St. Matthew Sets the Stage for Jesus' Revelation as the Messiah

Homily for Thursday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time

As the healing miracles of Jesus continue to unfold, St. Matthew’s purpose in grouping them together becomes clearer and clearer. The calming of the Sea of Galilee showed that Jesus was not some medicine man or faith healer but someone who possessed powers usually reserved to God. Then yesterday as Jesus cast out demons from two men who inhabited the tombs in the Gadarene District, we heard the demons say, “What do you want with us, Son of God.”

When Jesus proclaims that the paralytic’s sins are forgiven, the scribes in the crowd question his assertion. However, when Jesus answers their question, St. Matthew makes it clear that Jesus knew what they had been thinking. Their attacks against Jesus had not yet been verbalized for others to hear. Because these people believed that only God could know what was going on in a person’s mind, St. Matthew is asserting that Jesus is divine and that he does have the power to forgive sins.

The order in which St. Matthew reports these various healings and cures is not at all haphazard. St. Matthew is working with an ancient oracle of Isaiah which Jesus will use in chapter eleven to answer John’s inquiry when he sends his disciples to Jesus: “the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.” St. Matthew skillfully sets all of these healings and cures to reveal Jesus as the Son of God and as the Messiah.

Yet we know that Jesus will be rejected just as the prophets were rejected before him. The first reading pits Amos against the priests of Bethel. They ostensibly reject Amos because of his message, but the truth is that the people had begun to listen to him and draw their loyalty away from the court of King Jeroboam. Their rejection of him brings an even more scathing indictment as he utters an oracle of personal destruction as well as the destruction of the kingdom itself.

Both the prophet and Jesus once again find themselves standing against their countrymen in defense of the Word of God. It is a powerful reminder of what we are called to do as we carry God’s word with us.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator