As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth.His disciples asked him,”Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”Jesus answered,”Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day.Night is coming when no one can work.While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”When he had said this, he spat on the groundand made clay with the saliva,and smeared the clay on his eyes,and said to him, “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam” —which means Sent—.So he went and washed, and came back able to see.His neighbors and those who had seen him earlier as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the one who used to sit and beg?”Some said, “It is, “but others said, “No, he just looks like him.”He said, “I am.”So they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?”He replied,”The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyesand told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’So I went there and washed and was able to see.”And they said to him, “Where is he?”He said, “I don’t know.”They brought the one who was once blind to the Pharisees.Now Jesus had made clay and opened his eyes on a sabbath.So then the Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see.He said to them,”He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.”So some of the Pharisees said,”This man is not from God,because he does not keep the sabbath.”But others said,”How can a sinful man do such signs?”And there was a division among them.So they said to the blind man again, “What do you have to say about him,since he opened your eyes?”He said, “He is a prophet.”Now the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and gained his sight until they summoned the parents of the one who had gained his sight.They asked them,”Is this your son, who you say was born blind?How does he now see?”His parents answered and said, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind.We do not know how he sees now,nor do we know who opened his eyes.Ask him, he is of age;he can speak for himself.”His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged him as the Christ,he would be expelled from the synagogue.For this reason his parents said,”He is of age; question him.”So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give God the praise!We know that this man is a sinner.”He replied,”If he is a sinner, I do not know.One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.”So they said to him,”What did he do to you?How did he open your eyes?”He answered them,”I told you already and you did not listen.Why do you want to hear it again?Do you want to become his disciples, too?”They ridiculed him and said, “You are that man’s disciple;we are disciples of Moses!We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this one is from.”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.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.”They answered and said to him,”You were born totally in sin,and are you trying to teach us?”Then they threw him out.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,the one speaking with you is he.”He said,”I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him.Then Jesus said,”I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.”Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not also blind, are we?”Jesus said to them,”If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.

I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.

Todays reading is long, and full of lots of imagery, and meaning. But we will focus today on the vision and blindness. At the time of Jesus the people believed that if you were born with a disability, or later in life contracted an ailment, that it meant that either your parents were sinners, or that you had sinned in a way that lead to this punishment. Jesus starts the passage by using the ability to see to show the error of this way of thinking. He explicitly states that this is not the reason that the man was blind, but then uses his disability to prove that point, by granting him sight that was blind from birth.

The second point I want to make is about how He did it. Just like God made clay when He created Adam in the garden, Jesus uses clay to recreate this blind man in His image. The clay is a mixture of water and dirt, the water (saliva) comes from the divine God, and the earth comes from the physical world. It is a combining of the divine nature with the worldly nature. That is how we were created before adam and eve sinned, and it is how we are recreated through the sacraments of anointing (using the clay, aka. confirmation) and the washing (in the pool of siloam, aka. baptism).

God’s original plan was for us all to be perfect combinations of Mind, Body, and Soul in the garden with Him, but then sin entered the world, and human kind rejected this close connection with God, and thus we now have to have our relationship with Him restored. That is the point of Jesus’ life, teachings and sacrifice, and it is through the sacraments that He left us, that we are restored to right relationship with Him.

Through baptism and confirmation we go from the blindness of sin into the vision of full communion with Him. But then sin comes back into our lives again, and thus we have the sacraments of confession and eucharist to bring us back into full communion after we fall. We then are given the sacraments of holy orders or marriage so that we can devote our lives to the service of the lord, and finally we have the sacraments of viaticum, to bless us when we are sick and dying so that we can be in right relationship with Him at the last moments of our lives. Everything that jesus did was for our salvation. To restore us to full communion with the father. So that at the end of time, we can be restored body and soul to full relationship with Him, like adam and eve had before the fall.

That is the reason for all of this, this life, the church, our faith, and our journey toward the lord. It is for us to rightly order our lives toward the one that is the source of everything. This is the story of the blind man, and it is the call of all of us. Do not be like the pharisees, who knew the law, and believed that they could see, but were actually blind to the truth of Jesus and the real reason for God’s love. They were stuck in the trappings and lures of the this world, and were blind to the promise of eternal happiness with God. So if you are blind, open your eyes to the promise of God and His sacraments, and you will be forever changed.

Oh lord help me today to find some way to share your word, and your promise to the people of my family that are lost and stuck in sin.