16 January 2013 - ennobled
“If you wish, you can make me clean.”
This is so moving to hear. The leper does not doubt the power to heal him exists. He questions the love. He asks if the LORD wishes to heal him. He knows that if he has even that wish he has the power to make it happen. But he nevertheless finds himself as yet unhealed. He is still in pain. He stands before Jesus not at all convinced. It isn't that he is worried that there is no God. He worries that God is aloof and indifferent. After all he is still in pain. Why is the world this way if God wishes it otherwise. Yet all is waiting for him to ask Jesus for this healing.
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, and said to him,
“I do will it. Be made clean.”
"Ask and you will receive," Jesus tells us. But why does he insist we ask? If the Father knows what we need before we ask (cf. Mat 6:8), if he knows how to give good gifts to his children (cf. Mat 7:11), why does he wait on our request?
There is a certain disposition he wants us to have. The Israelites in today's first reading are an example of the wrong disposition. They want the LORD to give them victory over the Philistines. Without consulting the LORD they bring the ark of his presence to the battlefield. They make a big noise which is purported for the glory of the LORD but which actually is for their own glory. This is a temptation we all face. We have our own plans. We want the LORD to concede to these plans of ours. We want him to serve us. This doesn't usually work.
The Philistines fought and Israel was defeated;
every man fled to his own tent.
It was a disastrous defeat,
in which Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers.
James tells us that when we ask for something we "must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord."
We must ask in faith. But what does this really mean? In Mark, Jesus tells us that whatever we ask for in prayer, if we believe we have it, it will be ours. We misinterpret this. We think it means we just imagine ourselves possessing our desires and then God will acquiesce to them. This is the mistake of the Israelites.
The key is faith. The key is belief. We must ask with complete trust in God. We must ask from a disposition which is surrendered to God as the LORD of our lives. This disposition does not try to bend God to our will but happily bends to his. This is why John tells us that we receive from God whatever we ask, "because we keep his commandments". In other words, we receive because his will comes first in our lives.
God ennobles us with agency in bringing his will to pass. He helps us, his children, to grow toward the full stature of Christ (cf. Eph. 4:3). He can make all things new without involving us if he chooses. But he loves us too much to leave us out.
If aren't putting the LORD first we are probably "bowed down to the dust". But even if he isn't going "forth with our armies" let us not give up. If we are "driven back by our foes" we are not yet defeated. All we need to do is repent.
Redeem us, Lord, because of your mercy.
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