Fourth Sunday of Lent

Father Stephen Bankemper

Guest

How blessed we are in Lent to have such rich fare in the Scriptures provided for us! We heard the story of Jesus’ temptations on the first Sunday, then the Transfiguration, the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well last week, and this week the story of the man born blind.

If part of your Lent is to read more Scripture, you could do no better than to read these stories two or three times again, slowly, savoring the details. The details on which this article will focus will be the question Jesus’ disciples ask him about the man born blind and his answer, what Jesus does to bring sight to the man, and what he tells the man to do as his part in gaining his sight.

In the background of Lent and Holy Week is Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden; after all, that is the reason we needed a Savior. Although some people think that “Original Sin” refers to Adam and Eve’s disobedience, this is a misunderstanding. “Original Sin” refers to the wounded state that all of humanity inherited after their sin.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, Adam and Eve did commit a personal sin, but what we inherit from them is not their sin, but the “fallen state” of human nature. The Catechism continues: “That is why original sin is called ‘sin’ only in an analogical sense: it is a sin ‘contracted’ and not ‘committed.’” (CCC 404) To the question, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents…?” Jesus answers, “neither he nor his parents sinned . . .” We can hear in his answer a reference to Original Sin. We did not commit Adam and Eve’s sin, rather we inherit a human nature that is “fallen” or wounded. We needed someone to save us; we received more, which we will see a little later.

Many people have wondered at the strange way that Jesus brings sight to the man. Modern Christians are likely to think immediately that Jesus is being unhygienic, but some biblical scholars explain Jesus’ actions in terms of a Rabbinic tradition about creation. Genesis relates that God formed the first man out of clay, but one needs water to make clay from dirt, so the tradition says that God used spittle to mix with the dirt. This means that Jesus is not “healing” the man, as one sometimes hears. In fact, the text of the Gospel never uses the word “heal,” rather, the text reads “gained his sight” and “able to see” and four times some version of “opened his eyes.” The implication is that this is an act of re-creation restoring what God originally intended, undoing the damage brought about by Adam and Eve.

After smearing the clay on the man’s eyes, Jesus tells him to go wash in the Pool of Siloam. How does a person appropriate for herself or himself this restoration? By washing, or more properly, by being washed in the waters of Baptism. This restoration will not be complete until “the resurrection on the last day,” but Baptism begins the process of that restoration.

The theme of light versus darkness/blindness versus sight is woven throughout this Gospel, highlighted by the Church’s choice of the second reading: “Brothers, you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” (Eph 5:8) Notice the present tense: now you are light in the Lord. We are born into darkness — as St. Thomas Aquinas puts it, a double darkness: “. . . removing from me the double darkness into which I was born, namely, sin and ignorance.” (Prayer Before Study)

We are born under the condition of Original Sin but need not remain in sin. We are born in the darkness of not knowing God, not living for God, but need not remain in that ignorance. In baptism we have been freed, our eyes have been opened, let us now live in that freedom and sight, as Paul exhorts us. Let us live as children of the light, and children of the Light.

Father Stephen Bankemper is pastor, St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Ft. Thomas, Ky.