Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord, the day of the memory of Saint John of the Ladder, as well as the beginning of the second half of Lent! We have only two weeks left until Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week!

Today we heard a wonderful Gospel excerpt about the healing of the demon-possessed boy. In this reading, there are so many interesting and important themes including: fasting, prayer, faith and unbelief, the mission of the apostles, the journey to Jerusalem, the death on the Cross of our Saviour, as well as others. Today let’s focus our attention on the following words of our Lord Jesus Christ: “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me.”

Some people may feel that these words are very harsh, that they do not embody love or compassion. A man on the cusp of losing hope has come to ask for help, not for himself, but for a child, and in response he hears that he and all the Jewish nation are faithless and that Christ is tired of being amongst them. These words do not seem to reflect the image of a man-loving Lord. How can we explain this?

It seems to me that these words can be explained in the following manner. First, we can remember that not once, but several times Christ reacted harshly to those who approached Him asking for a miraculous healing. He reacted in such a way because as God, He knew the true spiritual state of these people. He knew that they would not be offended, but instead would react with meekness, thus showing a good example to those people witnessing the event, as well as us. Had not the Lord called the father from today’s Gospel reading unfaithful, we may not have heard the father’s most wonderful words “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”

Secondly, it seems to me that in the words “How long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?” the human nature of our Saviour is evident. From the concluding lines of today’s reading, we learn that by this time Christ’s ministry in Galilee had concluded, and that He was focused on His impending death on the Cross. Any person, when he is set on doing something special or important, forgets everything else, all his usual chores do not hold his interest any longer, and he thinks only about that big and important project. We can assume that the same thing was happening with Jesus Christ, because He was intent on doing not simply some important deed, but bringing about the redemption of the human race, the central action of all human history. As a man, all His thoughts were without a doubt concentrated on His crucifixion, and His ministry and miracles had already receded into the background. It seems to me that the words “How long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?” are about this. Our Lord Jesus Christ is not simply a person, but is both God and man and therefore, He has pity on this family, adds the words “Bring him unto me,” and heals the boy.

In these last weeks of Great Lent, let us also, together with our Saviour, direct our gaze to Jerusalem and Golgotha, and use the time that is given to us to worthily prepare for the coming feastday.

priest Alexis