What Jesus did for the blind man

WHAT JESUS DID FOR THE BLIND MAN

Jn. 9:1-41

Most of us are blessed with reasonably good eyesight and we often take this for granted until we start having problems with our vision.  What must it be like to be born blind like the man in the Gospel? He lived in darkness, never seeing a ray of light, let alone the bright sunshine.  What did colour mean to him?  How did he visualise shapes and sizes in God’s created world – trees, birds, animals and, above all, people?  Perpetual darkness prevented him from experiencing the fullness of reality.

What a pleasant shock it must have been in today’s Gospel story for the man born blind to have his eyes opened by Jesus for the first time and to behold the world around him.  We marvel at Jesus giving sight to the blind man, but we must not forget that John the evangelist wants us to appreciate the more spectacular cure that took place that in opening the man's eyes  he recognised Jesus as the Messiah – the Anointed One.  This is exactly what happened in our Baptism.  We were born spiritually blind in the darkness of Original Sin.  Just as the man’s blindness in the Gospel story was not the result of his personal sin, so also the spiritual blindness with which we were born was not the consequence of any personal sin.  We simply inherited it, and that is why it is called Original Sin.  It was in Baptism that, for the first time, we experienced the saving power of Christ.  The spittle which Christ used to anoint the blind man in the story is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.  Spittle is a fluid released from a person’s mouth, and similarly when Jesus breathed His last from the Cross, the Holy Spirit was released on mankind.  In Baptism, we were anointed by the same Holy Spirit who destroyed the darkness of Original Sin and opened our spiritual eyes to behold Christ, the light of the world, symbolised by the lighted candle. 

The story of the Blind Man’s encounter with Jesus has remarkable parallels with the story of the Samaritan woman’s encounter with Jesus about which we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel.  The stories tell us the way Jesus brings people to believe in Him as the Lord, and they show us the steps which we also can use, as evangelising, to bring people to faith in Jesus.

Jesus meets the person at a wavelength which is tuned in to his/her particular need, rather than start talking about Him as the Messiah.  Catholic missionaries in poor countries will agree that you have to fill people’s stomachs first and then their souls.  The Samaritan came to draw water so Jesus asked her for a drink of water.  The blind man’s immediate need was sight, so Jesus began by curing his blindness.  Having thus gained an entry by reaching out to meet him in his physical need, He now gently moves from the physical to the spiritual plane, by turning his focus round on Himself.  Here, we have a beautiful turnaround:  having asked the woman for water to quench His thirst, He then offers her living water to quench her spiritual thirst.  Similarly, having anointed the blind man to open his physical eyes, Jesus then opens the man’s spiritual eyes to recognise Him as the Anointed One.

The person’s journey towards Jesus has now begun, and grace moves the person very gradually to make the final confession of faith in Jesus.  During the course of the dialogue the Samaritan woman recognises Jesus first as a Jew, then as a Patriarch, then as a prophet and, finally as the Christ.  Similarly, the Blind Man in the presence of his neighbours acknowledges Jesus first as His healer, then in the presence of Pharisees he acknowledges Jesus as a prophet, then a second time before the Pharisees he declares Jesus to be His Master, and finally in the presence of Jesus Himself he acknowledges Him as the Son of Man and worships Him.  In both cases, that faith journey is now complete.

The person who has come to faith in Jesus, now goes away joyfully and proclaims Jesus to other people by his/her own testimony.  But here, sadly there is a difference between the postscripts of the two stories.  Whereas, the Samaritan people were humble enough to listen to the woman’s testimony and come to Jesus, the Jewish Pharisees were too proud to accept the Blind man’s testimony and so refused to come to Jesus.  The scene ends with Jesus’s remark on this paradoxical irony:  the man who was once physically blind now has spiritual vision; but the Pharisees who have physical vision are still spiritually blind.  Pride blinds a person’s spiritual eyes and prevents him from recognising Jesus.

Today, we reflect on the marvellous work which the Lord did for us at our Baptism when He cured our congenital spiritual blindness called ‘Original Sin’.  When we were anointed by the oil of catechumens and washed in the Baptismal waters, the Holy Spirit came down on us, opening our spiritual eyes to recognise and accept Jesus as our Lord and Christ.  The light of Christ enables us to tell the good from the evil and so to live according to God’s way.

However, as we go through life, the sins that we commit become like growths of cataracts which obstruct our vision.  That is why God has given us the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Our spiritual cataracts are regularly removed by the Holy Spirit in this Sacrament and we are healed by our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

Lord Jesus, give us the grace to keep our spiritual vision clear from the darkness of sin.  And having had our vision restored, let us seek to bring others also to this light, by meeting them where they are and by accompanying them, step by step, on their journey to You.

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