On this fifth week of our celebration of Easter, I hear, as I reflect on our readings, two different messages: (1) what I must do in order to be saved, and (2) Jesus IS the true source of insight into the meaning and purpose of life. The first message, from ACTS, sets the context for the second message from John’s Gospel.

In ACTS the jailer asks Paul and his companions, what must I do to be saved? Paul’s reply is: Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. In the Gospel Jesus cures a man born blind. The following two questions immediately than came to mind: (1) What does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? and (2) Why was it important to the Gospel writer to indicate that the man was born blind? These two questions led me to this message.

To believe in Jesus means to embrace His way of living, accepting it as God’s revelation about how I should live my life. It is not sufficient to only believe that Jesus IS God incarnate. God became incarnated as a human being for a reason: to model for us how to live. This earthly existence is given to us in order to help us learn how to be the beings God intended when He created us.

Since God created us in His image and likeness, He gave us free will. This means that we must learn how to love and serve Him and to live like one of His children. He realized, however, that the only way we would be able to learn this is by having a model. Jesus is that model!

Using these thoughts as the context for understanding the Gospel story, I quickly realized why it was important that the man Jesus cured should have been born blind. We are all born blind as to the true meaning and purpose of life. A person does not automatically see the meaning and purpose of life. Life requires that we learn how to live in order to derive the full benefit of this earthly existence. Of course in order to learn how to live, we must first realize that we are born blind and can only come to see the true meaning and purpose of life by imitating Jesus.

In order to imitate Jesus, of course, requires, in almost all instances, that we change the way we think and behave. This is why Jesus stressed the necessity of metanoia, the process of changing our hearts and minds – changing our attitudes and behaviors. We must learn not to live by our natural instincts but by God’s Spirit within us. To truly be a human as God intended when He created us, we must learn how to be spiritual beings.

The most wonderful thing about life is that our Creator does not expect us to learn this on our own. He gave us help by becoming a human and left His Spirit to help us.

It was out of His love for us that He gave us free will so that we can freely love Him. True love must allow the other person to freely return love. That is how He created us. What a wonderful and loving God our God is! Let us rejoice and be glad!