For more than a week we have been reading from The Letter to the Romans. We transitioned from hearing about Abraham as an example of faith working its way through human imperfection to the source of that imperfection: sin. “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death.” (Rom 5:12) The readings that followed traced the unfolding of the consequences of sin unleashed into the world. But St. Paul offers us hope in the person of Jesus Christ. “…just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so through one righteous act acquittal and life came to all. For just as through the disobedience of one person the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one the many will be made righteous.” (Rom 5:18-19) St. Paul is making the point that now it is the obedience of the faith that keeps us on the path of righteousness as an antidote to the death brought about by sin.
That obedience is necessary because we live in a world where temptation roams unrestrained emerging from an evil that St. Paul describes as an entity seeking to corrupt the good of the world and people so that we experience death rather than glory. Evil seeks to reign over all, and rob us of the glory God intended for us. It is as St. Peter (1 Peter 5:8), evil is on the prowl and means to devour you. And it is not just you. It is as Paul describes in Romans 8, “…creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Rom 8:21). The whole world waits for us to accept our adoption as daughters and sons of God. That acceptance brings us into the presence of God.
Being in the presence of God is a big deal, as big as it comes. Being in God’s presence was lost in Eden and perhaps the rest of Scripture can be thought of as God’s efforts to restore us to that intimate presence afforded to the family of God.
What could keep us from that presence? In the language of the Old Testament it is because something has rendered us “impure” in that we have come in contact with Death. Death that entered the world through the sin of one man. The Book of Leviticus has two whole sections on ritual and moral purity. Leviticus provides rituals of thanksgiving and atonement with one purpose in mind: that we be mindful that we worship the God of Life – Life that is meant to be whole, complete, and without the corruption of decay. Life that is meant to be lived in the presence of God. Life that is Holy as God is Holy.
In the Old Testament, there were regulations to keep the faithful from contact with that which would make them impure and not ready to enter into the presence of God. These regulations were designed so the impurity of forbidden things (e.g., a corpse) would not “infect” the person. The rituals were to restore the person.
In the New Testament, Jesus reaches across those regulations to touch the ritually impure. The lepers, the blind, and in today’s gospel, the woman who was “crippled by a spirit” and as a result was so “bent over” that she was “completely incapable of standing erect.”
Jesus reached out to touch her. Was Jesus made corrupted and rendered impure? No, his holiness “infected” the woman, removing that which was never desired or intended by God. Now she stands upright, a child of God, an heir to the glory of God.
Now she may draw near into the presence of God as the taint of death has been removed.
May we realize that in this Eucharist we are again touched by Jesus that we may be made holy and live fully in the presence of God. We are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ … that we may also be glorified with him.”
Image credit: Healing of the Crippled Woman. By Theophylact, Byzantine Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria. 1055 AD | PD USA