Priest's Message
My Dear Family in the Lord,
Our Gospel Lesson, in this Sixth Sunday of Saint Matthew, tells us about an episode from our Lord’s Life, when people brought to Jesus a man who was a paralytic. The Son of God was impressed by their faith, because it was not an easy thing to do, to carry a man who was paralyzed and to bring that man to our Savior to be healed! To act like this, to help a conational like that, was a hard thing to do, but they did it because they had faith in the first place, knowing that if they will bring this man before Jesus, he will be healed.
They also did it out of love, they loved the man who was a paralytic and they wanted the best for him. Everything looked good, so far, until The Lord saw him and exclaimed: “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” (Matthew 9:2) That was the moment, when some people present there, and who were expecting this miracle to happened, were troubled! These people were some of the scribes, according to our Biblical text today. When their little minds, souls and hearts, the Lord’s message, that accompanied the miracle, because He did heal the paralytic, was nothing else but a “blasphemy”! That was because they did not recognize Jesus as the Son Of God, and they couldn’t comprehend, that Jesus has the power to forgive sins!
It is interesting to see these people’s reaction, when they heard His (Jesus’ words) because before that they were all good to witness the miracle! But afterwards, they refuse to see the miracle, they refuse to hear, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and has the power to forgive sins, all these wonderful works, did not count for them, but instead of giving credit to the Lord for the miracle and giving thanks to Him for healing a disabled person, they accused Him now, of being blasphemous! That’s all that they could see, nothing more!
My Dearly Beloved in the Lord,
When we learn about this miracle, we can associate it with a lot of things, similar things, that I would say, are pretty similar with what happens in today’s world, in our society! When somebody is a well-known person who does a lot of good things in his/her community, everybody else regards them very highly! But if the same person, commits a mistake, that affects he entire community, the people around him/her, tempt to forget all the good things and to remember only their mistakes, or that particular mistake and to criticize even judge them accordingly. That’s exactly what happened in today’s Gospel Lesson! The Lord was criticized in the first place!
But despite all the criticism that the people there present, at the end when The Lord explained to them by saying: “But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say ‘Your sins are forgiven’, or to say ‘Rise and walk?’ But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins” he then said to the paralytic -- “Rise, take up your bed and go home.” And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men” (Matthew 9:4-8)
My Dear Sisters and Brothers in the Lord,
This is what we are called for, as our Lord’s followers, to listen to His words and messages, to learn His teachings, to read our Bible and to obey His commandments without questioning, because He is the truth and holds the truth for us all the time! And we need His truth and we also need to share His truth with as many people as we can in our lifetime!
I pray that I will see you all in Church to share with you The Good News Of The Lord, all the time! May God bless y’all and your wonderful families!