Dr. Augustin Sokolovski
The Sunday of the Blind Man is the sixth Sunday of Eastertide. It is the last Sunday between Easter and Ascension Sunday. Liturgically speaking, the Easter season is coming to an end. Next Thursday, the Church will already be celebrating the Ascension of Jesus Christ.
Why was the Ascension necessary? Why didn’t Jesus remain here on earth with his disciples? After all, he could have stayed on earth, appeared to those who believed in him, and helped and healed them. But Jesus did not do so, because he came to save all humanity. The Ascension glorified him and made him visible and accessible to the entire universe and to all people. The Ascension of the Lord is a great feast. The Church prepares the faithful for the Ascension of the Lord every Sunday after Easter.
The main theme of the Sixth Sunday after Easter is the healing of the man born blind, as recounted in chapter 9 of the Gospel according to Saint John. This chapter is entirely devoted to the healing of the man born blind and consists of thirty-eight verses. The Gospel according to John has twenty-one chapters. It turns out that about one-twentieth of this Gospel is devoted to the story of the healing of the man born blind. It is clear that this account is of paramount importance.
The story of the healing of the man born blind is a prophetic account. It recounts the trial of the Lord Jesus, orchestrated by the religious leaders of Israel with the complicity and assistance of Herod and Pilate. Jesus was crucified on the basis of a verdict rendered by the Roman pagans and the people of God—the Israelites who handed Jesus over to his executioners. The story of the healing of the man born blind is a prophecy foretelling what would soon happen to the Lord Himself in the Gospel. Immediately after his healing, the formerly blind man is handed over to the leaders of the people; just as Pilate and Herod had passed Jesus back and forth between themselves, the leaders of the people take the blind man to his parents, then pass him back and forth again, ultimately to condemn him.
According to the Gospel, Jesus’ brothers did not believe in him, and the leaders of the people claimed that he healed through the power of the “prince of demons.” Jesus is the God-man and the Messiah. Jesus performed many good deeds. Through His deeds and words, He proved that He is the Son of Man and the Son of God—that is, the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the nations. Yet He was sentenced to crucifixion. Just as Jesus was accused of healing people on the Sabbath, the man born blind is accused of being healed by someone who does not observe the Sabbath. His parents disowned him, and in the end, he was expelled from the synagogue.
The story of the healing of the man born blind is also a theological account. This man, who was born blind, was healed by Jesus. He did not know Jesus, but he was already participating in His Work. He became a participant in his mysteries That is why he was put on trial. He overcame this trial; he did not deny Jesus. That is why, in the end, Jesus himself appeared to him and gave him the gift of faith. The man who had been blind from birth not only regained his physical sight, but he also became one of the saved.
“The disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned. But this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him,’ the Gospel tells us (John 9:3–4). Jesus accomplished God’s work in the man born blind. Jesus is God made man. As God, he is eternal; as man, he is like us. In this sense, Jesus himself is a marvelous work of God; he is the magnificent and majestic work of our Heavenly Father.
Jesus is the Son of God, who became incarnate in human history, who became man, as the Creed states, conceived by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, man for us and for our salvation. The price of all his healings and all his good works is the Cross and the salvation of humanity. “The man born blind said, ‘I believe, Lord.’ And he bowed down before him,” thus ends this Sunday’s Gospel (John 9:38). Jesus didn’t simply “create” new eyes for this man who was born blind. He gave him His own eyes. Christ is risen!