Fourth Sunday of Lent
 
 
“You are looking at him; he is speaking to you.”
 
There are at least two ways of thinking about how we see the world. The first may involve going to the optician to have our eyes checked. We undergo tests to see if our physical sight and can be improved. But the second way transcends physical sight. In today’s first reading Samuel the prophet visits Jesse to choose one of his sons to be anointed as king. He sees seven sons but rejects them all because he does not judge by physical appearance. God gives him spiritual insight, which looks to the heart and enables him to choose David.
 
Easter night can show us two different ways of seeing. The Vigil Mass begins in darkness. After the new fire is lit, the light is passed through the church and people can see as the physical darkness is dispelled. Then, in the light of the paschal candle, the readings, from Genesis to the Gospel, are read aloud. The readers can see the words in the lectionary, but do they understand their meaning? They only make sense in the light of Christ. He gives us the spiritual sight to understand them and see how they all point forward to Christ himself. Our physical sight is given by the candles but our spiritual sight is given by Christ. He gives us a way of looking at the world which we call faith. But how do we come to faith?
 
We see the process of coming to faith dramatised in today’s Gospel. Jesus is in Jerusalem for the feast of Tabernacles. As part of this festival the Jews carried water from the Pool of Siloam to the Temple, which was illuminated by the blaze of four sets of great candles. Against that background Jesus claimed that he was the light of the world. Today the Gospel begins with a healing of a blind man. Jesus puts a mud paste on his eyes and tells him to wash it off in the Pool of Siloam. The man’s physical sight is restored. This creates a stir. The man is interrogated about the miracle. When asked who performed it, he gives a factual answer, “The man called Jesus.” But the miracle divides the Pharisees. Some recognise God’s hand in the healing but others see Jesus as a sinner for breaking the sabbath. The man is put under pressure, begins to assert himself and recognises that Jesus must be a prophet. The Pharisees check out his parents to see if he was really born blind but they are afraid; they acknowledge their son, and that he was blind, but won’t say any more. So back to the man the Pharisees go. They want him to deny the miracle. Now the man becomes bolder and says, in effect, “Jesus has given me my sight, and surely God doesn’t listen to sinners?” But they are blind to the facts and cast out the man.
 
Finally Jesus returns to the scene and challenges the man, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” When the man wants to know who he is, Jesus tells him that he can see him now. But it is not just physical sight; he now has the spiritual insight to acknowledge Jesus in faith: “Lord, I believe,” he says, and he worships him.
 
This Gospel reading is especially appropriate in Lent because, on Easter night, throughout the world, hundreds of thousands of catechumens will profess their faith and be baptised. They will receive the light of Christ. We notice in today’s Gospel how the blind man only comes to faith gradually and in the face of persecution and abuse. But at the same time the light of Christ shows up the darkness of unbelief. Some of the Pharisees cannot open their eyes to a new revelation. The parents of the blind man sit on the fence and are unwilling to speak.
 
It is not only those preparing for baptism who can recognise themselves in this account of the blind man. Lent is the time to examine our faith. We can easily be drawn to the darkness of unbelief by the pressures of a world which even persecutes the Church in many countries. We may be like the parents who want to keep quiet. Or we may be like the unbelieving Pharisees who turn from the light. Easter offers us the opportunity to go beyond our physical sight and to see the world with the eyes of faith and, like the blind man, recognise Jesus as the
Light   of the world.