Jesus and the man born blind

It’s the 4th Sunday of Lent and today’s gospel is about Jesus and the Man Born Blind. This is a story that isn’t as often repeated as other scripture passages. You can read this in your Bible in John 9-41, (:1,6-9.13-17,34-38 so you can discern who in this story are really blind?

“1 As [Jesus] passed by he saw a man blind from birth, 6 He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes, 7 and said to him, “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed, and came back able to see.

8 His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some said, “It is,” but others said, “No, he just looks like him.” He said, “I am”. 13 They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees. 14 Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a Sabbath.

15 So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.” 16 So some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath.” [But] others said, “How can a sinful man do such signs?” And there was a division among them. 17 So they said to the blind man again, “What do you have to say about him, since he opened your eyes? He said, “He is a prophet.”

34 They answered and said to him, “You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?” Then they threw him out. 35 When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, he found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 He answered and said, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him and the one speaking with you is he.” 38 He said, “I do believe, Lord,” and he worshipped him.”

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Our Lord Jesus Christ is God who became man. Being God, he is perfect in his love for humanity and because he is God, therefore he cannot lie…. For only Satan is the Father of Lies. But before we proceed discussing today’s scripture story, let’s go back to last Sunday’s gospel which was about our Lord Jesus Christ and the Samaritan Woman, where the Lord forgave her sinfulness and because she believed in his words and talked about the coming of the Messiah to which the Lord told her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.” Therefore God reveals himself to a Samaritan Woman whom the Jews dislike and called the Gentile, even if our Lord Jesus told the Samaritan woman that “salvation is from the Jews.”

In today’s gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ cures a man who was born blind. But the Pharisees could not see the sign from heaven that someone within their midst, a Jew cured the man born blind. But the Pharisees only saw that Jesus violated the rules of the Sabbath. The Pharisees investigated the man born blind who now could see and some said that Jesus was not from God because he did not keep the Sabbath Day. But others said, “How can a sinful man do such signs?” It only divided the Pharisees.

But Jesus wasn’t bothered by what the Pharisees said about him. He cured the blind man because that’s the very reason that he was sent from heaven to walk about God’s creation. The blind is especially important in his Galilean Ministry because in the gospel of John the Evangelist on John 8:12 our Lord Jesus Christ is the “Light of the World.” A man born blind doesn’t even know what Light is all about because there is only darkness.

The subliminal message that our Lord Jesus is teaching us is a question that should be hanging over our heads…as to who are really the blind ones in this story? But our Lord Jesus cures the man born blind using only clay and his saliva… the blind man is finally able to see.

Ironically, those Pharisees who are supposedly God’s servants here on earth… could not see the sign from heaven when our Lord Jesus cured the blind man. In the end, it is the Pharisees who were blinded by their own Sabbath rules that all Jews must follow… and amongst these prohibitions during the Sabbath, no one should cure or heal anyone because healing is the work of a doctor and the Sabbath prohibits any form of work.

When we were in Israel last October for our Holy Pilgrimage, we learned what a Sabbath elevator is. It is an elevator that stops in every single floor. Why? Because pushing a button is work for an elevator boy, hence the ultra conservative Jews made this one of their prohibitions. So I asked our tour guide what about in times of emergency? Apparently this Jewish prohibition has already been lifted. So humans do change their rules. But God is an unchanging God and the trouble with Catholics today is that, we want God to change in order for him to suit our human needs.

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