The Man Born Blind

As we begin this sixth Paschal week, our readings are again taken from the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of John. The reading from Acts accounts Paul’s imprisonment in Philippi. Paul became imprisoned because he became annoyed with a clairvoyant girl who kept following him and Silas and declaring “These men are servants of the Most High God; they will make known to you a way of salvation.” One truly wonders why Paul became annoyed since she was proclaiming that they had an important message that people might want to hear. Paul, being annoyed with the young woman, drove out the spirit within her that allowed her to be clairvoyant. This, of course, caused a loss of revenue for her handlers and therefore they had Paul and Silas thrown into prison. Scholars comment very little on this story.

Our Gospel reading is taken from John’s account of Jesus curing a man born blind. The particular emphasis in this story is that the man was blind from birth! Jesus, obviously, gives him sight.

I believe that the message this weekend contrasts these two stories. The girl in Acts was clairvoyant. She did not derive her insight from Jesus, even though her insight was right on target.

The man born blind did not know who Jesus was but he encountered Jesus and was granted the gift of sight. It was Jesus Who gave him the ability to see

I thought about this and I realized that any faith we might have in Jesus must come from Jesus. We must accept Him as the one Who can give us “sight” to see what is true. Only Jesus can make known to us the way to salvation. We must listen to His word and embrace His way of living.

We must realize that the gift of understanding the revelation of God through Jesus is a gift that we can only receive from God and that the ability to believe this message is also a gift from God.

So we must not only be thankful for this gift but also make sure that we don’t judge others who have not received this gift. Belief in Jesus is God’s gift to us because He, through life, knows that this belief will help us to spiritually grow. It doesn’t mean that He loves us more than non-Christians. Rather it does mean that He knows that this gift is exactly right for us to help us spiritually grow