Father David McGough

The Word
this week
Isaiah 35: 4-7; James 2: 1-5; Mark 7: 31-37
ThScre iptures proclaimed week-byweek mirror the complex emotions of the human heart. Today's words, taken from the Prophet Isaiah, bring the promise of salvation to a darkness experienced by all from time to time. "Look, your God is coming, he is coming to save you. " The language used by the prophet Isaiah lays bare what is experienced by all to varying degrees. There are times when life seems to overwhelm
us. Life becomes darkness. Sometimes we bring this upon ourselves through our own sinfulness. At other times the causes lie beyond our comsat. At such times we look for a way forward. We can see nothing. We are blind in a darkness that seems to offer no glimmer of hope. It was to such moments that the prophet Isaiah spoke.
"Look your God is coming ... Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed." God does not abandon us to the darkness of our lives. He becomes the light that opens our eyes. In Him we begin to see again, to find meaning and purpose. As our eyes are opened, his love penetrates the deepest shadows of the soul. When darkness overwhelms us, when we cannot see the way forward, let us turn to the Saviour promised by Isaiah. The simplest of prayers can lead us through the darkness: "Lord, open my eyes. Be the light banishing my darkness."
As the words of the prophet Isaiah unfold, their poetry describes the feelings of those who find themselves in a loving God: "The lame shall leap like a deer and the tongues of the dumb sing for joy." If life is a journey, then there will be many times when we feel frustrated and unable to take a single step. Despite the self-assured exterior we portray to the world, we are frequently crippled by the wounds of the past and the uncertainty of the future. When we turn to God in prayer, his promise sets us free from the crippling darkness that binds the heart. In the joy of his presence, our weariness finds new life. Inwardly we leap like a deer. The dumb silence of ahan
doned hearts begins to sing with joy.
The salvation promised by the prophet Isaiah came to fulfilment in the ministry of Jesus. At Nazareth, at the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus had proclaimed himself to be the one who had come to bring sight to the blind, healing to the lame, and liberty to captives. The subsequent Gospel narratives that describe the Lord's miracles of healing are something more than a record of the past They touch the many expe
deuces of our own lives. Today's gospel describes the healing of a man born deaf and dumb. As Jesus touched this unfortunate man, his ears were opened and his tongue loosened. Those who witnessed the miracle would have seen far beyond this individual act of healing. They would have realised that, in Jesus, the healing power of God was breaking into this world.
Let us pray that this same healing power will touch the wounds within ourselves, the wounds that we inflict on each other, and the wounds that divide the nations. Let us pray for more: that in Christ we might bring healing to a broken world.