The Gospel appointed for the Fourth Sunday of Lent (Year A) is the well-known story of “the man born blind.” It is at once a miracle story, a healing story, an analysis of a human being coming to faith in Christ, and a study in the practice of human beings avoiding coming to the light of divine truth. But above all, this Gospel presents Jesus Christ as “the light of the world,” and so seeks to reveal Light to those who seek light.
You may recall that in last Sunday’s Gospel, the story of “the woman at the well” (John 4), I emphasized that the decisive disclosure was of the God in and through Jesus Christ. In a climax to the dialogue between Jesus and the woman, she admits that “the one called Christ will come.” According to the translation read in the liturgy, Jesus says, “I am he, the one speaking with you.” But the underlying Greek text is more revelatory, more powerful, more significant. Jesus discloses to the woman the God of Moses at the Burning Bush, for he says to the woman, literary: “I AM--the one speaking with you.” Jesus brought the woman from a state of sin and spiritual dullness into a direct encounter with the God beyond all creation, the God who said to Moses, “I AM WHO AM.” The power of Jesus to bring a human being from darkness of sin into the light of communion with HE WHO IS was demonstrated in that carefully constructed story. Indeed, that was the main point of the story of “the woman at the well.”
The story of the man born blind is both similar and different. It is similar to the “woman at the well” in that a particular human being (unnamed in each case, allowing the reader / hearer to see himself or herself in the story) is brought to faith. But the faith that one is opened up to is not mere creedal belief; it is not the kind of religious belief that seems to content too many in the churches (for a while, anyway). Rather, the living faith (“living water”) that Jesus incites in both the woman at the well and the man born blind is a radical trust in Jesus Christ as the One who brings a person into faith-union with the God beyond the cosmos, beyond the world, beyond all that can be grasped or known: “They who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.” Nothing else will do justice to HE WHO IS.
But these two stories differ in one vital particular: Whereas the woman whose heart Jesus “unveiled” (the meaning of “revelation”) has been living in sin (adultery / idolatry, with her “five husbands,” five gods), the man born blind is suffering physically, which is not sinful. This man represents all humankind without the light of Christ: living in spiritual blindness. The man born blind is Adam, every man, every woman, until he is enlightened or even re-created by Jesus Christ. Once again, in both stories the decisive figure is “Jesus Christ and the One who sent him,” that is, the God beyond the world. Before unfolding the story of the man born blind, Jesus proclaims: “I AM the light of the world,” and as the story unfolds, we see what it means to come to the light, to be illumined by faith in Christ, and to be brought into a living union with the I AM, who alone creates, redeems, sanctifies, restores, refreshes humanity. Christ the Light is the re-creator of wounded humanity.
The man Jesus heals, who had been “blind from birth,” is a study in one who comes to faith, and provides an example of living the Christian life in an alien culture. Step by step Jesus leads the man from not knowing who Jesus is, to knowing his name, to thinking him “a prophet,” and finally to openness to Christ as “the Son of God,” the One who brings humankind contact with the divine I AM, because Jesus is both fully human and fully one with God. Christ is the divine Light breaking forth into the human soul laid open by the Word, pierced by the Spirit, humbled by its turn from personal sin. As for the blind man with restored sight, he represents every Christian who has come to living faith (and perhaps been baptized, symbolized through the anointing Christ gives him). As a representative man-in-Christ, we see the blind man literally “stand up for Jesus” as some other believers and unbelievers would tear him away from his loyalty to Christ, even to the point of throwing him out of the community.
The story presents two types of human beings who are dabbling in darkness, although they probably do not know it, and surely would not admit it. First, “the Pharisees” in the story represent all human beings who are self-satisfied, who think that they are “good religious people,” who claim to “know God,” perhaps, and who are convinced that they do God’s will. Although they claim to know God, “to see,” they are in truth blind, and hate the truth, “and refuse to come to the light because their deeds are evil” (John 4). Their “religious” souls are utterly closed to the truth and reality of the living God, and so they are haters of Jesus Christ, and of the genuine Christian (in this case, the man healed of blindness). These folks are so smug, so arrogant, that God-in-Christ has no place in them: “You would instruct us? You’re nothing!” they effectively tell the man healed of his blindness. The one they really hate is God, demonstrated by their hatred of Jesus Christ, “the Light of the world.” These haters of the reality of God, the divine light, may be found among people who presume that they are “good Christians,” or devout believers in other faith traditions. As Jesus tells his disciples, “By their fruits you will know them.” They do the deeds of darkness, convinced that they are spiritually alive, in the light.
At the same time, this story also presents to us the rather “charming” picture of the blind man’s parents. In the context of the story, the parents represent supposed disciples of Jesus who will not take the consequences for their faith. They are afraid of being “cast out” of the community, as the healed-blind man was “cast out.” They protect themselves behind a wall of silence. They will not speak out for the truth, lest they be exposed to the wrath of the God-haters. So although they consider themselves disciples, and know something of the truth, they will not act on their faith, for they are moved by their fear to do so. They want safety, security, “the crown without the cross,” as some have said.
And you? And I? Where do we stand in light of Christ? “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind!” That is Christ’s warning to us, to all who go by the name, “Christian.
--Fr. Wm. Paul McKane, O.S.B.
