Community faith meets power

“ When Jesus saw their faith” Mk.2.5

 

When faith meets power miracles follow. The ‘you can’ faith of the leper was immediately followed by the ‘I will’ response of Jesus. Whenever someone came to Jesus for a cure his question to them was ‘Do you believe?’ If the answer was a ‘Yes’, miracles followed. When our faith and Jesus’ power meet miracles follow.

It is not only individually we can supply faith but also as communities. It is by seeing the faith of the four who carried the paralytic that Jesus cured him. “When Jesus saw their faith”, miracles followed. The four men took much trouble, showed great concern in bringing him to Jesus. Seeing their effort and faith Jesus cured the paralytic.

A believing community, a believing group of friends can be the means  of cure of the sick members of our communities. There are many in our communities who suffer from physical mental and emotional sicknesses. We often pity, sympathize, pass comments, criticize and leave them as they are. We forget,   we,  the community members, have  contributed much with our coldness and criticism to aggravate their sickness. We cannot wash our hands and leave them to their fate. It is our concern and care as much as Jesus’ power that will cure them.

Jesus cured not only the paralytic but also the community. The crowd gathered in the house was  too selfish and too self centered and did not allow the man earlier to be carried through the door to Jesus. Now they allow the man carrying his bed to come out through the door. They are a changed crowd. ‘They were all amazed and praised God’. The community is cured of their paralysis and inertia. They begin to see things in a new way. The man suffering is no more a burden but a brother.  They respond,“ We never saw anything like this!” Of course there will always be few who will continue to remain pessimistic and asking ‘why’ and  ‘who’.

Community faith leads to community cure.  Let your faith and concern be opportunity for someone in your community to be cured of their spiritual emotional physical sickness. In faith take them to Jesus. All the rest he will do.

-        TVGeorge sdb