Homily for 15 March, Lent IV, Lætare

“The Lord sees not as man sees: … the Lord looks on the heart.”

Those words were first used to guide Samuel in choosing David as the King to replace Saul – but they apply equally to our Gospel today. There we see the Lord looking at a number of different people, and recognising the contents of their hearts. Helping and supporting one who needed him, and knew his need; but also calling to repentance and a change of heart those whose eyes worked perfectly well, but suffered from an inward and spiritual blindness.

When the Lord encountered that man born blind, he could see that he had a clean heart. Others knew of his affliction, and thought that this told them something about the content of his character, or perhaps that of his parents. Surely this blindness had to be a punishment for his wickedness. Christ tries to help all of these people. He knows that this is not some punishment, but rather it’s a chance for God and his great love to be shown to the world. This love will be proved in the healing he gives to the blind man.

He does this first and foremost because loves his people, and he has the chance to alleviate the suffering of this blind man. But he also does so because there were some around who had that false idea that God had reached out and struck him blind because of some fault in his life. They had a different kind of blindness, a blindness to the way God deals with his people. What we don’t know is how effective Christ’s cure was. When Christ heals, he only ever heals those who are ready to be healed. The physically blind man was ready to be healed, and he got exactly what he wanted from Christ, and he responded perfectly by accepting Christ and his message, by worshipping his saviour. We can well imagine that he would have gone on from that day always holding Christ and his message in his heart. Even though we aren’t told, it seems likely that he would have become one of Christ’s followers; certainly it seems as though after Christ’s Ascension, when the infant Church was spreading out with his message, that man would have sought out the followers of the one who changed his life so completely.

But those who were around seem to be more mixed. There are some who deny the clear evidence in front of them. They have encountered a blind beggar for many years, and now seeing the same man walking around with proper working eyes it’s hardly surprising that they have to pause and think. But even when he explains the truth to them, some still doubt.

Then there are others, those who were already determined to oppose Christ and his teaching. Even the clear evidence of a miracle doesn’t sway them. They refuse to see the work of God, and they just fuss over a little bit of mud on the Sabbath.

All of these by-standers are given the same evidence. They are clearly shown that something medically impossible has happened; something which can only come from God. But how they react varies widely. Some are curious, some seem to be convinced, others won’t even pause to look – they’re too interested in their own preoccupations.

As always, we should be thinking about how we fit into these groups. When are we able to recognise the workings of God? Are there times when we’re unsure, but at least open-minded to delve further? Or can we be too stuck in our own thoughts so that what God does entirely passes us by?

We tend not to come across miracles like the blind suddenly being made able to see, but in a whole variety of ways God is constantly showing himself to us, constantly presenting his works to us. How do we react to this?

It is surprisingly easy to ignore the evidence of God’s works which we are given. A large number of people did so even with something so significant and obvious are this cure of blindness – and with the evidence which we are given today, it’s even more possible.

We can ignore it because we’re unsure – in that case, we should continue turning to the Lord. He knows those deep contents of our hearts. He know what our doubts and our fears are – these are doubts and fears that he wants to help us with. There’s nothing wrong with turning to God and telling him what those doubts are, what those fears are.

But when we should be concerned is if we are putting our own thoughts, our own preferences, our own visions in the way of seeing God and his work clearly. The simple reality is that God does not fit into our own ideas – he’s far too big for that. What we need to do, is to be ready to put own our thoughts to one side so that we can see how he is showing himself to us. This is always difficult, not least because it involves giving up our own control over what God’s like…but it is something which we have to do. If we don’t, then we can end up like those who were denouncing the man whom Christ had healed.

God is working in all of our lives. He is showing us all his works, and all sorts of different ways. What is important now is how we react. We have to be ready to see those works – this might involves God working on the eyes of our hearts so that we can see him more clearly. Then when we see and recognise God’s works, we are given the perfect example in the cured formerly blind man. Those simple words ‘Lord I believe’ contain so much meaning. May we all have them welling up deep within our hearts. May we all have eyes and hearts open to see the works of God, and then be ready to respond to those works.