January 15, 2021: Hebrew 4: 1-5,11; Mark 2:1-12
Faith is not merely accepting a set of truths in theory and professing to believe it. Faith takes the most concrete form of expression in one's personal life and in the life of a community and brings the entire reality, personal, communitarian, social, economic and political, together affecting the whole being of a person and a community. In fact, faith is not merely a quality or a feeling, it is a verb.
When we say faith is a verb, it means faith is an action word. It takes a doer, an action done and the one towards whom the action is aimed. The classical definition of faith too upholds this vision : faith as the personal response to a self revealing God, involves me, God, and my response, the response being a concrete expression in action.
The Word today presents is with persons who had faith in Christ and moved by it they did something that was incredible...they broke all barriers that kept them away from Christ. Their faith was expressed in most concrete way possible. They decided to take that crippled man to Christ, they had a problem, they over came that problem and did what they decided to do - because they had faith in Christ. Nothing could stop them.
We would do well to reflect :
How concrete is my faith in Christ?
How determined am I to stay close to Christ?
What are those things that hinder me from getting near to Christ?
What am I prepared to DO, because I believe?