“We are all Blind ”
Live audio recording
6th Sun after Pascha; May 21, 2023 John 9: 1-38 Fr. Andrew
Christ is Risen!!!
In today’s gospel, Christ gives sight to the man born completely blind, demonstrating once again that He is God, fulfilling one of the best-known prophetic signs of the Messiah, (Isaiah.35:5), “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf will hear.” This applies both spiritually and physically! As the former blind man himself testifies to the Pharisees, “Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind.” When he washed in the pool of Siloam this man born blind received his sight. This is a foreshadowing of how we receive our spiritual sight, at our washing in the water of our baptism.
Physical blindness healed by Christ is a common metaphor for our spiritual blindness which desperately needs healing. This man born blind from birth, as well as blind Bartimaeus, and the man from Bethsaida who saw men walking like trees, are all representative of we who are born spiritually blind, surrounded in the darkness of sin. We too can ask God and receive the gift of sight & illumination – once we get a glimpse of our great blindness and wake up. To reinforce this lesson, we are also given the Apostle Paul, whose spiritual blindness was so extreme that Christ blinded him physically, in order to create the change of perspective needed to heal St. Paul’s spiritual sight. We are to understand that if we are spiritually blind we are in much worse shape than if we are physically blind. This man born without physical eyes had developed remarkably good spiritual eyesight. Immediately upon learning that Jesus was the Son of God he responds “Lord I believe! And he worshiped Him.” What a great blessing when our physical weaknesses can be the very things that bring Christ into our life! St. Paul tells us (2nd Cor.12:10) “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” And (Rom. 8:28) “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God…”
Today we hear Christ say that this new disciple of Christ was born blind expressly that “the works of God might be revealed in him.” Our physical condition has little to do with our fulfilment in life. Many who suffer with bodily limitations and ailments find great joy in God, and many who are perfect specimens of bodily health and would appear to have everything going for them from the worldly view of success, are miserable and suicidal. For only in God is there true life, and whatever brings us to Him is to be received with great gratitude.
Christ uses clay to create new eyeballs for this man born blind. The fathers say this was not simply an act of healing, but an act of creation. Using clay, as He did when He formed Adam in the beginning, Christ formed clay eyeballs and placed them into the empty eye sockets of the man born without any eyeballs. In the beginning, we hear, (Gen. 2:7) that He “formed us out of the dust from the ground, and breathed in his face the breath of life; and man became a living soul,” Christ chooses to unite His healing divinity with our humble constitution of clay. Such is the unfathomable love that God has for us. He wishes to work together with us weak and broken human creatures simply because of His love for us and His creation. All through the scriptures we find references to our nature of clay. (Isiah 45:9) “Shall the clay say to the potter ‘What are you making’?” or (Rom. 9:20,21) “But Indeed, O man who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to Him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this? Does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honour and another for dishonour?” We sing the Kontakion of the Departed at our funerals, “You only are immortal, Who have created and fashioned man. For out of the earth were we mortals made, and into the same earth shall we return again, as You commanded when You made me saying unto me: (Gen.3:19) For dust you are and unto dust shall you return…
So, what is the lesson of the clay mixed with God’s own saliva and breath. The lesson is that we are inanimate, completely devoid of any real life apart from God. We don’t even exist apart from God. Complete nothingness, as lifeless as the clay we walk on. This should awaken in us a true spirit of humility, whose root word is humus, the undersoil that is trod upon and takes all the refuse of the world and yet stays fertile. May we always be grateful to God for all things. When our nature of clay is energized with the breath of God at our baptism, beyond understanding, we are joined with the saints into communion with God Himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Even as Christ comes in today’s gospel and mixes His saliva with clay, anointing the blind man and granting him sight, so He comes to each of us, mixing His divinity with our humanity – with our nature of clay. As we receive communion, He infuses the bread and wine which we offer to Him with His very body and blood and His power is manifest through us to heal the earth and all of creation. That’s our job description, the Church is a spiritual hospital dispensing the love and healing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
His disciples ask at the beginning of the gospel reading “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents?” This understanding of God punishing us for our sin – the wrathful God – was so ingrained in their culture that Christ’s disciples can not even conceive of any other cause. God is just waiting to punish us, and when bad things happen He is sending His just punishment – right? Wrong! “Neither this man nor his parents sinned but that the works of God might be revealed in him.” This simple question cuts right to the heart of how we see God. We still suffer much from this false thinking, even here amongst us enlightened Orthodox Christians. We need to continually ask ourselves if we are still viewing God in this wrathful manner? We should know better, we constantly hear Christ saying that he came not to condemn, but to heal the broken hearted, to free the captives and give sight to the blind. God is love! period, full stop! Of course we do experience reaping and sowing and suffering the consequences of our own sins, our bad choices, but this is OUR doing, NOT God’s punishment.
We are dismissed from every Liturgy with these words, “He is a good God; He loves us and all of mankind.” We hear John 3:16 every Liturgy and often have it memorized from an early age. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” The next verse John 3:17 explains how this works! “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” “World” here should be translated “Cosmos.” Christ came to redeem and save us and all of creation – plants, animals, stars, rocks, all that exists; groaning in anticipation.
Christ destroyed the hold that sin, death and the devil had on us. St. Athanasius in the 4th century said, “Christ put on a body that He might find death and blot it out.” Irenaeus, Clement and Justin Martyr all said in the 2nd century. “Christ became man that man might become god.” He restored our communion and re-united us with God. We desperately need to understand who we are, and the incredible gift God has given us. St. Paul prays for us in (Ephesians 3:18,19) “…that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” That is our destiny and our birthright!
Christ says in the very next verse following today’s Gospel reading “I came that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” Like the man born blind, may we allow Him to do that which He most wants to do, to heal our blindness, restore our true sight, and bring us safely home. For He is a good God; He loves us and all of mankind. Christ is Risen!