Sunday of the Man Born Blind 2024

Ambon Prayer 76 (optional)

The Holy and Glorious Martyr Irene; Our Venerable Father Nicephor, Hegumen of the Medikion Monastery

After the dismissal:Priest says “Christ is risen” and the faithful respond “Indeed he is risen” 3x and the Paschal troparion is sung once by the priest and twice by the faithful (DL 170)

Title

A Sign of Contradiction

Outline

Christians are often a sign of contradiction

In the eyes of their culture they have the wrong response to events in life and that engenders hostility in the culture at large but conversion in those who receive grace.

Take the responses to the evil in both of our readings

Paul is irked by the preaching of the demonized girl just as the Jewish leaders had been irked by the apostles’ preaching the resurrection in Acts ch 4. But Paul is irked because a true message is coming from a demonic source, which means it had a twist in it for demonic purposes and came at a cost to the girl. She proclaimed the truth but was not free to accept it.

When Jesus’ disciples see the blind man they want to attribute guilt, a typical cultural reaction to suffering. Jesus instead sees it as a grace: it was so God’s works might be made manifest in him.

Then there different responses to the manifest power of God

The owners of the female slave can only see lost revenue, not their release from exploiting the girl or the freedom of a child of God. Likewise the jailer in Philippi can only see his own execution in the opening of the jail’s doors, while Paul and Silas see his salvation.

The Jerusalem Jews can only see a broken Sabbath in the healed beggar and so conclude that either it was not a real miracle or that Jesus is a sinner, presumably using dark forces. Jesus sees a man coming to commitment: “Do you believe in the Son of man?”“You have seen him, and it is he who speaks to you.” “Lord, I believe”; and he worshiped him. Of course the man has been brought to an earlier state of faith by the hostile questions of the Jerusalem Jews when, using his reason he says, “Why, this is a marvel! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if any one is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” Of his wise insight did not receive a good reception.

Note that part of this was designed by Jesus who chose to spit on the ground and make clay (the Jews would see it as making medicine) and then sent the man to wash it off resulting in the man’s not being able to follow him immediately because he had never seen Jesus to recognize him and was not around Jesus but at the pool when he received sight. And notice that Jesus points out before the healing, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” It is a light the blind man comes to in steps and which the Jewish leaders turn away from.

We could continue our contrasts, but there are also some conclusions

We could continue by noting that the response to the earthquake in Philippi was probably fear and disaster assessment or terror as in the jailer, not connecting it to Paul and Silas, while the response to the severe beating had likely been satisfaction at justice done by the magistrates and the slave’s owners, while Paul and Silas respond by praising God (good thing to do when you cannot sleep), perhaps for the deliverance of the slave girl.

But for us realize that we need to see the world with different eyes, with resurrection eyes, with the eyes of Jesus.

And realize that acting on what one sees, doing what you see the Father doing, is not the way to popularity. It can bring great hostility and suffering. We celebrate one holy martyr today, Irene.

Yet in the end seeing with the eyes of Jesus and acting as Jesus would will lead us to seeing the salvation of God and increasing our resurrection life. And that makes it worth it.