[AI translation] Matthew 9,27-31Gracious God, our Father! Worshippers of your holy name, your loving and beloved children, from near and far, gathered in one great invisible assembly before your majestic throne, we praise you for the great grace of your Word which you have called us again. Act with your Holy Spirit, so that our open hearts may receive with humility and obedience the message from you! Amen.
Our story is about two blind men who, one day on the road, certainly while begging, perhaps from the approaching road, become aware that Jesus is passing by. They begin to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on us, Son of David!" Mt 9,27. As if nothing had happened, Jesus goes on, enters a house, but the two blind men, not wanting to miss the long-awaited opportunity, stumble after him with great difficulty, groping around, with the help of others. Longing, hoping, excited, blind, they also seek Jesus. When the Lord sees the great striving of these two miserable men, He says to them, "Do you believe that I can do this?"
Let us stop here for a moment, because this is where the great tension in this story begins! Imagine ourselves in the situation of those blind men! Maybe these people are blind from birth. They cannot imagine what it means to see, to see the sunlight, the flowery meadow, the blue sky, the human soul reflected in the eyes that look at them. They can only guess, as the opposite of the misery of blindness, that it is something great: to see! That a whole new world, hitherto hidden, would open up before them, if this eternal darkness were once dispelled, if their eyes were once opened! And now, behold, someone stands before them and asks them. Can you believe that what you have hitherto thought absolutely impossible, hopeless, incapable of seeing, I can do? It's not so easy for me to answer this with a completely honest, heartfelt yes, because common sense starts to protest and says: 'It's all nonsense, I know it's impossible! I will prove it with natural laws! Since the world was created, there has never been such a thing as a blind man having his eyes opened. Many have tried this, but none have succeeded! Doubt rises, he sighs heavily: "Don't tickle my imagination, don't colour my hopeless desires, for if I don't succeed this time, it will only be more painful to be disappointed again! Around and around the many curious, anxious, or already gloating people: what will happen here? Maybe now we will find out the failure of this Jesus! Do you sense the severe test Jesus is putting these two blind men to with this question, "Do you believe that I can do this?"
A whole external world and a whole internal world is murmuring, proving, reasoning, inferring that it is impossible, madness, it cannot be true! And yet the two blind men answer, "Yes, Lord!" That is true faith! Where common sense proves it is not. Where millennia of experience, the compelling force of external and internal circumstances all prove that it is not, faith dares to say, in spite of everything, that it is!
And this faith, this faith that blindly says yes to Christ, can only accept the miracle! Jesus says to the two blind men, "Let it be to you according to your faith." (29. v.). And it was done as they believed. What they believed happened to them. They received as much from Jesus as they could receive from Him by faith. What had previously been a faith reality in their souls became an experiential reality in their bodies! And this order is very important here: faith must come first, and only then can the miracle be experienced! So it is not faith that is built on the miracle, but the miracle on faith. No one should expect a divine miracle in life if he cannot blindly believe. For faith is the reality of things hoped for, that is, the reality of things not yet done, living only in hope, and the conviction of things not seen. That is, such certainty as the grasp of things visible and tangible. And only if the thing has first become reality and conviction in faith, only then, only then, is it fulfilled and becomes visible reality!
This is also the meaning of Jesus' saying, "Let it be to you according to your faith"! Once, two good friends were invited to a small plot of land near Lake Balaton to pick peaches. He said to them: They can take as much as they want! One of them went with a small bag, the other with four huge baskets with ears. When they saw the bountiful harvest, one of them was sorry he had been so modest and lazy. Well, since he had brought so few pots, he could take only a few home with him. And the other had picked the four baskets well. He slung it over his shoulder and, clutching it in his hand, almost crushed, but happy to carry the blushing blessing home! Somehow it is as if our faith is a vessel into which Jesus puts the blessings we ask Him for in prayer! Our Lord is an infinitely rich God, with an inexhaustible abundance of blessings. And we ask Him. And He would love to give it, but He has nothing to put it in. So insignificantly small is our faith, this vessel that we keep for Him, that we can only take up and carry away tiny crumbs.
That is why our lives are so poor in miracles! That is why miracles do not happen today! Our faith can't take it! If we would dare to put more faith in the outpouring of heavenly powers, we would receive much more miraculous help and riches! Let us not think that today Jesus does not perform miracles like the ones we read about in the Gospel. Yes, He does now! But only where there is a faith that can accept it, that can grasp it! Only we have become accustomed to believe! We, people today, are too grown up, too smart to believe blindly. We always calculate first, reason, weigh, weigh, make an effort, and if all this human operation makes the desired result probable, then we say: now we believe! Of course nothing wonderful, divine happens in our lives after that! That's why our whole life is so tied up in stuff, dry, barren, boring or tiresome!
For God's miracle-working power to be poured out like this, there is always a prerequisite. That which Jesus asked, "Do you believe that I can do this"? If so, "Let it be to you according to your faith" (Mt 9:28-29).
Do you know what the greatest miracle is? The cross of Jesus Christ, the forgiving grace of his death, and the power of his blood to cleanse from sin. That the invisible Christ becomes so real, His presence so convincing to a soul, as any visible experiential reality. The indwelling of Christ in the heart of a man transforms his thinking, his emotions, his actions, his speech, his heart, so that he himself is astonished to see himself literally born again, changed, his whole being changed. You can call it conversion or awakening or rebirth, but the point is that something wonderful, but real, a great inner transformation has taken place in man.
We hear so much about this miracle, and why is it that this miracle has not yet happened in reality in your life? Perhaps it is because you are always subjecting your mind to the flood of the gospel of the crucified and risen Christ, and not your faith! You want to understand and not believe! And your mind does not fit in, because to speak of the cross is a stumbling block and foolishness to the human mind. For it does not even enter into your mind that you, an honest, upright, decent, serious man, are a sinner, living in damnation, and therefore, without redemption, dying in damnation. How then would you understand the mystery of Christ's redemptive death? Try for once to put your intellect aside and not care that you do not understand the mystery of redemption. But simply support what little faith you have, and you will see how God will fill you with the good news of salvation! Think now of Christ crucified, hanging between heaven and earth on the cross! On the one hand, all earthly sins, and therefore your sins too, were lifted up in Him to heaven; on the other hand, the full severity of God's wrath was visited upon Him, in Him, all earthly sins, and therefore your sins too, were brought down to earth. In His holy Person, exalted between heaven and earth, divine justice has touched and condemned human sin.
Prayer:
Most High God, our Heavenly Father! We humbly thank you for your holy Word and for the precious opportunity of faith. We bless You for this majestic miracle of forgiveness of sins and renewed life, which You have prepared for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Oh, help us to answer your question now with a happy and humble yes! Work in us the faith by which we may receive the joy of redemption from Thee, and by which the holy and true life of our Saviour may be made visible in our life on earth. We pray for our loved ones near and far, who are dear to our hearts. Grant them the greatest of all: the happiness of a reconciled and sanctified life in Christ the Saviour, here on earth and for eternity! Bless our lives that we may be a blessing among souls longing for Your blessing, to the glory of Your holy name!
Amen.
Date: 8 August 1948.