The Sunday of the Blind Man
The Sixth Sunday of Pascha
The Blind Man (John 9:1-38; Acts 16:16-34)
When something bad happens to us, we might think that our own action caused the misfortune or peril. An obvious link may indeed exist, making such an observation of the consequence hard to ignore, or even impossible to deny. Recognition of these evident links may bring us to our own “prodigal son” moments when our hearts are able to bare shame with humility, creating in us the contrite and humble heart that God does not despise.
Jesus’ answer to the accusation that such a link existed for the man born blind from birth is that neither the man nor his parents sinned. This means that sometimes there is not a cause for our suffering that stems from personal or generational sin. It is reasonable to draw this conclusion, while unreasonable to conclude that suffering should be disconnected or disassociated from sinfulness. The words from our Lord, Jesus Christ, spoken to the paralytic - “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.” - makes it necessary that we accept both realizations to be true. Sometimes suffering is the direct result of sin, sometimes it is not.
This passage tells us about the sixth of seven different signs in the Gospel According to the Apostle and Evangelist John, signs showing Jesus to be the One who manifests the attributes of the advent of the Kingdom of God. The prophets who saw and proclaimed these attributes in their own time are found to have their prophecies to be fulfilled by the “Son of God.” Changing water into wine, curing the nobleman’s son, healing the paralytic, feeding the five thousand, walking on water, along with raising Lazarus to life after being four days dead, in addition to giving sight to the man born blind from birth, are all signs meant to convince the reader that the One performing these signs and wonders is truly the Son of God. Thus, on this sixth Sunday after Pascha, we are caused to reflect again on the One who was betrayed into the hands of lawless men, was falsely accused, who gave himself up to crucifixion, who truly died, was buried, and who rose from the place of the dead on the third day, who ascended into heaven in his deified flesh. This is the One who healed the man born blind from birth, and who asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of God.”
We are laborers and sufferers in our own moment; adding time to time, forming days into years that have spun out as though from a spiders tail. And if we have seventy years, the Psalmist’s wisdom is that this might be expected, while eighty brings us closer to the moment when we fly away. Whether for our own sin, or for that of the generations before and after us, our sickened condition has been restored to that of the original intention. Those who sit in the land of darkness have seen a great light. The One who spat in the dirt, taking the spittle and forming eyes, is the same Word of God not begotten; Who in the fullness of time was begotten by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, becoming man. And we have beheld the light of His countenance, we have seen him, and we have heard him, just like the blind man. This story of Jesus giving sight to the man born blind from birth provides us with another moment to say, “Lord, I believe.” Lord, Jesus Christ, who is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, giving life to those in the place of the dead, we believe that you are the Son of God. May this confession of our belief operate in us by the Holy Spirit, and as your hands formed eyes from clay giving physical sight where there had not even been eyes, may our spiritual vision be perfected by belief like that of the blind man, that seeing Thy Salvation, that Light enlightening the nations, we may be the glory of Thy people, Israel.
