Friday of the First Week of Advent 2025
When we hear or read Biblical prophecy, our Western mindset frequently gets confused by the language used. The prophet Isaiah today especially needs to be read with understanding of the form being used. The critical little snippet that is the key to the whole passage is this: “thus says the LORD, the God of the house of Jacob, who redeemed Abraham.” We rightly think of the patriarch Abraham, first encountered in Genesis, as a wise follower of the true God, who listens to the divine Word and follows it. But he and Sarai went through several decades together following the false gods of Mesopotamia. Their whole life was turned upside down by the encounter with the Lord. That’s what “I redeemed Abraham” means. Abraham and his wife and servants worshipped many gods, but after the God-encounter they served only the Lord. They made their own way and “did their own thing” before that encounter; afterwards they listened for God’s voice and always followed His commands.
But Isaiah was prophesying hundreds of years later to the descendants of Abraham and Sarah. The nation of Israel had for the large part apostatized from the Lord and served and worshiped the gods of the nations. They abandoned the truth and ran after Baal and Astarte. Their leaders were arrogant and would be cut down like the Lebanon cedars they paneled their houses with. They were like blind people in a dark room. They needed vision healing AND intense light so that they could see what God wanted. And they had lost their social conscience, too. They had forgotten the Ten Commandments and were alert only to the ways they could cheat the poor and lowly. They needed conversion, seeing the wrong they were doing and turning around toward God’s call. Then they and the other children of the patriarch Jacob would have nothing to shame them. They would turn toward right conduct and right worship.
The whole process would be like turning on a light. And I don’t mean a little candle, but a big flood. If you stumble around in a dark room, you move slowly, hesitantly, and you are guarding against a fall. It’s the same with our moral life. If we lie, we always are on guard lest our deceit be discovered. No matter what evil we perform, we fear disclosure. But when we let God turn on the light, when He becomes the master of our house, we no longer fear. We no longer fear because we can see and even see glimpses of the loveliness of His face. That face is the face of Jesus dying on the cross so we can live forever in light.
As Jesus was moving from place to place, His reputation for healing and mercy preceded Him. In our Gospel, two blind men responded to His presence by first following Him and then calling out with Messianic expectation, "Son of David, have pity on us!" Jesus waited until He had entered someone’s house, then turned and asked if they believed He could restore their sight. This was a personal invitation to faith, the same kind of invitation we responded to when we came to our celebration today. The affirmed their faith and Jesus touched their eyes and prayed, "Let it be done for you according to your faith." There would be no confusion about cause and effect. Jesus touched their eyes, and with that gesture He prayed. Their eyes were opened. He then warned them not to spread the story, but they went out of that house and immediately disobeyed Him. His fame spread throughout the region.
In a few moments we will all have the opportunity to respond to Jesus’s invitation to take and eat, take and drink, and experience His nourishing, challenging presence. We all need healing from something, particularly in matters of faith. Let’s take the little bit of faith we do have by God’s grace, and ask to be healed. Christ longs to touch our eyes, our ears, our tongues, and our souls, so that we can be transformed into His image and spread His message.
