The world seeks a physician
And the leper said, ‘Lord, If you wish, you can make me clean.’
Friends in Christ, this man who comes to Jesus is sick; but he is the image of each of us in need of healing. We have wounds due to sin – moral evil – and we have wounds due to tragedies and the crosses of life – physical evils.
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Modern man today in general, is wounded – all you have to do is read the newspapers – society is wounded, but cannot find the True Physician. There are so many problems out there; for example, I recently read that venereal disease is way up, it is rampant; the cause of this is human behavior.
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The solution to this problem would be for people to live a Christian life of purity. Could you imagine government sponsored billboards along the roads: ‘Be pure.’ ‘Wait for marriage.’ ‘Be faithful.’ ‘Purity is happiness.’ But this solution is not even mentioned. The world is so wounded, yet they do not know how to see the cure.
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The wounds inflicted today are very great: nearly 1 million went to prison this year for a felony; 1 million babies are aborted each year 20% of men and 15% of women have committed adultery These figures represent enormous pain in the lives of people; in these figures is great sadness and regret.
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‘And he pleaded with him, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean, and Jesus stretched out his hand and said, “I do will it. Be thou made clean.”
The way of the Christian, following Jesus, is the way to life. The religion of the world produces broken hearts. The religion of God produces self-control, virtue, peace, and mercy: the healing of wounds. As St. John tells to us today: ‘God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son; whoever possesses the Son has life. Our Faith in God the Son, is what gives us the power to say ‘no’ to our whims and passions and to develop self-mastery over our desires.
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The life of Faith is what allows a Christian to survive devastating experiences, losses, or illnesses with the assurance that there is more to life than this car accident or this disappointment. Today in the world we are seeing now a strong contrast between life without Christ and life with Christ. Very different.
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But really these are beautiful days for us, because we have a mission: we are the messengers of hope: sometimes by our words, but always by our example of the goodness of our Christian life. As St. Peter says, let us be ready with an answer to those who asks the reason, for the hope that is in us.
