Our gospel today is taken for the 11th Chapter of St. Matthew. John the Baptist has been arrested and he hears about what Jesus is doing but he has his doubts. Now if John the Baptist had his doubts, many people of that time had their doubts. He sends his followers to ask Jesus if he is the one who is to come or have we to wait for another Messiah. When they ask Jesus he doesn’t give a direct answer, he points to the things that are happening to show that he is the one who was to come. Things are happening, things are changing, The blind see again, the deaf hear again, the lame are walking again and the dead are raised to life, etc. Jesus was a miracle worker and a healer, we read in our gospels about the cures and miracles of Jesus. But all of these physical healings and cures are reminiscent of spiritual healings. Jesus was interested in healing the body, but Jesus wants to restore the divine life in each one of us.
+ The blind can see again. We all know that blind people don’t know where they are going, they need supports. There are many spiritually blind people out there today, people who are blind to what Christmas is really all about. Yes, we have to rejocie, yes we have to exchange gifts, yes we have to be merry, but, of course, its not all there is. And this is what is forgotton in the comercial celebration of Christmas where ostentaciousness rather than humility becomes the yardstick by which we measure gits. Christmas stripped of meaning is a dreary run on a tredmill. Jesus becomes a bystander in his own birth and Gods salvific entry inot time and history, a quaint story from long ago. The late Fr. Paul Gallagher once put it: God is missing but not missed. People of faith have to work hard to keep traditions and religious refences part of Christmas. The grace that Jesus wants to give us is to repair our spiritual blindness.
+ The deaf hear again. We all can hear so many voices out there, Media, Google, Facebook, Instagram; Twitter, and we hear perfectly these voices but we can’t seem to hear the voice of our conscience which John Henry Newman calls the Vicar of Christ in the soul. There are lots of people who are deaf when it comes to the most important questions in life. Jesus wants to restore our spiritual deafness.
+ The lame walk again. Physically we may be in perfect shape but when it comes to our spiritual life there are so many people out there who are stagnant, they are paralysed in their spiritual life. Jesus wants to shake us out of this sloth and cure our laziness in the spiritual life.
+ The dead are raised to life again. One of the principle effects of sin is spiritual death. There are a lot of people out there who are walking dead. A couple of years ago I visited India and had a chance to visit many of the places where the great Ghandi spent his life. Ghandi has a great admiration for Christ but found Christians very mediocre. He went down to the Ganges river one day with his followers, put his hand into the river, pulled out a small stone and when he broke it open he noticed it was dry on the inside. This is symbolic of the life of many Christians. For years they are immersed in this wonderful spirituality of Christ, but it fails to penetrate their lives. The grace that Christ gives us restores the divine life and this is why the sacraments are so important in the church, baptism gives us the divine life. Holy Communion nourishes it, confirmation strengthens it, and confession restores it when it is lost.
This is what Jesus says to the followers of John, Tell John what you see, what is happening. A good advent preparation is to see the effects of the coming of Christ.