May those who jeer withdraw because of their shame.

 

Wednesday, July 26, 2023


Psalms 65; 70

2 Samuel 5:6-25

John 7:14-31


Observance: Anne and Joachim, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary


May those who jeer withdraw because of their shame.


Idiomatic phrases are wonderful things. There was a whole book of them some years ago that seemed to be in everyone’s Christmas stocking explaining the background of some of our most popular ones because the history behind them are so interesting. Keeping a copy of the King James translation of the Bible lying around is good for this, too; so many popular turns of phrase come straight from those pages. Perhaps we could bring another Biblical expression back into the vernacular, the one that came from David’s capture of Jerusalem: “The ‘blind and lame’ keep him from entering the house”.


Just as the blind and the lame couldn’t keep David from taking the city, they couldn’t keep Jesus from invading this world with His kingdom of heaven. A couple of chapters ago, Jesus came alongside a man who was blind and lame. The man wanted to be helped into the pool in order to be healed, but Jesus cut out the middle man and went ahead and healed him on the spot. Jesus came to bring healing, Sabbath or not. The blind and lame man was not going to keep Him from this good work simply because of the prohibition against working on the Sabbath.


These days we don’t live under Jewish law. Nor do we live in a society run by a Christian consensus. There are, nonetheless, blasphemy laws in place: do this, don’t do that, if you want to fit in. But we have a greater Master, who is bringing forth the kingdom of heaven, and has commissioned us into that mission. All those little decisions we face during the day where we can decide whether to go by what the cultural authority would like or what Jesus would like, we choose what Jesus would like. And if Jesus’ opponents scorn us for following our Lord, well, their efforts will be in vain: the blind and lame are keeping Jesus from entering the house.

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