In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
Christ is risen!
We are here in these last days of Pascha: joyous days, celebratory days, days of wonder. We remember particularly the physical and bodily presence of the risen Christ among His disciples, you and me, before His triumphant Ascension into the heavens. And we are entreating Him, “Give us a Word, our God and Saviour, give us a Word for our spiritual benefit, give us a Word of comfort and strength, give us a Word to prove us right and all others wrong: Give us a Word.” Since we want to be spiritually uplifted, brought into mystical wonder, transcend our earthly existence. We want to cry out with the crowd, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” (John 6:14)
We seek a mystical experience, for our spirits to be drawn up into the cloud with Christ and all which is suffering, earthly, mortal and subject to death to be left behind. And Christ spits into the dust of the earth, makes clay and rubs it into the man’s eye sockets—a dirty experience, a disgusting experience, an experience about which I am repulsed; yet when I am seeking a Word on spirituality, or on high theology, this is precisely what I need: our spirituality is physical, our theology is incarnate. The Christian Life is not to seek an escape from this world, rather we are to bring the Kingdom of God into this world, make it manifest in this world. Our Christianity is not an escape but a fulfilment, not mere spirituality but body, soul and spirit fully alive.
And I squirm and I writhe: I want a spiritual message for a Sunday—food for thought—before I return to the difficulties and challenges of work and family life. And I complain when this message is brought before me,
This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.
Yet if this is true, if this is real, if this is the totality of the revelation of God to humanity, then I cannot stay the same. I was blind, I was content in my own misery, I had never even glimpsed the beauty before me—now I have received my sight and I can never go back to be as I was. I am as a butterfly who wants to return to his cocoon rather than soar aloft. And I complain alongside the Pharisees rather than give God the glory, I hide with the parents too afraid to put my own head above the parapets.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord is saying to you, and He is saying to me, “Do you believe in the Son of man?” Not as a philosophical concept, but “Are you faithful to the Son of man? Are you loyal to the Son of man? Do you place your trust in the Son of man?” Because this is not just a concept, merely an idea, this is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” (John 14:6) And I must face the disgust and discomfort, I must recognise myself as incomplete, layered in sin, enslaved to death. And when God comes to heal me I feel revolted and sickened, because He spits into the earth, makes clay, and forms me into the likeness of the true Man, into the likeness of Christ.
And having been brought before Christ, having had our eyes opened, having been cleansed through baptism and brought to new Life we must not abandon the world but we must bring the Kingdom into it, we must sanctify the world, we must transfigure the world by restoring the ancient beauty—the beauty and dignity of Paradise—within us. Here and now, we are called to be Christians with not only our minds but our entire selves, we are called to repent and turn again to the living God not as a “Sunday event” but through the totality of our lives.
Let us, therefore, seek not a philosophical system but the Church, seek not an escape from the world but its transformation, seek not change in others but change—repentance—in ourselves, that we may be worthy of the name Christians and cry out to Christ, “Lord, I believe,” and worship Him.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
That we may offer true glory, honour and worship to our incarnate, crucified and risen God and Saviour Jesus Christ, in Whom we unite what is spiritual with what is physical, together with His unoriginate Father and the All-holy, Good and Life-giving Spirit, Amen.
Brethren, it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness, ” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, “I believed, and so I spoke, ” we too believe, and so we speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
— Second Corinthians 4:6–15
At that time, as Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him. We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day; night comes, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” As he said this, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed the man’s eyes with the clay, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar, said, “Is not this the man who used to sit and beg?” Some said, “It is he”; others said, “No, but he is like him.” He said, “I am the man.” They said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash’; so I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know. They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. The Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put clay on my eyes and I washed, and I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” There was a division among them. So they again said to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet. The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight, and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess him to be Christ he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age, ask him. So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and said to him, “Give God the praise; we know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether he is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you too want to become his disciples?” And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “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 anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who speaks to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe”; and he worshiped him.
— John 9:1–38