4th Sunday of Lent Year A 2014:
First, let me just say happy
Laudate Sunday to you all. You may
notice that I’m wearing the pink vestments today (call them Rose if that makes
you feel better). We do that because of
today’s entrance antiphon that starts: Rejoice Jerusalem. This pink vestment is a sign that we are
already halfway through Lent. Easter is
only 3 weeks away. So, the pink vestment
gives us hope in the midst of our Lenten penances, but also reminds us that we
have 3 good weeks left to prepare ourselves to celebrate the feast of Easter.
Today in the gospel we hear of the
encounter of Jesus with the man who was born blind. Right away I find something very interesting
about this story. Notice the first thing
the disciples ask Jesus “who sinned?”
Seems like a strange question.
Clearly the disciples recognize that this man’s condition is one of
profound difficulty. This man bears an
affliction, for he is deprived of sight.
Because of this, he would have experienced much suffering in his
life. But, the disciples assume that
someone must have sinned, someone needs to be blamed for this man’s condition.
How does Jesus respond? Neither him nor his parents are responsible
for his condition. He was not born blind
because of someone’s sin. Many times
when people are going through a tough situation, they will say to me, “I think
God is punishing me.” It’s the same
attitude in the gospel, bad things happen because God punishes sin. But, I don’t think God works that way. I think it is true that we are often
judgmental and vindictive, but I don’t think God works that way. God does not cause evil. Why was this man born blind? Why do we suffer? Why do bad things continue to happen to good
people? We still want answers to these
questions. When faced with the problem
of suffering, sadness, grief, mourning, blindness, and death, we want to know
why this happens. Who sinned, who’s to
blame?
No one in particular is to be
blamed. We live in a broken world. The man born blind reminds us of this
fact. We inherit a certain brokenness, a
blindness. We go through suffering and
pain. But, this is not the end of the
story. Our Father in heaven looked with
mercy on us, and sent his Son Jesus to take away our blindness, to heal our
brokenness. He came to give us
sight. The story of the gospel is really
our story, because when we were baptized Jesus opened our eyes. He invited us to understand that while we
might live in a broken world, he came to bring us healing. Even though we might suffer and die, Jesus
came to give us strength and to lead us to everlasting life.
But, this doesn’t happen all at
once. Notice that the man born blind was
healed by Jesus, but when asked at first, he says that Jesus is a prophet. Yet by the end of the story, he calls Jesus
Lord and worships him. Even though he
was enlightened by faith, he continued to grow in his faith by his worship of
Jesus.
We have been enlightened by faith
through our baptism. But, we also grow
in our faith by our worship. Here at the
Mass we have a chance to worship Jesus, to receive the Holy Eucharist, to grow
in our faith. Like the man born blind in
the gospel today, we all experience the brokenness of this fallen world in one
way or another. But, enlightened by
faith that comes through baptism and strengthened by our worship of Christ in
this Holy Sacrament we can find in Jesus the one who can take away our
blindness, the one who can bring us healing and peace.
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