4th
Sunday of Lent (Year A)
(LAETARE SUNDAY)
First
Reading: 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7,10-13a
Second Reading: Ephesians
5:8-14 Gospel Reading: John
9:1-41
“I
AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, ANYONE WHO FOLLOWS ME WILL HAVE THE LIGHT
OF LIFE.”
There
is a story told about a little boy at church with his mother. He was
a good little boy, quite and well behaved. He didn't cause any
problems. But every once in a while he would stand up in the pew,
turn around, look at the people behind him and smile at them. His
smile was infectious, and soon everybody behind him was starting to
smile back at him, too. It was all going fine until the mother
realized what the little boy was doing. When she did, she grabbed him
by his ear and twisted it a bit, told him to sit down and remember
that he was in the church. Then he started sniffing and crying, and
she turned to him and said, “That's better.”
It's
kind of sad, isn't it, that some have the impression that when we
come to church that it is all gloom and doom, and that there is
nothing here to really bring joy into our lives?
Today
is the 4th Sunday of Lent, and as the Liturgical tradition holds - it
is rather unique, as evidenced by the rose-colored
vestment and the flowers
adorning the Altar. Like the 3rd Sunday of Advent ('Gaudete
Sunday'),
the 4th Sunday of Lent is a break
in an otherwise penitential season and it marks the halfway
in our Lenten preparation for Easter. The 4th Sunday of Lent
customarily is called "Laetare
Sunday," and
it takes its name from the opening words of today's Mass, the
Introit's 'Laetare,
Jerusalem.'
The Latin word 'Laetare'
means 'rejoice.'
So, today the Church rejoices in joyful anticipation of the Easter
mystery. We look ahead with joyful hope to what awaits - the
celebration of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It is almost as if we have reached the crest of the hill and
now can see our destination in view.
Although Lent is a season
of penance, we have much about which to rejoice at this
momentary mid-juncture. Very appropriately, each of the three
Scripture Readings characterizes one of the many facets of Easter
joy. They all anticipate the joy of Easter and the happiness that
reconciliation brings.
Just
as last week there was a dominant image of 'water'
that tied the Scripture Readings together, this week we have the
image of 'light and sight' that
does the same, 'giving
us joy in our heart.'
But, of course, the readings and their selection are much richer than
just an image or symbol. The
central theme
of today’s readings is that God makes everything new in and through
Jesus Christ. We are children of the light baptized into the glory
that is Christ. We are initiated into the life of Christ
who is the light of the world. In the First Reading from the
1st Book of Samuel, we have Prophet Samuel
going in search of the new king in place of Saul who was not faithful
to the Lord. When he finds David son of Jesse, God tells the prophet
to anoint him because God himself has chosen him
to rule over his people. The Gospel Reading from St. John
presents us 'Jesus as the light of the
world.' We have today the marvelous story about the cure
of a man born blind. Once the blind man is cured, he is able to see
Jesus as his Lord, something the religious leaders were unable to do.
In the Second Reading
from his Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul reminds the Ephesians that
faith and Baptism rescued them from the darkness of sin and
introduced them into the light of Christ. They
are no longer blinded by the darkness of ignorance. So, he
urges
them to live lives that reflect the light of Christ they have
received.
“THERE
– ANOINT HIM, FOR THIS IS THE ONE!”
In
the First Reading we hear that the Prophet Samuel is sent by God to
Bethlehem to the house of Jesse to anoint a new future king of Israel
in place of Saul. The Reading emphasizes the Lord's surprising
choice: a shepherd boy, the youngest among the sons of Jesse. David
will become Israel's most famous king. The description
of God’s choice of David over his brothers is a tale of human
blindness, our inability to see spiritual truth as God sees it.
Divine wisdom searches the soul, knowing every thoughts of the mind
and knows those who will live as children of the Light. The
prophet Samuel is reminded that the Lord's vision goes deeper than
outward appearances. David is portrayed as the least
likely of his brothers to be chosen for greatness - it never even
occurs to his father to present David to Samuel as a candidate for
divine election. But God sees into the heart and directs the prophet
to anoint David, causing the spirit of the Lord to rush upon him -
“There – anoint him, for this is the
one!” Then there is a great
joy. The gesture of
anointing signifies both God’s choice of David and his consecration
for the mission entrusted to him, shepherding God’s people as king.
The blindness of those around David to his potential for being an
instrument of God’s power is a symbol on many levels of how sin can
blind us to God’s will for us and for the world.
JESUS
AND THE MAN BORN BLIND:
In
the Gospel Reading of today from St. John we hear the marvelous story
about Jesus healing a man born blind. It speaks about darkness
to light
– as a result of Jesus’ intervention. St. John presents a sad
account of a healing miracle. Instead of rejoicing over the
miraculous cure of a man born blind, the religious leaders are filled
with hostility and the stubborn refusal to accept that good has been
done. Their attitude is all the more sad because the evidence is so
clear. The poor beggar is thrown out of the religious community.
Jesus looks for him and reveals his identity. The man sees and
believes. Jesus rebukes the
Pharisees for presuming to know and to see. It is this presumption
that blinds them.
The story emphasizes
all the way through that the man was blind from birth. The man owes
his new being not to his parental origins, or to his pedigree in the
Law of Moses, but to the sudden unearned gift of the encounter with
Jesus. Falling down to worship Jesus, he recognizes him not just as
the source of his sight, but more importantly as the origin of a
whole new way of being. Note that Christ was not ‘restoring’
sight to him but giving him 'new'
sight. Sight for someone who had
never seen!
The
miracle also tells us much about
Jesus. It was initiated by Jesus, “He
saw a man blind from birth.”
To 'see'
for Jesus means seeing the possibilities for faith. The blind man did
not ask for a cure. Jesus volunteered it. He was touched to the quick
by the man’s condition and offered the miracle.
St.
John's aim in presenting us with this marvellous story about the cure
of a man born blind is to show Jesus as our light. Little attention
is given to the actual healing miracle itself. When he is cured, he
sees all material things around him and also is able to see Jesus as
his Lord, something the religious leaders were not able to
do.
St.
John narrates
that as Jesus and his disciples were walking along, they encountered
the blind man and the disciples asked Jesus the reason for his
blindness - whether it was his own sins or the sins of his parents.
During the time of Jesus the popular belief was that there was a
close link between sins and a chronic sickness or disability and that
the sins of the parents could have their effects on their children.
Here Jesus clarifies the meaning of suffering in the life of a
person. The
man is not blind because of sin, but to show
forth the glory of God.
Now,
Jesus cured the man born blind by rubbing spittle and dirt into his
eyes and after his cure there were different reactions from different
corners: First, the neighbors.
They
discuss his identity. Some of them asked
if the man was the same beggar they knew. Others said he was just a
look alike. Despite his assertion that he was the man, they remained
indifferent to God's wonderful work wrought in their midst. Second,
the Pharisees. Having been brought by the neighbors to the
Pharisees, they interrogated the man. They asked how he was cured. He
told them. But knowing that he was cured by Jesus on a sabbath which
must be kept holy by abstaining from everything except what the
Pharisees prescribed, they concluded that he was not blind and
therefore no cure had occurred. The tragedy of the Pharisees was that
they just could not see beyond the law. Thus they concluded that
because Jesus did not keep the sabbath, He was not of God. More, He
was a sinner. Truly, the Pharisees were unable to see beyond their
prejudices and prejudgments. They had eyes yet they could not see.
Third,
the blind man's parents.
The Pharisees sent for them to verify his identity and to tell them
how he was cured. The parents confirmed that he was born blind. But
how he was cured, they did not know. They then added, "Ask him,
he is of age; he can speak for him self." They made this stand
because they were afraid to be expelled
from the synagogue for acknowledging "the man" as the
Messiah.
The
final scene is
the blind man being sought out by Jesus because Jesus has heard how
the Pharisees treated him and threw him out. Because he has been
faithful to Jesus and wants to learn from Jesus, Jesus tells him his
identity and the blind man treats Jesus accordingly and worships him.
Physically blind, he comes to profess his belief in Jesus as the
Christ. 'Lord
I believe.'
He came to the true sight of faith in the Lord of life. A second
miracle happened! His bodily eyes were not only opened but also his
eyes of faith. Thus he could now say in the full sense of the word,
“I
was born blind and now I see!”
The images of light and darkness run all through this story and help
us to see that the lesson is that we must, like the blind man, move
from spiritual darkness to spiritual intuition and light. And again,
it is through Jesus
that this can happen.
Let us
now see the gradual
progress in faith of the blind man symbolized by the movement from
total darkness to light—a movement that marks a journey from
unbelief to belief. In the beginning he was blind, he was in
darkness. In the end he is in the light, not just of his physical
sight but because a deeper insight opens him up to Jesus who is the
Light of the world. Before his neighbours, he affirmed that he was
cured by a 'man
who is called Jesus'
- everything he knew about Jesus then. When asked by the Pharisees
what he thought of 'the
man,'
he answered, 'He
is a prophet.'
And finally he addresses Jesus as 'Lord'
- a title reserved for God. This acknowledgement has an
implication—that we come to live as the children
of the Light.
The
figure of a man blind
from birth is a fitting image of the human condition known as
'original
sin.'
Without personal fault or responsibility, the man is nonetheless
truly 'in
the dark' of
a sinful world. St. John tells the story of the man’s cure by Jesus
in a way that reveals who it is that is truly blind—those who
stubbornly refuse to accept Jesus as the light of the world. Social
sin is not the same as original sin, but flows from it, and is the
cumulative result of human choices to turn away from the light. Not
only each individual, but the world itself—as a result of original
sin, the personal sins we commit, and structures of social sin—is
in need of Christ, our physician, for healing.
“YOU
WERE ONCE DARKNESS, BUT NOW YOU ARE LIGHT IN THE LORD.”
In the Second Reading
from his Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul contrasts the time of
darkness before baptism and the time of light that results from
baptism. He
tells the Ephesians and us too that once we were in darkness but
through baptism we have been brought into the light of the Lord. So,
we are to live as children of the light. In this
time of light, we are called to make the 'seeds
of light' grow
and produce – to bear the 'fruit
of light' that is found in all that is good, right
and true. Our sharing in the light-life of Christ must be reflected
in the way they live. There should be no dark corners in our lives.
He says, not only must the children of the Light not participate in
the unfruitful works of darkness, but also, they have an obligation
to expose them. Christ does not shine on those who remain in slumber
and not heeding to light.
The
quotation at
the end of the reading, “Awake,
O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will will give you
light!”
is probably an early Christian prayer associated somehow with the
Baptism ceremony. It shows how the Christian moves from a negative to
a positive state – from sleep to wake, from death to life from dark
to light – and how Christ is the cause of this transition.
CONCLUSION:
Light and darkness, sight
and blindness are the contrasting images in the Scripture Readings of
this Sunday. The central message
is that Christ heals our spiritual blindness in our Baptism and makes
us witnesses of the truth. The verse before the Gospel introduces the
central point of our celebration, “I
am the light of the world, anyone who follows me will have the light
of life.”
The entire liturgy today therefore, celebrates the mystery of Christ
- the light of the world; the light that dispels the darkness of our
minds and our hearts; the light that draws us to walk out of the
shadow of our sins. In Jesus we are elevated into a new life. As the
man born blind received a new capacity, a new way of experiencing the
world, so, too, we receive a new capacity for a deeper way of life,
to come to experience the familiar world around
us in the unfamiliar light of Jesus, who is forever the Light of the
World.
So, as
we consider
the Scripture Readings of today, let us look at what in our lives is
darkness, the places where we are blind and try to shed light on
them. Are we blind to the sufferings and needs of our neighbour? Do
we show prejudice in our daily dealings with people? Do we ignore or
put into a dark place the things that we might have influence on to
help others? Even though we have become light, we still must choose
to put forth that light, to help others, to be a light for others. We
must make sure that our community of believers is supported and that
we show our love to each other. And this is the Good News makes of
today.
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