Friday of the First Week of Advent

Today's Scripture

 In today’s gospel (Matthew 9:27-31) Jesus encounters two blind men and asks them, “Do you believe I can do this?”  Do you believe I can heal you?  Jesus’ words are, of course, meant to be closely linked to today’s Old Testament text (Isaiah 29:17-24) about how the blind shall see and tyrants will no longer rule.

 
Jesus might well be asking us: “Do you believe I can do this, what Isaiah first prophesied about me?”
There are a lot of ways we can understand the word “believe.”  “Do you believe in Santa Claus?” an adult asks my daughter.  The question is probing whether my daughter believes in a mythical being that is a significant part of American culture, and, don’t get me wrong, a rather fun part of the season. (Despite what I write in this reflection, I am really NOT trying to be “bah humbug”.) Really, it’s quite amazing that an entire society of 300 plus million people, including those who don’t believe, have managed to maintain a whole story.   Santa has naysayers, but even Santa-atheists generally don’t spoil it for a young child.  Yet this kind of belief implies something a bit childish – something that older children and teenagers who have developed a greater sense of reason end up questioning, and then they themselves playing along with the game. 

Sometimes people put religious belief in the same category as belief in Santa – that religion is merely based on mythical ideas that some random group of people developed, and it perpetuates to this day because people who “really” know better keep up the story.  The only thing certain about a mythological story is that it is a myth, not supportable by evidence and facts.

But when Jesus asks his question, “Do you believe I can do this?” he clearly means something else.  He asks the blind men if they have a degree of certainty in him.  Not complete, total certainty, but just a little degree of certainty.  If someone asks me where the red  book is and I say, “I believe I put it on the kitchen table,” I’m implying that I’m pretty sure, but not 100% sure, that that’s where the book is.  Sometimes, we tell an uncertain person, “I believe in you,” giving words of encouragement to someone who is not quite sure they can go back to school after 20  years out, or not quite sure they can give a public speech, or not quite sure they can lead a group.  “I believe in you.” They are saying, “I’m pretty certain you can do it.”

I think religious faith is much more like these examples I’ve just given.  So, how do we find even a small degree of certainty?  I think that it is a matter of who you trust.  Children sometimes tell of not trusting Hollywood and their parents anymore, because those same people end up being the ones saying, “This is a fun way to celebrate the season, but it’s not real in the way you think it is.” 

By contrast, consider the long, long line of people, down through the centuries, who encountered Christ, who then encountered Christ’s disciples, who then encountered people that lived like Jesus means something.  Pretty much one hundred percent of Santa’s “helpers” end up having to have “the conversation” about Santa, but the vast, vast majority of Christianshave not reneged on their belief.  Even if they have not personally experienced Jesus bringing down tyrants and overthrowing evil, they believe in the people who say they have and whose lives bear out the fact that they have met Christ, and ultimately, they believe in Jesus’ power “to do this.”

- Jana M. Bennett