At this time of year, we hear several readings about Our Lord performing miracles of healing: today we have the healing of St. Peter’s mother-in-law, the curing of various other diseases, and the casting out of evil spirits. The Lord also tells us today what he’s here for: he says that he’s come to preach. He’s come to preach the message of salvation, the good news that we don’t have to be slaves to our sins; we can be friends with God; and the really good, critically important news that death will not have the last word in our lives.
It’s really powerful that the Church gives us the first reading that we had today from the book of Job. It seems like a real downer: Job’s life has totally fallen apart and he wants to talk about it. Why do we have to hear all of this? Isn't our faith supposed to be uplifting? One of the beautiful things about Sacred Scripture is that it’s realistic. The Word of God doesn’t shy away from the pain and difficulties and sorrow that we all feel sometimes. Our Faith doesn’t shy away from these things. Our Faith meets them head-on. Christ meets them head-on: he sees the brokenhearted, the sinful, the sorrowful: and heals them. He doesn’t ask us to pretend that everything is hunky-dory all the time: he wants to help us when it’s not. He drives out our demons and heals our sickness. Our Faith is realistic: we do have problems, some of our own making, some not. Whatever the case, he’s here to heal us, to save us.
The crowds were astonished at Our Lord’s teaching: the whole town turned out, bustling and craning to get a look at him: because this is magnetic. He taught them as one with authority, and people couldn’t stay away. He wasn’t some self-help guru, dispensing little spiritual slogans. He was talking about how things really are. And offering meaning and comfort to that reality. He could help them with their actual problems, physical and moral and spiritual. He has power over everything, the invisible world and the visible: the spiritual and the personal. We all suffer from the effects of sin in our lives: our own sins, the sins of others, our weaknesses, our temptations and our insecurities: these things are real: but Our Lord has power over them, he has the authority to be able to heal us. And he has the love to want to heal us. If we will only let him. He asks us to repent: that’s our part of the bargain. We don’t have to save ourselves, or figure out our own path to fulfillment. Our job in the spiritual life is very simple: our job is to show up. That’s it. To continue to turn to God again and again even when we seem trapped in our sins, or feel helpless in the face of our weakness. We have to trust that, no matter what we’ve done, Christ is always waiting for us. Our job is to not give up: to give ourselves to Christ and let him do the rest. He waits for us with open arms.
One of the most important ways for us to “show up” in the spiritual life is the beautiful sacrament of confession in which we show him our weakness and open ourselves to his healing. Just like the people in the gospel did. For a doctor to do his work, you have to tell him what’s hurting or what’s broken. Christ is the Divine Physician. Now, he knows all your sins already, but he also knows that the first step in any kind of recovery is admitting you have a problem: and that’s the opportunity confession provides us. Lent is coming up soon, and it’s a great time to make a good, honest, and thorough confession. We need that grace, that healing touch, for whatever illnesses and demons we might be struggling with. We can be confident that Christ will free us from the power of sin through his perfect sacrifice on the Cross. Our struggles are real. But nothing is more real than God’s healing, his grace, and his love. May he give us that saving love, today and always.