In your mind’s eye, put yourself for
a moment inside this morning’s Gospel.
Imagine just for a moment that you were born blind from birth. Totally in darkness, except you don’t even know
what darkness is because you’ve never seen light. You’ve never seen the beauty of a sunrise or
the sparkling of stars against a pitch-black sky. Never seen a towering mountain peak, or the
deep red color of a rose bloom. Never
seen the face of your mother, your spouse, your newborn baby. Never even seen your own self in a
mirror. Not a single visual memory - your only memories are of what you’ve
heard, or touched, or smelled, or tasted.
And, since you’ve been blind from birth, actually, unless someone with
sight told you you were blind, you wouldn’t even know what blind is – for
you’ve never known anything different. For without ever having had sight, without
having ever known light, there’s simply no such thing as “blind.”
Now
here you are, sitting and begging for food, minding your own business, and into
your life walks this man, just passing by, this Jesus fellow, and He changes everything. He doesn’t ask you if you’d like to see, if
you’d like to be healed – for such a question would be meaningless to you – but
yu hear Him spit and you feel Him anoint your eyes, and He sends you to go and
wash, and suddenly, miraculously, for the first time, your eyes are opened - you
can see! You see light, darkness, up,
down, colors, faces, and perhaps the very first face you see is this man, this
prophet, who has just healed you. And as
you gaze into His eyes you see there eyes filled completely with love and
compassion and mercy.
You
have encountered not just a man, not just a prophet, but the Son of Man, the
Christ, and He has healed you, and you didn’t even know you needed healing. And from this encounter with this man, you
have come to believe in Him, come to worship Him, as the only begotten Son of
God. This face? This very first face you’ve ever seen? Is none other than the face of God.
Brothers
and sisters, this Gospel, it seems to me, is a microcosm of the Christian life,
the Christian journey. Without our even
knowing it, we were born blind, you and I were spiritually blind. On our own, under our own power, we are lost
in darkness, lost in sin. Blind and powerless.
And like the man born blind, perhaps not even knowing of our own darkness,
of our sin. And into our lives walks
this Jesus, who calls Himself the light of the world, seeking us out. He anoints us and washes us and opens our
eyes, our spiritual eyes. And we come to
believe that this man we’ve encountered is none other than God’s own Son, sent
by the Father to save us, and we choose to follow Him.
Yes,
our Christian journey begins with a healing encounter with the person of Jesus
Christ. Yes, that personal encounter
with the person of Christ is what it’s all about! You see, our faith isn’t so
much about rules and laws and doing this or not doing that as it is about
encountering a person – Jesus, the Lord, the Christ. If you’ve never really personally encountered
Jesus Christ, and I dare say many people who’ve gone to Church their entire
lives haven’t, if you’ve never professed faith in Him as Lord, if you’ve never
said to His face, “Yes, Lord, I do believe,” well this season of Lent is an
excellent time to start.
And
this Gospel also describes exactly the encounter with Christ our elect
anxiously await in 20 days as they anticipate the Sacrament of Baptism at the
Easter Vigil, as they’re anointed and washed in the life-giving waters of
Christ, as they go down into those waters, figuratively dying with Christ, and
then washed clean of sin are raised up with Him. Gifted with new life in the Spirit. Then nourished at His table, fully initiated
into the Body of Christ, they will be sent forth to go and do the same, do as
He has done.
But
joyful as that moment will be, when we welcome our new brothers and sisters in
Christ, we know that this will be just the beginning of their journey with
Christ. And while we all profess one
baptism for the forgiveness of sins, we know that this process doesn’t happen only
once – this process of encountering Jesus and Him opening our eyes is something
that must happen time and time again as we grow deeper and deeper in
discipleship, in relationship with Him. For
as much as we’d like to think our eyes are open and we see clearly, even if
we’re no longer shrouded in darkness, we all have our blind spots.
This
season of lent is a great time of grace, or it can be, as we attentively wait
for the Lord to come to us and encounter us again, and further open our eyes to
our own sinfulness, our own darkness. To
open our eyes to see differently, more clearly, see more with His eyes. This is a season of growing in holiness, and
Origen defined holiness as “seeing with the eyes of Christ.” As we shed our own selfish ways of looking at
the world and at others, and put on the eyes of Christ, seeing the world and
our brothers and sisters as He sees. To
break our hearts to what breaks your heart, O Lord, as one Christian rock song
puts it.
And
it’s to be a season of healing, first as Christ opens our eyes and convicts us
of our sinfulness and then tenderly offers us His mercy and forgiveness. For those of us already baptized, the place
for that encounter with Christ, where we can tangibly and intimately experience
His tender love and amazing mercy is in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. So I invite you, sisters and brothers, to
prayerfully consider making a good confession some time during these last weeks
of Lent. Experience the great joy, the
great peace, of being fully reconciled to Our Blessed Lord, who awaits you with
open arms and loving sacred heart.
Sisters and brothers, during these last
weeks of Lent, in our prayer, our fasting, in our almsgiving, let us be ready
when He comes by, when He turns to us to encounter us, when He touches us and opens
our eyes and heals us. Open my eyes,
Lord, help me to see your face.
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