4th Sunday Lent, A March 19, 2023
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
“Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a sabbath.” This line is an important clue to what’s going on here. Do you know what it’s telling us? What reference it’s making that helps us understand?… Whenever the New Testament says or describes something we don’t understand, it’s a good idea to ask “what part of the Old Testament is this referring to?” This is a great tip – people are always coming up with crazy theories about the book of Revelation, for example. But once you study Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Isaiah, you can start to get a much better idea of what’s really going on.
In this gospel passage, the two primary hints are the sabbath and the fact that Jesus used clay. Remember that Jesus can simply will people to be healed and they are healed. So why does he bother with the clay? Because he wants people to connect it to the last time God did something with dirt and clay: the creation of mankind in the book of Genesis, when he formed man from the dust and his breath. It’s also why the gospel specifies that Jesus uses his saliva. It’s a bit gross to us, but the point is that it came from his mouth, from the same place as his breath. What should stand out, however, is the mention of the sabbath.
In Genesis, the Sabbath was when God seemed to stop creating, but here it is when Jesus starts creating. God essentially picks up where he left off, which we can see from the fact that instead of creating a new person, he is creating eyes for someone already there. He is recreating, renewing the old and finishing it. And of course, the fact that he’s giving sight to a blind man is no accident either. In Genesis, God created sinless human beings who were able to see him, talk with him, and walk with him in the Garden. Because of Original Sin, however, we lost all of that. Ever since, human beings have been unable to see God clearly – we’ve been blind. But now Jesus is here to restore our divine sight.
Last week, we were challenged by the example of the Samaritan woman who had to learn to get past her own hangups and allow Jesus to love her into a fuller understanding of the truth. This week, we continue that journey, asking Jesus to continue his work in us, to continue to grant us the eyes to see more clearly.
To see what, exactly? First, there is the call to see the reality of our own sinfulness. The pharisees ask a rhetorical question about being blind because they assume they aren’t. So Jesus tells them they are sinners. They sin through the pride of denying their own blindness. Jesus isn’t trying to literally take away physical sight, he is trying to take away the delusion of thinking they see clearly. But they, like Samuel, see as men do and not as God does. The metaphor is simple: The “blind” are those who are weak, sinful, and know they need help. Those who claim to see think they are strong and self-sufficient. The “blind,” because they ask for help, receive God’s help and forgiveness and so no longer have sin. The sin remains for those who think they can see. So, before they can gain real sight, they have to first be struck blind, humbled enough to recognize their need for mercy. So admit your blindness – your sin – and then you will be made able to see.
And that’s the second point: to see “not as man” but as God sees. God tells Samuel in our first reading that “man sees the appearance but the LORD looks into the heart.” Samuel is in the process of finding and anointing the new King of Israel. Like King Saul, Samuel expects the next king to be a man who stands out. But the Lord is looking for a man after his own heart. He has to teach Samuel to see past appearances to recognize real greatness in the boy David, who was seemed so insignificant that his own father didn’t think to even tell Samuel about him at first. Yet, David goes on to be the greatest king of Israel. Yet, Samuel never lives to see that come to fruition. He only “sees” this potential in David through his faith in God. God sees and Samuel sees by participating in the God’s vision through faithful obedience to him.
So it is that the healing of the blind man isn’t just about physical vision, but about his ability to “see” through becoming and obedience disciple, a man capable of “seeing” through faith. In this life, we will never see exactly what God sees, but by making an act of faith, by trusting and acting on what God tells us through Scripture, the Church, and prayer we gain a kind of supernatural vision through faith.
Third and finally, this is a call for us to see more clearly the mystery of evil and it’s answer in the mystery of Christ. The Apostles first see this blind man and assume he was born that way as a punishment for sin. Jesus’ reply is illuminating: the blindness is not a punishment of sin, but “is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.” We human beings too often fall into the idea that, if I am suffering, God must not love me… or maybe I don’t deserve love or something like that.
Jesus draws us into a deeper vision. While it is true that suffering and evil in the world are connected to Original Sin in a general way, specific instances of suffering are always not the direct result of sin. The reality of brokenness becomes the backdrop, the contrast that makes God’s goodness that much more visible.
To be more practical, it means that when you’re suffering or in a dark place in life, the right response is an act of deeper trust, of the faith that sees through obedience. By all means, go to the Lord in prayer. Beg him for help, lay out your anger and frustration and pain honestly and bluntly. But also, trust that in some way, it is “so that the works of God might be made visible” in you. And the work of God is the work of love, the work of glory for those who love him. God is not up there zapping people with blindness and suffering as part of some macabre scheme. Instead, he is allowing imperfection, sin, and brokenness to play itself out all while orchestrating some greater redemption.
Just as Samuel did not see the glory of David in this life, so you might not see all of the glory that comes from your faith in the midst of the present trial, but that glory will shine fully in the end. “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” Light to see your sins and be forgiven. Light to see as God does through faith. Light to stand in the darkness until the darkness is no more.