Sight/Insight

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, March 10th, 2024:
Fourth Sunday of Lent

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(The following is an optional Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A.)

John
9.1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 

He spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then the man who was blind went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbours and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.”

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out. Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, "And who is he, sir? Tell me so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshipped him.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

I have always had terrible vision. In about Grade 4, I was tested and given my first pair of thick glasses. I wasn't thrilled about the coke-bottle lenses, but that worry paled in comparison with the pleasure of finally seeing my surroundings!

My vision progressively declined until my mid-teens when I could no longer make out any letters on the optometrist’s chart. Luckily, contact lenses were just coming on the market, and so my parents agreed to let me give them a try. Though complicated to use, these new contact lenses offered clear sight unencumbered by clunky frames. My vision continued to slip, and 20 years later I had laser surgery. 

The days following the surgery were extremely uncomfortable. Although I thought the scratchy film on my eyes would never improve, over a week later I woke up to a visual clarity I hadn’t known existed. I could read signs from what seemed like miles away. The leaves on the trees had sharp edges. Yellow road lines were so much clearer when I was driving in the dark. And the moon! I remember being gobsmacked that the moon was not a hazy white circle but a beautifully crisp sphere in the night sky. The entire world seemed new!

Reflecting on this scripture, it struck me that my experience of having extremely poor physical vision was very similar to my experience of journeying out of spiritual blindness. Years of existing “in” the secular world and not “of" the spiritual world had left a heavy darkness. It wasn’t until I took Alpha in my early forties that this weight started to lift. Cautiously echoing Nicky Gumbel’s prayer to turn away from the dark things of the world, asking Jesus to forgive me and to be the Lord of my life began a shift in my heart. Slowly, slowly the scales on my eyes started to fall away. By God’s grace I turned toward an awareness of a different life in Christ through glimpses of spiritual insights.

In John’s Gospel, the once blind man had an amazing one-day journey that began with an encounter with Jesus and led to a miraculous cure, to naming Jesus as a prophet and finally to an exhortation that Jesus Christ is the Lord whom he worships. It was a physical healing for sure, but what spiritual insight he was given! A new life in Christ! And all in one day!

The truth of it is that, on this side of the veil, all of us are essentially the blind man. Like him, may we grow in spiritual insight and clarity, forever proclaiming Jesus as the source of our “new eyes.” Come, let us worship!

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Patty Viscount

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