The Healing Touch

Isaiah 60:17–22; Matthew 9:27–34

Two blind men follow Jesus, crying out: Have mercy on us, Son of David! Jesus does not stop in the street. He goes into the house, and the blind men follow him there. Only then does he ask: Do you believe that I am able to do this? They say: Yes, Lord. He touches their eyes and says: According to your faith let it be done to you. And their eyes are opened.

The detail of the house matters. Jesus does not perform this healing publicly. He waits until they follow him inside. He tests their persistence. The blind men cannot see where they are going, but they follow the sound of his voice into a space of intimacy. The healing happens not in the crowd but in the quiet room.

"We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us." —Joseph Campbell

Then a demoniac is brought to Jesus—mute, unable to speak. Jesus casts out the demon, and the man speaks. The crowds marvel: Never has anything like this been seen in Israel! But the Pharisees say: By the ruler of the demons he casts out the demons. The same evidence—the same miracle—produces opposite responses. Wonder in some. Hostility in others. What we see depends on what we are willing to see.

Isaiah’s vision of the restored Jerusalem offers a glimpse of what the healed world looks like: Instead of bronze I will bring gold, instead of iron I will bring silver. Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders. The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night; but the Lord will be your everlasting light.

There is a progression here from bronze to gold, from iron to silver—not destruction of what was, but transformation into something finer. God does not demolish and rebuild. God refines. The blind men are not given new eyes. Their own eyes are opened. The mute man does not receive a new voice. His own voice is released.

Abba Macarius understood prayer in a unique way. He implied that if you want to pray, you need no technique. You just need God for your Father, the Word for your brother, and the Spirit dwelling within you. The spiritual life is not about acquiring something we lack. It is about receiving what has already been given. The eyes are there. They only need to be opened. The voice is there. It only needs to be freed.

Today, what in you is waiting to be opened? What voice in you has been silenced? Follow the sound into the house. Let the question be asked: Do you believe I am able to do this? And if your answer is yes—even a halting, uncertain yes—let the touch come.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is a strange, crowded, contentious place—six different Christian denominations share custody of the site where tradition says Jesus was crucified and buried. It is noisy and sometimes chaotic. But pilgrims keep coming, pressing their hands to the stone, kneeling at the altar, seeking the touch. The desire to touch and be touched by the holy is not superstition. It is incarnational faith—the conviction that God works through matter, through bodies, through the laying on of hands. Do you believe I am able to do this? Yes, Lord. We believe.