Called To See As God Sees

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A

St. Bernard Catholic Church, Cologne, MN

Sunday, March 14, 2021

Last Sunday, we read the story of the woman at the Well. Next Sunday, we will read the raising of Lazarus from death. Today, the story is about the man born blind. In these exceptional narratives taken from the Gospel of John, we see great characters, hear great dialogues with profound spiritual insights. They are all about “Who is Jesus Christ and what does he want from us? In the narrative of the woman at the Well, we see someone like all of us who is hungry and thirsty for God. And like all of us she seeks for God in all the wrong places. To her Jesus says, I will give you the living water. In the end, Jesus adjusts and orders her will which was thrown into great confusion and disorder. Today’s story is about the man born blind. In the Scripture, blindness is used as a spiritual symbol to describe the spiritual condition of someone who is either unable or unwilling to perceive divine revelation. Blindness is a symbolism of sin. In Mark’s Gospel, we read about the blind Bartimaeus who sits by the Walls of Jericho. According to spiritual symbols, the Walls of Jericho symbolizes sinful city. Bartimaeus sits by those walls unable to see until he passionately cries out to Jesus. In the same Gospel of Mark, we read of Jesus coming to the city of Bethsaida. As soon as he arrives, people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. What did Jesus do? He takes the blind man by the hand, leads him out of the village, cures him and then said, “Do not even go back into the village” (Mk. 8:22-26). Here again we see the same spiritual symbolism that the village somehow made him blind. 

In the story of the man born blind, John raises the spiritual heat. The man born blind represents all of us because in Original Sin we all have been born blind. The great Church Father, Origen said To be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ. To see the world as Christ sees it from the standpoint of God. How does God see the world? All things, sharing in God are all connected to one another. The deepest truth about things is that we are all connected to each other in love because we are grounded and rooted in the creator God. To see the world that way is to see it aright, is to see it correctly in the right light. The saints were those who see correctly and therefore live out of that vision. They are those who can love even their enemies, bless those who cursed them and pray for those who maltreat them because they know underneath all of those divisions, there is a deeper and more inviting truth. The man born blind, which represents everyone of us is someone who does not see aright, who is blind to this deep truth, who instead sees the world as a collection of antagonistic individuals. It is the person who insists on their ego, their entitlements, their life over and above others. They see others as threat to them or opportunity for their self aggrandizement. That’s blindness, friends of God. That’s spiritual blindness. 

In the story, Jesus sees the man born blind. He’s probably begging at the gate as blind people in those days would do. The disciples said to Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” In those words, you see that even the disciples of Jesus were blind and antagonistic to the man. They were looking for ways to blame him. But Jesus, operating from the right vision says, “Neither he nor his parents sinned.” Rather, he will be used to manifest the glory of God. Jesus has compassion on him, and now wants to bring him to vision. But before he does that, he utters one of the amazing lines of John’s Gospel, “I am the light of the world.” In John’s Gospel, there is a lot of invocation of these statements; the “I am” statements: “I am the Bread of life;” I am the Good Shepherd;” “I am the Vine.” In this story, we find, “I am the light.” I am the light by which you see and will see. I am the light by which you move without which you stumble. I am the light! If you want to see and move well in life, then be grafted unto me. Have my mind in you; my will in you, my imagination in you, my way of seeing things. The breathtaking words of St. Paul says, “It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and died for me” (Galatians 2:20). In those words St. Paul is testifying that Christ’s light is lighting up his life from the inside. 

After answering his disciples’ question, Jesus approaches the blind man, spits on the ground, mixes his saliva and dust of the earth, and produces a kind of paste, a creative power that restores his sight. What is significance of this? In the Book of Genesis, God fashions the first man out of the dust or clay of the earth. The Hebrew word for clay is Adamah, which is the first man’s name, Adam. Who is Jesus in this story? He is the creator God who created us from nothing. He notices in this blind man a kind of unfinished work of creation, and he wants to finish it. So, he gives him vision. When the Lord Jesus Christ looks into us and sees we are blind, the creator in him wants to make us whole. When we are spiritually lost, we are blind. We cannot restore our vision. No one can buy for their ransom (Ps. 49:8b). It is by and through his creative power that our vision can be restored. One of the earliest terms used to describe Jesus is Sōtēr in Greek, which means healer. The Latin version of it is Salvatore, which means the bearer of salus— health. In this encounter with the blind man, Jesus shows that he is the Savior, the one with the healing balm, the one who alone can heal our blindness and restore us to the right vision. 

After restoring the man’s sight, he tells him “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam.” The man does as Jesus instructed him and was able to see for the first time. Why the pool? The pool reminds us of baptism. We are all baptized into Jesus Christ. We are washed in his water. Through baptism, we are brought into the life of Christ, we share in his life. How do we see and how do we learn how to see? In the Church! When we are baptized into the power of Jesus Christ and grafted unto his body in the Church, we are able to see. As Christians, we should help teach each other how to see. When someone says you are not seeing things right, you are not looking at the world as a Christian, do not be upset. That is the Church. It is the community of the baptized helping you to see. 

At this point, you might think that the story is over. Jesus has healed the man; he washes him, and gives him his sight. But not really! In fact, in John’s narrative, the story has just started. In all the Gospels, whenever Jesus does something amazingly unique and good, whenever he manifests God’s creative power by healing someone, whenever God is acting, sometimes people are amazed and grateful; but oftentimes in the Scripture, the reaction is that of anger, disappointment, and outrage. In the story, the Pharisees tried everything in their power to undermine what has just happened. When the man’s neighbors and those who knew him as a blind beggar wondered how he was able to see, the Pharisees’ first response is, “No, he just looks like him.” But the healed man countered them and said, it is me. After that, the Pharisees tried another trick, the legal trick, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath.” They are basically telling the man whose vision has been restored that the man who cured him is using a dark and demonic power. But the man isn’t having any of their argument. Beautifully he throws a question to them, “How can a sinful man do such things?” His question generates division among them. In their desperate effort to undermine the work of Jesus, the Pharisees ask the man, “What do you say about him, since he opened your eyes?” (Jn. 9:17). He replies, “He is a prophet” (v. 17b.) Still not convinced, the Pharisees involve the parents of the man. When his parents refused to get involved, they said to the blind man, “Give God the praise! We know that this man is a sinner.” Beautifully and intelligently he replies them, “I do not know if he is a sinner. But one thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.” In those words, he is stating the simple spiritual fact, that we come to vision through Christ. The Pharisees tried everything in their power to deny it. The question is why? Why are they opposed to it? The clue might be found from the very beginning of the story. At the beginning Jesus’ disciples had asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v. 2) That is, Who is responsible for his predicament? Can we blame him? Can we blame his parents, his family, his ancestors, his lineage, past or present generation? They are looking for a scapegoat whom they can blame. The Pharisees are also playing the same game. They see themselves as followers and disciples of Moses and as the good ones. Are we totally free from this? No! Oftentimes even without knowing it, we define ourselves by pointing out someone who is outside our group, someone who is worthy of blame; someone shameful. But by curing this man, Jesus brings him back into the community. He wants him fully involved and fully alive. But the disciples and the Pharisees do not want him in the community. They want him excluded.

What is the vision at work here? The vision is to see as God sees, all of us connected to each other. I guess by now you already know who is truly blind in this story? To some degree, the man at the center of this story is blind, physically blind. The disciples, to a larger degree are blind as well. To the highest degree, the Pharisees are blind. To their infinite credit, the disciples asked Jesus a question and got an answer that restored their sight. The man born blind met Jesus and experienced full restoration of his sight. As for the Pharisees, although they were blind, they didn’t see it. They want a world full of division and separation But Jesus wants us to see as God sees— all of us connected to God and to each other just as the organs in the body are connected to one another.