[ Today's Readings ]
Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof;
only say the word and my servant will be healed.
Let us learn to trust in the healing power of Jesus. We need to believe that Jesus has authority to command disease to leave and that disease has no choice but to obey. We say it. But do we believe it? It is precisely the humility of the centurion that allows him to realize this. He knows something about authority. But he knows that his own authority is useless when it comes up against his servant's paralysis. His statement about being unworthy is true but it isn't self-pity. It says at least as much about who he believes Jesus to be than it says about himself.
Realizing we are not worthy is a starting place. Jesus wants to come and cure us. He wants to enter into our homes and have us receive him with joy just as Zecchaeus receives him. We are not worthy of Jesus doing so. But he himself transforms us.
He who remains in Zion
and he who is left in Jerusalem
Will be called holy:
every one marked down for life in Jerusalem.
When the LORD washes away
the filth of the daughters of Zion,
And purges Jerusalem’s blood from her midst
with a blast of searing judgment,
The LORD himself cleanses us. When we confess before his presence in the Eucharist that we are not worthy to receive him we profess a belief in his power to heal and to forgive. We say we are not worthy because we are not. Yet he calls us forward to receive him. And in the receiving of him our venial sins are washed away. If we need even deeper cleansing than that he calls us to his presence in the confessional. But it is always his presence that makes us holy. All we need to do is let him in.
Then will the LORD create,
over the whole site of Mount Zion
and over her place of assembly,
A smoking cloud by day
and a light of flaming fire by night.
So let us go rejoicing into the LORD's house. The thrones of judgment are ready to offer us, not judgment, but mercy. Let us go rejoicing to receive it.
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