Each year on this fourth Sunday of Lent the church gives us the
wonderful story of the healing of the man born blind. For two good
reasons. The first has to do with our Elect, that special group of
people in our midst – eight of them - who in three weeks - on the great
night of Easter - will receive the Easter sacraments: Baptism,
Confirmation, Eucharist. The story of the man born blind has meaning for
all of us, but it has special meaning for them because it speaks so
strongly of conversion and baptism. For in that story, the blind man not
only gained his sight – even more importantly, in his encounter with
Jesus, he gained faith: he came to see the Light!
It’s quite a long story
but each detail is important and instructive. Notice, for instance, the
way in which Jesus goes about giving the man his sight. He doesn’t do it
all at once, although he could have. Instead, he goes about it almost
ritually: in a way that should make us think of the sacraments.
Sacraments make use of earthy things like water and oil and grapes and
wheat and the human body itself. Jesus makes use of clay from the earth
and of human touch. He spits on the ground, mixes his saliva with the
dirt, and then smears the resulting clay on the man's eyes.
How good is your
biblical memory? Does this rather strange action on the part of Jesus
remind you of the story when God made use of clay from the earth to do
something altogether wondrous and spectacular? It should. I’m thinking
of the second of the wonderfully poetic creation stories in the Book of
Genesis, when God formed the first creature, Adam. How did God do it?
You remember. With some clay from the earth. God took it and breathed
into it a living soul. We humans may be near the pinnacle of all
creation – next to the angels - but we had very humble beginnings. We
are clay animated by the very breath of God!
Think of today’s Gospel
story, then, as a creation story. Jesus gives sight to the blind
man using a little clay into which he breathes life, and then he tells
him to go bathe in the Pool of Siloam. And in those waters he gains his
sight, becomes a new man, a new creature. A creation moment, indeed! But
not only does Jesus open the blind man’s eyes, even more importantly, he
leads him to faith, gives him eyes to see the unseen - that’s what faith
is - and it’s what happens in that electric moment when the
no-longer-blind man says to Jesus, “I believe, Lord!” and worships him.
Is it any wonder the
Church is eager for her newest members to hear this story? They are on a
great journey: coming to know Jesus in new ways. They are learning to
give their lives over to him. Very soon now, in the waters of baptism
they will become new creations: their eyes will be opened and their
ears, too and, I don’t hesitate to say it, they will hear God’s voice
and catch a glimpse of God’s face, as Jesus did at his baptism.
But, my friends, this
story is not only for the Elect. It is for us, for we too can be blind
and we need to have our eyes opened. And that’s the second reason the
Church gives us this story today. Our blindness well illustrates another
kind of blindness that runs through this Gospel story, a more pernicious
kind of blindness: the blindness of those who can see but will not. To
quote the poet, “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” The
gospel story is full of such people. In fact, with the exception of
Jesus and the blind man himself, everyone else in the story falls into
the category of those who will not see.
Think of Jesus’ own
disciples. When they saw the blind fellow, they immediately wanted to
know from Jesus whose sin was responsible for his infirmity – his own or
his parents. Even though these trusted disciples had been with Jesus a
long time, they still didn’t get it. They were very slow to understand
that Jesus represented a new moment, a whole new way of looking at God
and life, and that the old answers – including the simplistic notion
that physical handicaps and infirmities were God’s punishment for sin -
simply wouldn’t ‘wash’ any more. What a travesty that kind of thinking
makes of an all-loving God, wouldn’t you agree? Jesus came to reveal a
God incapable of such pettiness, but his disciples were slow learners.
They were comfortably stuck in the old ways. They were blind, those
disciples.
And so were the
Pharisees. They knew that Jesus couldn’t possibly be from God. Why?
Well, because he blatantly dared to break the Law by working on the
Sabbath. And do you know what his work was? Rolling up his sleeves, so
to speak, making that mud, smearing it on the man’s eyes. The Law
regarded all of that as work. How could he do such a thing on the
Sabbath? All good, “religious”, law-abiding people know that laws are
sacred and that, if a choice must be made between laws and people, laws
come first. Right?! Those Pharisees were legalists; they were blind.
And the blind man’s
parents? They were blind, too. In their fear, they considered their
membership and good-standing in the Synagogue more important than their
own son’s health and happiness. The thought of alienating the religious
authorities and of losing friends - and status - in their community was
more than they could bear.
My friends, there are
many “players” in this gospel story, and many layers, and there is
something in it for each one of us.
For those soon to be
baptized, there is enlightenment! Jesus is reaching out to lead
them to faith, to heal their blindness, whatever it might be. He is
touching the eyes of their souls, inviting them to go and be washed in
the refreshing waters of new life.
For those of us already
baptized, there is challenge. Jesus gently challenges us to hold
this gospel story before our eyes – to hold it up as if it were a
mirror, and to see if we don’t discover something of our own blindness
in the small-mindedness of Jesus’ disciples; or in the legalistic
blindness of the religious leaders who had all the answers and never a
question; or in the fear-ridden blindness of the blind man’s parents.
Blindness can take many forms, but its most insidious form is the
blindness of those who will not see.
My friends in Christ,
Jesus wants to touch our eyes today so we can see the light. There is so
much darkness in our world, so much darkness in ourselves. But there is
also great hope and cause for rejoicing. Listen again to St. Paul’s
liberating words to the Ephesians, words we heard today in the second
reading, words that speak of our Baptism: “once you were darkness, but
now you are light in the Lord. Walk, then, as children of the light!
Walk, then, as children of the light!”
Father Michael G. Ryan
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