In the Gospel story Jesus gives the gift of sight to a blind man. But since we are not blind, we might think that the Gospel story has no relevance for us. It is precisely because we can see that it has relevance for us. The question is: how well do we see?
The blind man in the Gospel story saw more than the religious leaders, in the sense that he had more faith in Jesus than they had. The Pharisees had perfect eyesight, yet they had no faith in Jesus.
To see well, good eyesight alone is not sufficient. We must not think that blindness is an illness that affects the eyes only. There are many forms of blindness besides physical blindness. In some ways these are just as crippling. Some examples:
Selfishness blinds us to the needs of others.
Insensitivity blinds us to the hurt we’re causing to others.
Snobbery blinds us to the equal dignity of others.
Pride blinds us to our own faults.
Prejudice blinds us to the truth.
Hurry blinds us to the beauty of the
world around.
Materialism blinds us to spiritual values.
Superficiality blinds us to a person’s true worth and causes us to judge by appearances.
It is not with the eyes only that we see. We also “see” with the mind, the heart, and the imagination. A narrow mind, a small heart, an impoverished imagination – all of these lead to loss of vision, darken our lives, and shrink our world.
It has been said that the greatest tragedy is not to be born blind, but to have eyes and yet fail to see. But there is an even worse situation: to have eyes and refuse to see. The latter was the situation of the Pharisees. The most important eyes of all are the eyes of faith. The smallest child with faith sees more than the smartest scientist who had no faith. The Gospel story is essentially a faith story – the story of a man who came to faith in Jesus. The climax of the story is where the man makes a profession of faith: “Lord, I believe.”
While the blind man opened more and more to the light of faith, the Pharisees, though physically sighted, became progressively more spiritually blind. Their blindness was caused by sin. Theirs was a wilful blindness – the refusal to see.
The man’s journey from blindness to sight symbolizes the journey from unbelief to faith, which is a journey from darkness to light. Physical sight is a wonderful gift which we should never take for granted. But faith is a deeper and more wonderful kind of seeing.
Paul says to the Ephesians, “Once you were in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” Without faith we are in deep night and do not know where we are going.
Those who have been enlightened by Christ can never again see themselves and their lives in the same light as before. Everything is lit up with an inner radiance. Faith helps us to find our way through the chaos, confusion, darkness, illness, and grief of the world we live in.