Readings: Heb 7:1-3, 15-17 • Psalm 110 • Mk 3:1-6
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“...looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart…”
Can you even imagine what it must have been like to see our Lord, Jesus Christ, look on you with anger and grief? Just to see those emotions on His face…How could it not melt the hardness in your heart?
If you and I could only place ourselves in that synagogue in Capernaum and let the power of that moment penetrate us and soften us and turn our hearts, maybe we would come to understand all that Jesus did for us. Because, ultimately, the final outcome of the glance of Jesus Christ is nothing less than healing.
If we would only stretch out our withered hearts, our withered souls, and, yes, even our withered bodies – if we would only do that in the presence of our Lord, He would heal us. He would take our weaknesses and our blindness; He would gladly take them unto Himself so that we can experience the healing He promises.
If I can withstand the grief and anger of Jesus, if I can stay long enough in His presence, then, and only then will I find true healing. This, brothers and sisters, is the very purpose of our prayer. We pray for healing, for renewal of life in God’s grace. This is what it means to be born again, to be completely renewed in Jesus Christ, to experience the joy of His coming again and again…for He comes to us whenever we pray. And He comes to us whenever we receive His Body and Blood. Yes, He and the Father and the Spirit all dwell within us, make their home within us.
We must fear the Lord, but it must be a healthy fear, a fear born of love and reverence before the absoluteness of the Trinity living in Christ, the same Trinity that will dwell within us. For it is then that Jesus looks on us, not with anger and grief, but with love and compassion. Could anything be a greater source of joy?
Not everyone that day in Galilee would experience that joy, the joy of the man who was healed. “The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.” How sad for the Pharisees that they couldn’t bear to stay and subject themselves to Jesus’ gaze. Had they remained, had they let Jesus melt their hardened hearts, perhaps they too could have experienced that life-changing renewal. But they left.
They actually did more than just leave His presence; they joined together with others who hated the Lord for His goodness. They allied themselves with the supporters of Herod Antipas, people any self-respecting Pharisee would normally despise. They created a hateful alliance that had one mutual goal: the destruction of Christ in His fullness. Of course, Christ’s glory is beyond destruction.
How painful, though. How painful it must be to breathe always an atmosphere of hatred, to inhabit a little world that seeks to destroy goodness, that cannot recognize the very God that you long for. Yes, these Pharisees, like so many today, longed for a God they had created, not the true God, the God who actually came to them. Because if Jesus were really sent by God, then what he was saying was true. And if what he was saying were true, then much of what they believed, and how they lived their lives, would have to change. And this, well, they just couldn’t accept it.
I once read an account of the Fatima apparitions by a seminarian who had witnessed the miracle of the sun. That day he happened to be standing next to an Englishman, a reporter for a London paper, who had stated earlier that he was an agnostic. After the miracle the seminarian turned to him and said, “Wasn’t that amazing? How does it feel to be an ex-agnostic?”
The reporter looked ashen, and said quietly, “No, I can’t possibly believe. I’d have to change everything…absolutely everything, and I can’t possibly do that.” He then turned and walked away shaking his head.
Compare his sadness with the joy of St. Agnes, whose feast we celebrate on Friday. St. Ambrose wrote that this girl, barely out of her teens, "went to the place of execution more cheerfully than others to go their wedding."
Now God isn’t calling all of us to imitate Agnes by becoming martyrs; but He is calling all of us to conversion and repentance. You see, brothers and sisters, we can’t just believe and then do nothing about it. That would make us no better than the Pharisees. It boils down to one thing: We all have a choice. We can take the hardness of our hearts and flee His presence. Or we can believe, and act on our beliefs.
For God always gives us a choice. He always lets us decide whether to stretch out our hand…and be healed.
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