The jailer in today’s Epistle, seeing the miracle at the prison, humbled himself and came to the Apostles. He fell down before them, trembling, and begging them, beseeching them, “What must I do to be saved?” Through his humility and courage, the jailer gained the sight of faith; he found salvation in Christ, and through him, so did all his family. Ironic isn’t it: the jailer was afraid—scared out of his wits—but had the courage and humility to come to the Apostles seeking salvation, seeking to know their God, Jesus Christ.
We can fear like that with regard to our faith: fear rejection, ridicule, judgment. Our fear, our pride, can get in our way of courageously stepping forward in faith to witness to the truth.
Today’s Gospel gives us yet another example of courage and witness in the face of such fear. Jesus heals a man born blind who then witnesses to all Christ has done. The miracle is even more remarkable than it first seems: Not only has no one ever opened the eyes of one born blind before, BUT, as the Holy Fathers tell us, this man was born WITHOUT EYES. Not only did Christ God, the Word of God through Whom all things were made, open the blind man’s eyes, He MADE eyes for the blind man, which He then opened. Just as our first parent, Adam, was taken from the clay and made alive, so Jesus takes clay and makes eyes for the blind man.
There is a clear parallel here to the first creation of man, but here there is even more: Christ God not only gives the blind man physical eyes, not only does He then open those eyes so the blind man can see, but even more importantly, He gives him the sight within—He awakens and illumines the blind man’s immortal soul, giving Him a living encounter with God, revealing Himself to him, and bringing him to the knowledge and love of Him, that is, He brings him salvation. The blind man comes to faith in the living God; he receives spiritual sight and worships God, his Creator, the only Lover of mankind.
The Pharisees, for their part, witness the healing of this man, a man known to all and seen regularly begging—but in their pridefulness and lack of faith, they do won’t believe, they choose not to believe. Jesus heals the blind man on the Sabbath and reveals Himself as the long-awaited Messiah, but they cannot ‘see’ the miracle; they’re blinded by their pride, blinded by their lack of faith in God’s love and power to fulfill the Law, let alone, to heal as the God He is.
The Pharisees question the blind man, searching for a ‘reasonable’ explanation for the miracle, a reason not to believe. They don’t want their eyes opened; they want to remain unchanged. The blind man doesn’t stop with his own encounter with God, his own salvation. No, he testifies boldly to the truth of Christ and His life-giving power, not fearing their wrath.
In the end, the uneducated blind man must teach the learned Pharisees, what faith really means. He says, “Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. ‘If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.’” For this true and courageous statement, the Pharisees cast him out of the Synagogue.
As the world rejected the blind man, casting him out, so too the world often rejects us as we proclaim our faith in the living God, as we live out and testify to the miracle of the life of faith, of doing real battle with our passions, of bringing our struggles and sin-sickness before the Lord in confession in our desire for healing from them, of professing our belief in miracles and the Doer of those wonders, in vocally giving God the glory, the credit, for our blessings. Jesus says, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18).
Today, we also commemorate the miraculous finding of the head of St. John the Baptist, who gave his life as a testimony of the truth of God, condemning Herod’s immorality. In our own day, Christians are still persecuted. Many of us have been greatly saddened by the case of Meriam, an Orthodox Christian woman eight months pregnant, shackled in jail with her 18-month-old son, awaiting execution for refusing to renounce her faith in Christ. In response to the judge’s who sentenced her, Meriam cried out, “I am a Christian, and I will remain a Christian.”
St. Paul warns Timothy, saying, “Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). The blind man is thrown out of the temple and ostracized from the Jewish community; St. John is beheaded for daring to speak the truth. Our sister, Meriam, is sentenced to death by hanging for refusing to renounce her faith in Christ.
You and I presently suffer very little for our faith and still, we find it hard to be faithful, courageous witnesses of the truth of Christ, living out the Gospel so that others will desire to change and embrace the life in Christ as well. The strength of a martyr’s witness is also a ‘miracle’ because it defies explanation by the scientific, secular mind: why would anyone willingly die for their faith in Christ? Similarly, and no less miraculous is the opening up of a person to new life in Christ, to holy illumination. Both require the miracle of faith, courage.
The blind man not only receives his physical sight: Even more importantly, “he recovered the sight of the eyes within,” as St. John Chrysostom puts it. He comes to Christ God, and finding Jesus Christ, He finds healing, not only from his biological blindness, but from the spiritual ‘blindness’ of sin. Sin alone is evil; blindness is no evil. In this case, the man’s infirmity, his ‘sickness’ if you will, his blindness, brings him to the Master, to Him who is Life itself, and through this encounter, through his courage, his fear of God, his humility before God, he is spiritually illumined, spiritually healed and given true life.
As important as the healing of the blind man is and the regaining of his physical sight, even more vital than this is his finding Christ and His witness to his faith in Him as the Messiah and his willingness to pay the price for such witness to the truth.
You and I have the opportunity to courageously embrace the faith of the blind man this day, of St. John, of Meriam. We ask Christ to continue to open our spiritual eyes, to make us more faithful witnesses to His truth—the truth of a changed life, of freedom from enslavement to this world—which our friends, our relatives, our co-workers and neighbors, who are all in such great need of a life-changing encounter with Christ as well. We live out our faith, we do battle with our passions, so that cooperating more and more with the work of the Holy Spirit in us, we too may see Christ, the Light of the world, the Savior of our souls. And we overcome our pride, our fear, with love, which compels us to bear witness of Him and His truth to this world.
With gratitude, we thank God for the spiritual eyes to see and discern good from evil we gain from life in the Church, and for the opportunities He gives us to be a martyr, a witness (literally), testifying to the reality of life in Him, to the hope of eternal life. With the blind man, we worship Him and receive Him this day and testify to the changeless Truth that He is. May God give us such courage and humility!
Christ is risen!
Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
May 25, 2014
Sunday of the Blind Man, Third Finding of the Head of St. John the Baptist
Epistle: Acts 16:16-34
Gospel: John 9:1-38
