In today’s gospel (John 9:1-41) we hear of the encounter between Jesus – the self-proclaimed “light of the world” – and the man born blind. As in many events captured in the gospels, this encounter utilizes the physical – the healing of blindness – as a metaphor for the transcendent – coming to spiritual insight and truth. We hear that through encounter with Jesus the man’s eyesight is miraculously restored. But even more miraculously the man comes to realize the most significant of spiritual truths – salvation through Jesus Christ. And it is interesting how recognition of this spiritual truth is arrived at – not instantaneously like the physical cure – but gradually, little by little, by the light of Christ.
At the onset of his first encounter with Jesus, the blind man has no knowledge of Jesus. After the miraculous healing, when questioned by his neighbors, he credits “the man called Jesus”. Then when challenged by the religious leaders, the man first refers to Jesus as “a prophet” and later as “a man from God”. Finally, during his second encounter with Jesus the man affirms his belief in Jesus as “the Son of Man” and bows down to worship his “Lord”.
So we see how, after Jesus “touched” this man, the man slowly came to see Jesus for who he truly is – not just a man, not just a prophet, not just a man from God, but Lord and Savior. We see how God’s grace worked in this man – how that instantaneous miracle that healed the man’s physical blindness, was impetus for the more gradual healing of the man’s spiritual blindness.
And it is the same for us. For most of us, coming to an understanding of who Jesus truly is takes time. Coming to experience the fullness of Jesus’ great love, compassion, and forgiveness happens gradually. Coming to faithfully proclaim Jesus as the Lord of our lives and trustfully turning our lives over to him rarely happens overnight.
But we find comfort in the fact that coming to know and love Christ is not primarily our initiative. It is God’s initiative. Just like he did for the blind man, Jesus reaches out to us with his healing touch, and allows us to embrace him. Jesus does this over and over for us. We only need to dispose ourselves to him with open hearts and minds. We only need to respond to his loving gesture – to the gift of himself.
Coming to know, love and experience Jesus, coming to know what he wants of us and how he wants us to live our lives – this is the journey of our life – a journey that we do not travel alone, a journey that is illuminated by Jesus – “the light of the world”. And as we journey we carry this light into the world to all those we encounter so that they too may come to see Jesus as their Lord and Savior.