Sermon, 4th Sunday in Lent: The Man Born Blind

For four of the Sundays of Lent this year, we are being treated to some extremely lengthy passages from St John’s Gospel – and I mean, treated. Each of them relates a life-changing, encounter between Jesus and an individual and so goes to the heart of the purpose of Lent as a season of transformation. Two weeks ago, we heard of the meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus; last week it was Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well; next week we will hear of the raising of Lazarus; and today we heard the account of the healing of the man born blind. These are all marvellous passages to sink our teeth into as Lent runs its course. St John’s Gospel is rather like an onion, with a never-ending series of layers. We can peel the layers of the onion one at a time and discover new themes, new challenges, and new meaning.

On the surface, today’s Gospel recalls a straightforward healing miracle: a man, blind from birth, receives his sight. But under the surface lie the questions ‘how?’ and ‘why?’ And beneath that, the further question ‘what caused him to be blind in the first place?’ And then at the heart, Jesus—who in the previous chapter declared himself ‘the light of the world’—starts to talk about blindness and sight as spiritual, rather than physical, issues.

There is much that could be said. But I’d like to focus on just one of those layers of the onion: to look at what this passage says about healing.

There was an assumption in Jesus' day that if someone was ill, that illness was a divine punishment: the direct result of their sin. And if a person had had the affliction since birth, then, it was assumed that it must have been the fault of their parents: they must have been the ones who sinned.

Hence the disciples' question to Jesus is quite natural:

'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'

We might think this a rather primitive way of looking at things. But if look at the 1662 Book of Common Prayer we find there in the order for the Visitation of the Sick these words. The priest says to the sick person:

'…..whatsoever your sickness is, know you certainly that it is God's visitation.'

Really? This service is still legal tender in the Church of England, though the proposed Prayer Book of 1928 changed its tune, and most priests today use a modern rite of prayer for the sick.

But in the Gospel, Jesus' answer is this:

'Neither this man nor his parents sinned…'

And we can't get much clearer than that. There’s no way, says Jesus, that this man's condition was a result of sin—either his or anyone else's. And the disciples are put firmly in their place.

Jesus went on to heal the man, and the whole passage becomes a fascinating teasing out of the contrast between unable or able to see. The physical blindness of the man and his healing is set in sharp contrast with the spiritual blindness of the Pharisees - who are so bound up in themselves and their own world that they are incapable of recognising Jesus for who he is, even when he stands in front of them.

But what about the man who was healed? What exactly did he receive from Jesus? He received his sight, certainly, but more than just that. Beforehand, he would probably have had to beg to keep body and soul together; now, with sight restored, he would have been able to work for a living. As a blind person, he would have been consigned to the margins of society; with sight he would have been socially integrated and fully a part of his community.

But above all the man is enabled to become more fully himself—the person God intends him to be. He is given integration—wholeness—his life starts to come together. His physical cure is part of the picture, but only part of something much bigger.

The subject of healing is always a thorny one. And a question which inevitably arises is the difference between healing and cure. In the Gospel, the man was cured. But we all know that although cures can happen, they often don't. In over 30 years of public ministry, I have seen cures which have been nothing short of miraculous: some through the working of medical science, some through direct divine intervention. But I have seen many more cases of serious illness where there has been no cure, and where someone has died—often far too young.

As Christians—as human beings—we struggle with this. ‘Why?’ we ask. It would be foolish to suggest that there is a reasonable answer; and it’s dishonest simply to duck the issue by piously insisting that ‘it must be God’s will.’ No. A God who wills suffering and pain, or the separation which comes from an early death is not a God worth believing in. The only sense that can be made of it is to accept that we live in a hurting and broken world, but that God hurts and is broken with us. In the words of the great hymn by Bishop Timothy Rees:

And, when human hearts are breaking
Under sorrow’s iron rod;
There they find the self-same aching
Deep within the heart of God.

We trust and we believe in a crucified God, who bears our sorrows and carries our griefs. Every time the Eucharistic bread is broken, it’s a reminder of the God who is prepared to be broken for a broken world.

But despite this—aside from whether or not there is a ‘cure’—God's offer of wholeness still stands. The Christian Gospel is about becoming, through our relationship with Jesus Christ, the people God created us to be. It's about becoming whole, functioning, integrated people in whom God’s image is made manifest.

Wholeness requires that we address the totality of human personhood in our relationship to God: that complex mixture of body, mind and spirit. The hospice movement understands this so well in the way that it cares for the whole person. Healing is about becoming as whole as we possibly can be: in body, mind and in spirit. If any one of the three is disordered or, dis-eased, then there can be a knock-on effect somewhere else.

For instance, someone living with uncertain mental health might also suffer physical or spiritual symptoms. Likewise, someone suffering from a debilitating physical illness can easily fall prey to mental distress. Or a person who gets mixed up in a negative or evil spirituality can end up suffering serious psychological trouble. And although (as Jesus reminds us) illness is not caused by sin, because we can’t split this trinity of human personhood, there is an undeniable link between our spiritual, mental and physical well-being—or lack of it.

In this morning’s Epistle—from Ephesians 5—St Paul writes of the need to let in the light of Christ, to expose the darkness in our lives, that they may become more clearly visible and dealt with, so that we can grow in wholeness. Lent is a time for self-examination, not in a morbid, introspective way, but more in the sense of doing some Spring cleaning: shining light into the hidden corners of our life and getting out the duster to wipe away the cobwebs.

There is a fine hymn, Awake, awake, fling off the night, based on that passage from Ephesians 5, which puts it very well:

Let in the light: all sin expose
to Christ, whose life no darkness knows.
Before his cross for guidance kneel;
his light will judge and, judging, heal.

Each of us is inevitably dis-eased, in some way or other, and to different extents. That is part of what it is to be human. God's will is that we should each be made whole—set free to be the people he made us to be. The first step is to face up to who we currently are – by praying for Christ’s light: the light of guidance, the light of judgment, the light of healing.

Wherever we find ourselves, be that in sorrow, separation or sickness—it is not of God’s visitation, no more than was that of the man born blind. But, as with any situation, it offers a God-given opportunity to grow in faith, to experience God’s grace, and to become whole. May God assure us all of his eternal love for us in Jesus Christ.