Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the words of the Scripture telling us about the healing which the Lord Jesus performed on a leper, who asked Him to heal him of his condition, and the Lord was moved by his sincerity of faith and his plight, and healed him off from his leprosy. And we heard how many more people came to the Lord Jesus asking to be healed from their own sicknesses and conditions.

Through this we have seen how Christ is the source of our healing and of our salvation. There is no other Name by which we can be saved, and there is no other means by which we can escape our fated destruction. Through Him mankind have received healing from its predicament, just as the leper was healed from his leprosy. Sin is also like that of the sickness of leprosy, ever spreading and ever growing.

However, unlike leprosy, that affects only the physical body and the flesh, but cannot affect the mind, the heart and the soul, sin is far more dangerous, for sin affects the deepest parts of our own beings, corrupting us deep within our souls, and the consequences of sin are eternal, for the soul is eternal. Leprosy cannot affect us beyond this mortal life, but sin can bring about our downfall and eternal suffering.

Leprosy is a disease that can be cured by many means, and there are ways that leprosy can be easily handled, especially in our modern world today where medical technology has advanced to a great extent, that many of the diseases known to us are easily curable. But sin alone has no cure in any human and worldly means, for in God alone, that we can find our cure from sin. He alone has the power and the authority to forgive us from our sins.

St. John mentioned in his Epistle, that there are three testimonies that proclaim before us how God’s salvation and healing have come down upon us through Christ His Son, namely the testimony of the Spirit, water and the Blood. What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? This is a reminder of the proof which has occurred in history, showing us that Jesus is truly the Christ, the Saviour of the world, promised by God to us, His beloved ones.

The Spirit of God present in us all have recognised Christ’s presence in our midst, as Elizabeth, the mother of St. John the Baptist recognised the One Who was in Mary’s womb, as well as her yet unborn son, who rejoiced upon feeling the presence of the Messiah in his proximity. And Mary herself was also filled with the Holy Spirit, praising God in a beautiful song, the Magnificat, proclaiming the great wonders that God has done.

Then, when the Lord Jesus was baptised by St. John the Baptist in the river Jordan, we saw the Holy Spirit descending down upon Him, with the word of God spoken, revealing the Divinity of Christ, Son of the Father. Again, we see in this instance how God has revealed His truth before all, in revealing the salvation that He was about to bring into His people’s midst, through Jesus Christ, His Son.

And lastly, at the moment of the crucifixion, when Christ laid down His life on the cross, He laid down His Body and Blood for the salvation of the world, and we heard how one of the Roman soldiers, who was tasked to check if Jesus had died, pierced His side and immediately water and blood poured forth. The soldier who witnessed that miracle became a believer, St. Longinus, the bearer of the Holy Lance that pierced the side of the Lord.

That occasion again proclaimed the truth about Christ, for the water and the blood represented the two natures of Christ, as a Man and as a Divine, two natures united in the single person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the One Who laid His life on the cross is not just a mere Man, but God Himself, incarnate in the flesh, and it is by His perfect and worthy offering, that we have been saved from eternal damnation.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, are we willing then now to allow the Lord to come into our midst and heal us from our afflictions? Do we truly believe in Him, that He is our Lord and Saviour, by Whose authority and power alone we can be healed from our sins? If we truly believe in Him and in His power to heal us, then now, we need to put ourselves in the hands of God, and entrust ourselves to His loving care.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all turn towards God with a renewed faith from now on, loving Him ever more sincerely, with an ever greater commitment, knowing that in Him alone we have the hope of salvation, and liberation from the pain of eternal death. May God, our loving Father and Saviour, continue to love us and to bless us, in each and every days of our lives. Amen.

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the salvation which has come upon us through Christ, Our Lord, which in our Gospel passage today, He was revealed by His herald, St. John the Baptist, the one whom the Lord sent into the world in order to prepare the way for the Saviour to come. St. John the Baptist directed the people to the Lamb of God, Christ, through Whom God would save all of His people.

He has been revealed to all, and He has been revealed as the Lord and Saviour of all, and yet, not everyone has recognised and acknowledged Him, for they instead chose to trust and follow in the path of the devil, that is the path of rebellion and disobedience against God, as written by St. John in his Epistle. The devil was the first to disobey God, the most brilliant and mighty angel Lucifer, whose pride and ego brought him down.

Lucifer thought that in the brilliance, power, and might that God had created him, he was powerful and worthy enough to even overtake his Creator and Lord. And in his ego and pride, he wanted to seize for himself the throne of heaven, taking with himself part of the Angelic host, those who followed him into his rebellion and became the forces of wickedness and the devil’s allies. He failed, and was thrown down, and his final defeat had been sealed.

Those who sinned against God are like those who followed into the same folly of the devil’s rebellion, all those fallen angels, who thought that their power and glory were greater ever than God’s, only to be put in their place, and knowing that having rebelled against God, their due and their fate was destruction and eternal damnation. But God still loved us, and that is why, because He created us all in love, He gave us the chance to be saved.

And He did so, by sending to us, His own begotten Son, in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. In Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, the Divine Word Incarnate, God has humbled and emptied Himself, by assuming the appearance and the substance of a human being, to become one like us, a Man in all of its fullness. Against the pride and disobedience of the devil and those who followed his path, Christ showed us all, the perfect love and obedience He has for His Father’s will.

It was also by that love and obedience, that He willingly took up the cross, the burden of sins of all mankind, our burden and pains, our sorrows and our challenges and difficulties, our shortcomings and our rebelliousness, upon Himself, so that by bearing them all instead of us, as how it should have been, He may give us all the hope and the only way out of our fated destruction.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through what we have heard from the Scriptures, we have seen how Our Lord made His love evident for each and every one of us, that He gave everything for our sake, even to endure such pains and sorrowful occasion in order to bring about salvation for us. God did not hold back anything from this effort, not even sparing Himself from the persecution and oppression by His enemies.

If He has done all of these for our sake, then we should indeed make best use of these opportunities that God has granted to us, this grace and chance for us to turn once again towards Him, to be forgiven and liberated from the tyranny of sin. God has always loved us, and He wants only the best for our sake, and provided with these opportunities, we should do our best to turn towards Him and to abandon our sins and disobedience against Him.

From now on, let us turn towards God, our loving Father and Creator, embracing the love which He has lavished upon us so much, all the compassionate care and mercy that He has given us. Let us all wholeheartedly serve Him from now on, dedicating ourselves to love Him and to walk in His path, in all the things that we say and do, in everything we commit in our respective lives.

May God be with us always, and may each and every one of us continue to walk faithfully in His path, devoting ourselves and becoming ever closer to Him, now and always. Amen.