4th. Sunday of Lent (A)
(1 Samuel 16:1, 6-7, 10-13; Ephesians 5:8-14; John
9:1-41)
In the first reading David, the ‘baby’ of
his family, was chosen by God to be anointed King by the prophet Samuel in
preference to his stronger and more experienced brothers.
And, in our second reading St. Paul says, You
were darkness once.
Thus we can see that God at times chooses
men and women for His servants not because of their social standing, natural
ability, or personal merits, but rather because He wills to manifest His own
mighty power in and/or through them; and that was expressly acknowledged by Our
Blessed Lord in the Gospel reading:
(The man’s being blind from birth) is so that the works of God
might be made visible (manifest) through him.
God uses human beings! Isn’t that an awful thing to say and even
more awful to do! Use people for your
own purposes!!
Dear People of God, there are so many
today with no love for God who are yet so given to speaking out about what God
should have done, what he (he since he is no God for them) should do or,
in today’s case, what he should not do!
Our God is good and He made us originally
and gave His only-begotten Son up for our salvation because He loves us; and because He loves us He can and does use us for His own good purposes
and our own better good.
Notice how Jesus was most urgent about
showing God’s good purposes in and through this born-blind man; without pausing
even to ask the man whether or not he wanted to see, or if he had faith in
Jesus’ power, He willed to begin His work – a fact which showed that Jesus’
main intention was to do something for His Father’s work plan, not something
primarily of His own choosing or for the man himself:
We
(Himself and the blind man!) have to do the works of the One Who sent Me
while it is day. Night is coming when no
one can work.
He set about curing the man, not as so
often on other occasions with exhortations to faith and words of healing, but
by relatively well-known actions (used by local healers etc.) now intended by
Jesus to gradually draw the man along with and into His own purposes. He made clay with the help of His spittle
from the dust of the earth.
Now God had originally made man from the
dust of the earth and Jesus was wanting to show that He – His whole life,
indeed, not just this one occasion – was completing God’s creative activity:
My Father is at work until now, so I am at
work. (John 5:17)
He then smeared the clay over the man’s
eyes to give him hope of healing; and then, to test his faithful
obedience, told him– still unseeing! – to go and wash in the pool of Siloam;
thereupon his cure would be completed, and God’s work would be completed and
most fully manifested in him and through him to all the Jews and Pharisees,
themselves so wilfully blind in spirit.
The pool of Siloam recalls for us the
waters of baptism; St. John, himself, interprets Siloam as ‘Sent’, referring to
Jesus, sent as the Christ for the salvation of the world; and, in Isaias (8:6)
we are told that the Jews refused the waters of Siloam, just as they would
later reject Christ Himself:
Because this people has rejected the
waters of Shiloah that flow gently …
The pool of Siloam (Sent) can still be
seen today, filled with water from the Virgin’s Spring.
The man-born-blind obeyed:
He went and washed and came back able to
see!
‘He came back’ like the Samaritan cured of
leprosy, to see and give thanks to Jesus, but Jesus had gone for the moment,
and now was the time for the cured-man to give witness to his Healer.
The Jewish officials repeatedly asked him
how Jesus had cured him. At first, not
being suspicious of such authoritative and reputedly ‘holy’ people, he thought
they wanted to hear again what he had already fully described, in order to
rejoice in the wonderful work that had been done:
‘I
told you already and you did not listen,
instead
you went and troubled my parents:
Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples?’
It would seem that this man born blind had
been regularly taken to the synagogue for worship there and for instruction in
the traditions of Israel, since he was in no way overawed by his questioners
now, but spoke in reply as one confident in and well aware of his Jewish upbringing and privileges. Now, however, he was beginning and indeed
learning fast to see into what he had always before unquestioningly
assumed, that is, the authority and holiness of these men addressing him:
The man answered and said to them,
“This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where He is from, yet He
opened my eyes. We know that God does
not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does His will, He listens to
him.
Now, in the power of the Spirit of Jesus,
he was beginning to show authentic ‘Christian’ credentials, and was indeed
risking a great deal by thus standing up for his healer:
They answered and said to him, ‘You were born totally (blind) in sin, and are you trying to
teach us?’ Then they threw him out.
Out of the synagogue and out of Jewish
fellowship.
Whereupon,
When Jesus heard that they had thrown
him out, He found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered and said, “Who is he sir, that I
may believe in him?” Jesus said to him,
“You have seen Him and the One speaking with you is He.” He said, “I do believe, Lord,” and he
worshipped Him.
Dear People of God, notice how God quite
amazingly brings the blind man into a measure of co-operation with His own
purposes, for the born-blind man actually recognizes why he has been specially
chosen by God the Father to witness to the Son He has sent among men:
It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born
blind. If this Man were not from God, He
would not be able to do anything!
And what was that most important work of
God for which the blind-from-birth man was being used? The manifestation of this sublime truth
about Jesus:
While I am in the world, I am the light of
the world.
This ‘unfortunate, ill-used, abused’
(according to modern supremely self-righteous critics of God!), this
born-blind-man had actually, in fact, had his eyes, as it were lit for the first time, by Him Who was
the true Light of the World!! Oh happy
man, blessed far more than all those Pharisees and Jews around who could only
see things of earth! For his eyes,
opened for the first time by Jesus, the Light of the World, were truly
seeing eyes, and had led him, to see, recognize, believe in, and worship,
the Son of Man and Saviour of the world!
Later God would use the death of
Lazarus, Jesus’ friend, likewise (John 11: 4):
This is for the glory of God that the Son
of God may be glorified through it!
However, our man-born-blind was yet more
blessed than Lazarus, even though he, Lazarus, Jesus’ friend, would be raised
from the dead; because our man-born-blind was led to actually co-operate
in some positive manner with the glorification of Him Who was the Light of the
World!
Dear People of God, let God, ask God, to
USE you! Many in our Western societies
today are so very much aware of their human and personal rights in society …
and are thereby often made far too proud and self-centred in their relations
with God to ever allow themselves to be used for His purposes. And there are others, of timid spirit, who
cannot trust themselves to God’s purposes because they are ever-and-over
fearful for themselves.
Both types are so wrapped up in
themselves, be it for pride or for fear, that they cannot conceive our central
Catholic and Christian truth that God is so good and does so love us that
His very using us for His own glory and purposes always and -- humanly
speaking one might say, inevitably -- brings us known (now) and unknown
(as yet) personal blessings, for our having been humble and brave enough to
have allowed and committed ourselves to thus being of use to Him.
Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be
Thy name; Thy will be done in me for Thy purposes and for Thy glory; and -- of
Thine infinite and unquestionable goodness -- for our blessing in Jesus Thy
Son, our Lord and Saviour, by Thy most Holy Spirit of Truth and Love. Amen, amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment