General. This Sunday we have to face up to reality – that there is no more playing around about being Christian and what it really means. Having been baptised means we have given up our lives to Christ, since we have received God’s light and become sons of light as God’s adopted children. So sin should no longer be on our agenda but we should rather seek the light of God’s truth which pervades the darkness of wrongdoing.

Wisdom. When God created man, the writer contends, he was intended to live for ever. It was only sin which shortened man’s life, as otherwise God created the body to be incorruptible, in His own image. Briefly, whatsoever is good should live and remain for ever. In a holistic approach to both physical and spiritual health, we should realise that most of the times our illnesses come about due to psychosomatic causes. Sin drives nails into our pysical body as much as it does poison our spirtual health.

Second Epistle to the Corinthians. St Paul tells the Corinthians they were quite rich at the moment in faith, the Word and wisdom. They had plenty of enthusiasm, meaning they were full of God (en Qeos) in such manner that they could share all with others who lacked this grace. When the Son of God became incarnate to save the world, He was divesting Himself to assume human nature. Yet now He is in glory. Little do we realise that life’s cycle has constant ups and downs, peaks and troughs. Those people we help in any way today will be our helpers tomorrow in both spiritual and material needs. It is thus that the burden of death is averted.

St Mark. Jesus is seen here in two instances performing miracles of healing which happen through faith. The woman who touched Jesus’ hem (the very end, just a small piece) of the cloak (a cloak stands for power) showed, in inverse proportion, that she had plenty of faith in his healing powers. So had the synagogue chief, a strongman in his community, who knelt before Jesus and begged him to cure his daughter. Jesus complied and let matters take their course, wanting to show that the girl was not dead to eternal life but only in a temporary state of physical sleep (not caused by sin). The chief’s strong faith had also here moved Jesus and saved his daughter.

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