beautiful than the sun. I loved Her, and I sought Her from my youth!’ Young man, young woman! What, who do you love? Whose Beauty are you following with all your heart? Old man, old woman: what, who have you loved your life long? Whose beauty have you followed, chased after in the deep of your heart? Did that beauty open your eyes or is it your chasing after that beauty that is the reason you are still blind?

King Solomon says: ‘I longed to make Wisdom my spouse, for I became a lover of Her beauty!’ (Wisd 7.26, 29, & 8.2) King David cries out to his Son and his LORD, Jesus Christ: ‘Behold how I long for Thy commandments, O LORD!’ Why does he long for the commandments of the LORD? Because they are a Lamp to his feet, a Light to his Path, and they lead him into the House of Wisdom whom he loves with all his heart.

The serpent entices us into his house of destruction with visions of carnal pleasure, and he slowly devours us like a serpent devours its victim. And so, the Glory of God, says the Psalmist, places His Body in the sun – that is, in the ’circuit’ of our life in the awesome mystery of His Incarnation. And like a bridegroom, it says, He goes forth as from His bridal chamber. His exodus is from one end of the heavens; His going down is to the other end; and no one, it says, is hidden from His warmth.’ (Ps 18/19.5-7)

The warmth of God is His mercy and His compassion. Like the light and warmth of the sun, it fills heaven and earth, and no one is hidden from its warmth. For, the Gospel shows the Glory of God, Jesus Christ, going forth from His Holy Virgin Mother, the most beloved Theotokos, going throughout all our cities and villages; and, in His Resurrection, He has come here to us at St Herman’s this morning, preaching the Good News of His victory over the serpent to us, and healing every disease and malady – that is, delivering from the devouring maw of the serpent all of us who would come to Him in repentance and in the confession of our sins, all of us who would follow Him in the fear of God with faith and love into His House, into the deep of our heart, renouncing the devil and all his hosts and all his pride, and uniting ourselves to Christ who delivers us from the serpent’s maw and heals us, and restores us to our original wholeness and beauty

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