Tuesday after the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on August 13, 2024 by under
Scripture: St. John 9:1-7 (NKJV)
9:1 Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. 4 I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. 7 And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.
Devotion
Jesus could have healed the man with a mere word, so why does He bother with the messy business of clay, saliva, and washing? We may as well ask, “Why did He create clay, saliva, and water in the first place?” One of the things God reveals about Himself is that He loves the physical; He created the physical world and continues to use it, even though He does not have to. God does not have to do anything. But when He chooses to do something, it matters. He chooses to heal by means of clay, saliva, and water because He loves the physical world. He has made man a physical being, and He became a physical man that He might redeem not just our souls, but our bodies, also.
Jesus continues to use physical means of grace. He uses ordinary water to give us new life in Baptism. He uses ordinary bread and ordinary wine to give us His body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. On the Last Day, He will make a new heaven and a new earth—a perfect physical world. Those who believe in Him will have perfected physical bodies, even as He lives and reigns as perfect God and perfect Man.
Collect: Almighty and Everlasting God, Who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of Thy mercy, forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
