Fourth Sunday of Lent – Year A Scrutinies
Yesterday, I facilitated an all day retreat at St. Mary’s parish in Arnheim, OH. The theme for the retreat was “The Seven Last Words of Jesus: A Journey Toward Easter.” Jesus uttered some very powerful, radical, and life-altering words from the cross. Just the words, “Father, forgive them…” changes the way we conduct human affairs. Each of the seven last words of has the power to alter human history. I have conducted this retreat before. But yesterday, a new insight came to me. These last words of Jesus are not merely about what Jesus said from the cross. These last words reveal who Jesus really was as a person - divine and human. If it is true that crisis reveals character, then, the cross revealed his true self. The retreat also led me to understand today’s gospel story of the healing of the blind man a little differently . Jesus had said to the blind man: “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
My homily today is about Jesus the light. In my three points I want to talk about the light as a person, the light as a way of life and the light as a choice.
The Light - A Person
First, light is about recognizing Christ. The gospels are the best way for a serious Christian to know and understand Christ. On the one hand, the good news of the gospel is that God sent his Son Jesus to save us by his death and resurrection. However, the gospel also tell us about Jesus. They tell us that he was consumed by love for God, love for humanity and every individual person. He remained committed to this cause in the face of staunch and violent opposition. Not once did he repay evil for evil, but rather, showed tremendous capacity for tolerance, compassion and forgiveness. He was not weak. He was very strong. His strength lay in his integrity, his kindness, his unquenching commitment to mercy, justice and peace. He brought those on the fringes into the mainstream of society and religion and for that very reason, he found himself put outside. He made God accessible to all and questioned those who monopolized religion. His call for conversion was uncompromising and his invitation to faith was relentless. In the end, he sacrificed his life on behalf of humanity, including his enemies, and lay it in God’s hands. Until his last breath he was man but he was messiah; he was mortal but he was eternal; he was he was human but he was God; he came into darkness but he was light.
On that day, a man blind from his birth, not only saw the world, but recognized Jesus for who he truly was. He recognized him and worshipped him. That day he truly saw!
The Light - A Way of Life
To be in the light is not only see Jesus but also to understand the “way of life” he revealed. When Jesus called his disciples, his main goal was to found a community that would continue his way of life. We must remember that in the early Church, the followers of Jesus were called the followers of “the Way.” What is the way of Jesus. The way of Jesus is simplicity, poverty, humility, servanthood, the denial of self, the paradoxical dying to live, losing to gain, giving to receive, and surrendering to conquer. The way of Jesus is uncompromisingly keeping God in the center and honoring the dignity of every human person, including enemies. Jesus’ way is the way of peace that comes from eschewing violence even at a personal cost. Jesus way is about repaying evil with good, about reconciling humanity with God, peoples with peoples, individuals with individuals. This is historically true, that Jesus did not come to start a religion. Jesus came to show the Way. He began a way of life and invited his disciples to follow him along the way.
On that day, a blind man saw the light and began to follow Jesus.
The Light - A Possibility
The Jesus event, in the way that the gospels present them, was no ordinary event. The gospels present Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection as the signature event since creation unto its end. The Christ event brings meaning and purpose to human life. Jesus life takes humanity to it’s divine destiny. Jesus opens the way to salvation and eternity. Jesus is the Way and the Truth and the Life. If we believe this to be true, then every age, every generation, every community and every individual is presented with an eternal possibility - the possibility to come into the light of Jesus. However, removing our blindness is not merely a physical activity. Not to be blind means that I see Jesus for who Jesus is. To be in the light is give unconditional assent to Jesus’ way of life. To be in the light is to follow Jesus unconditionally. To be blind can mean any of the following things: to make Jesus into who I want him to be, like people tried to do in today’s gospel reading; to live our lives contrary to the way of peace, reconciliation, mercy, goodness, love, selflessness, openness and generosity that Jesus lived; to be blind is make an empty religion out of the Christ-event and to do service to self and institutions rather than the person of Christ.
On the one hand, the "light" is the gift of Jesus to us. But the scary part is that the "light" is a possibility, a choice we make.
- Fr. Satish Joseph