“Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me – I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see.”
“He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.”
You can hear the exasperation in the man’s voice in today’s Gospel which is an amazing story of humanity and divinity. This man, blind from birth, is being asked to explain over and over that he just met this controversial man Jesus, and now after a lifetime of not being able to see, he can.
The Pharisees can’t get a grip on it. The man must have sinned – or his parents did – because otherwise why would he have lost his sight to begin with? Or, well, Jesus must be a sinner – he couldn’t possibly be a prophet or from God because he just healed a man’s sight ON THE SABBATH. Over and over they ask him, are you the same man who could not see? Are you sure? How can you now see? Who is this man Jesus who made you see? He did what with spit and mud?
And when they finally throw the man out, Jesus comes to find him and affirms the man’s faith. I am the Son of Man, this person who put mud and spit on your eyes. And you, who have not seen anything from the moment you were born, now see everything more clearly than anyone else around you. You once were lost, but now you are found.
Cynthia Briggs Kittredge is the dean and president of Seminary of the Southwest. She points out in her commentary on the Gospel of John that the gospel does not call this healing a miracle. Two other words are used in this passage to describe what Jesus has done. The first is work: Jesus tells his disciples that the man “was born blind” not because he or his parents had committed any particular sins, but “so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”
“We” – not “I” but “we” – “must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” Jesus’ healing of the blind man was work. It took some effort, and it wasn’t pretty work. He made mud with his own spit, put it on the man’s eyes, and then told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam.
The second word the gospel uses instead of “miracle” is “sign.” “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” ask some of the Pharisees.
These baffling, seemingly supernatural acts Jesus undertakes in this gospel – including, earlier and later, turning water to wine at the wedding at Cana, feeding the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, walking on water, and finally raising Lazarus from the dead – are not just standalone acts meant to inspire awe or fear (though they do anyway). They are something more. They are called signs. A sign’s purpose is to point to something, to communicate beyond itself, to show us something, if we pay attention, if we open ourselves to what may seem impossible or irrational or, in the eyes of the Pharisees, improper, not right.
We look for signs when we are lost.
The Pharisees struggle with the signs Jesus is performing. They can’t get past their old ideas that tell them that sin causes blindness and that it is more important to keep Sabbath rules – for instance, to not work on the Sabbath – than it is to take care of another human being, to heal pain and limitation if we can.
The one who sees Jesus for who he is, who trusts Jesus to do healing work on the Sabbath, who trusts Jesus’ answers to his questions and doesn’t keep asking them, is the man who hasn’t been able to see anything in the world for his whole life until now. He has gone from being completely without sight to seeing more clearly than those around him, to understanding the sign Jesus is performing in his healing, the signs that are visible to us today as well in this scripture and elsewhere – that healing is there for all, that our griefs are not punishment for sins, and the work of being healed ourselves, and of healing others in turn, in compassion, is not always pretty. Sometimes it is mud and spit, but it is real.
Today, the fourth Sunday of Lent, is often called Good Shepherd Sunday; our Old Testament reading and the psalm both evoke the image of the shepherd. In the Old Testament, we meet David, the ancestor of Jesus, and he is working as a shepherd. The psalm is another of the most well-known and well-loved texts in the Christian tradition – the 23rd Psalm – “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
And our epistle is about darkness and light, about seeing and being seen: “Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light.” And today is also known, especially in the Catholic year, as Laetare Sunday. Laetare is Latin, meaning to rejoice or to gladden, to acknowledge and feel joy, and to communicate that joy to others. In some churches, the vestments on the altar and on the clergy are rose-colored (not pink! Rose) instead of purple. Churches may allow flowers and weddings on Leatare Sunday; special cakes are baked. So these texts about light and seeing, about the comfort of still waters and feasts spread before us – something of a respite in the middle of the penitence of Lent, they’re not arbitrary. And I would suggest that this brief celebration in the midst of Lent is not strictly a respite or a relaxation of Lenten practices, but rather a reminder that even in the somberness and penitence of Lent, there is love and amazing grace to be found. And that Jesus offers those things entirely without our asking or deserving of them, just as he healed a man blind from birth.
We find signs in the poetry of the psalm as well that point towards something deeper and something connected to the assurance that the blind man finds with Jesus.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want.
God is a God of abundance, even in the wilderness.
He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.
God listens not only to what our body requires, but to what our soul needs.
He revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for his Name’s sake.
God gives direction, if we look and we listen, if we pay attention.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Even in this wilderness journey, Lent and beyond, we face nothing alone. Even in darkness, our way is illuminated. It is filled with light.
You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; you have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over.
Even in the long walk of Lent, we are always nourished.
And we are drawing close to the end of that Lenten journey. One more Sunday, and then we begin Holy Week with the procession of the palms and then the journey we share with Christ and his friends in those days and nights through their last meal together, the garden of Gethsemane, through the devastation of Good Friday, and the glimmer of light, first thing in the morning, that is the beginning of Easter.
Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Today’s signposts in our scripture, in our worship, point us through penitence and toward joy, reminding us to welcome amazing grace ourselves, even along this wilderness path, and to do the work of grace, to gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us, and to make a way for God’s healing to happen.
Amen.
— The Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett, Curate, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton
The Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 19, 2023
Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 23, Ephesians 5:8-14, John 9:1-41
