The blind man healed by Jesus, whom we hear about in Sunday’s gospel, receives much more than his physical sight. The physical healing is an outward sign of a deeper, inner grace. Jesus tells the blind man: Go wash in the pull of Siloam. The man goes and washes, and he returns able to see. Obeying Jesus brings about an immediate effect. It places the person in a position to receive the gifts of God, including a relationship with him. But it’s just a beginning.  Christ Healing the Blind, by El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), ca. 1570 |
Most people baptized as infants do not understand, or even remember, the encounter with Jesus that Baptism signifies. It’s possible, in fact, that the event simply melds into the past, never to have any influence on the person’s life. The person grows physically without maturing spiritually. Baptism demands our active participation. Consider the blind man. He seems quite underwhelmed about receiving his sight. Other people ask him, “How were your eyes opened?” He says it was “the man called Jesus.” They ask further, “Where is he?” The man says, “I don’t know.” Really? You just had your sight restored and you don’t even care to find out a few more details about who it was that gave you this great gift? It’s like calling Baptism a nice ceremony. The priest says a few words and pours some water over our heads. What if we dig deeper though? The blind man doesn’t stop thinking about Jesus and what happened. In fact, other people won’t let him forget; they want to know how he can suddenly see. So, he keeps thinking about it too. People around the man start drawing their own conclusions: It could not have been God. No one from God would heal on the Sabbath. The man born blind, however, reasons that such a good act could not have come from someone evil. So now when people ask about Jesus, the man says, “He is a prophet.” His faith is growing as he yields more to the encounter with Jesus. Those who do not believe double-down; they tell the man to denounce Jesus. Even the man’s parents distance themselves from him. But the man born blind can’t ignore the experience of Jesus: “One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.” And, at this point, he makes a deeper move in his discernment. Now Jesus is not just a man, not just a prophet, but the Lord: The man, formerly blind, says: “I do believe, Lord,” and he worships Jesus. The encounter with Jesus challenges us to go beyond the superficial, to look beyond the external reality. He wants us to move beyond simply obeying rules or keeping up appearances. Rather, Jesus wants us to seek him with our whole being. It’s not that rules and appearances are meaningless; it’s just that they can’t be the sole criteria of meaning in our lives. There’s something more, a grace that meets us in the depth of our hearts. |
