All Souls Saturday. The Holy Martyr Codratus and Those with Him (249-51)
Great Fast Day 27.
Read
Hebrews 6:9-12; 1 Corinthians 15:47-57
Mark 7:31-37; John 5:24-30
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
“And he charged them to tell no one.” After the healing of the mute and deaf man, Our Lord’s instruction to those who witnessed this miracle goes unheeded. Instead of being silent, or mute, about this manifestation of Christ’s healing power as God, the disciples proclaim it loudly around the region, to whomever will listen. We understand this admonition of Christ’s as reflecting His desire that His divine nature not be proclaimed as His time had not yet come. In other words, Our Lord God and Saviour had to suffer His passion and death on the Cross and rise from the dead, before the apostles and those who followed Him might understand who He is: the promised Messiah, the Son of the Living God. It is fitting then, that Our Resurrected Lord before His Ascension calls the apostles to proclaim the Gospel to all the nations (Matt 28:19-20); it was the appointed time for such a proclamation as the Church’s mission began.
How interesting it is that when Our Lord reveals His divine power in the healing of the deaf and mute man that his followers are quick to proclaim it: they have witnessed a sign. Yet we his followers who come to know Our lord through the Holy Scriptures; who witness miracle upon miracle in the life of the Church; have the witness of the saints before us; and are expressly commanded by Christ to proclaim the Gospel fail to heed His command. We are mute and deaf, and we so often refuse to confess Him as Lord and Saviour. In this our spiritual muteness and deafness let us like the man in today’s Gospel approach Our Lord and receive what healing we need so that our ears and mouths might be unstopped that we may, without fear, confess Christ to all around us.