Saturday, April 9, 2011

4th Sunday of Lent – Jesus and the man Born Blind (Jn 9:1-41)

Our vision

Introduction

- There is story about Buddha, the founder of Buddhism One day he was meditating sitting under a tree. A soldier happened to go by that way. He did not like the physical make up of Buddha. He said, “You look like a pig”. Buddha looked at him with a smile and responded,” You look like God”. The soldier was amazed to hear that. “Why did you say that?” the soldier asked Buddha. Buddha said, “The whole morning I was meditating on God in my heart. When I see you in that spirit, I could see the image of God in you”.

Content

- Is our vision clear? Yes.

- In the gospel there are two kinds of blindness, physical blindness and blindness of the mind.

o Physical blindness – blind man

o Spiritual blindness – the Pharisees

- Sometimes our vision is distorted by distractions

o Eg: Samuel went to visit Jesse’s house to select a ruler for Jews. He looked and saw the 7 children handsome. But God selected David.

o Man sees the appearance and God sees the heart

o Eg: man saw peter as ‘fisherman’. Jesus saw peter as ‘Fisher’s of man’.

o Blind man did not know who healed him. We receive the blessings but do not recognize God.

o Parents of the blind man said, “we do not know”, out of fear.

o Pharisees “this man is not from God because he breaks the Sabbath” – over conscious of law that blocked them seeing good in others.

- Reasons for blindness

o Afraid of Jews, ignorance, over attraction to the worldly things and money, anger, lust, greedy, etc.

Conclusion

- 2 things to do for receiving a clear vision, the gift of Christ.

o The need to stand before Christ. Our prayer. Christ is the supreme light – reconciliation and repentance.

Do as Christ say – Christ would reveal the blocks in us (reasons for blindness). Remove them

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