FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2024
PETER FERNANDES
Our eyes' primary object is colour. Without the power of sight, life is colourless. To date, no power on earth has been able to provide eyesight to a person born blind. If sight is so important to one’s quality of life, what is the value of life for a person born blind? Although we feel for people born blind, they can still experience the true meaning of life because it is beyond the power of sight. Life’s true meaning is supplied by true insight. If this were not true, then people born blind would be truly unfortunate. It is imperative to decipher the formal object of life itself, which gives true meaning to our existence. Otherwise, we will continue to pass judgment on people who lack physical abilities. “The disciples of Jesus asked him: Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, for him to have been born blind?”
Would it not be more terrible to have eyes and not see than to be physically blind? True blindness is not lack of eyesight but refusing to see the goodness of the Lord. The one who purposefully overlooks injustices, ills in society, crime and murder is refusing to see the contrast between God’s goodness and the sins of men. The percentage of people born physically blind is small, so how is it that so many in the world cannot see evil? Take a glance. Many mothers cannot notice their children in their wombs; the rich cannot perceive poor struggling to get their daily bread, and leaders do not see citizens being deprived of justice. There are those who become blind because of their religious beliefs. Jesus said, “It is for judgment that I have come into the world, so that those without sight may see and those with sight may turn blind.”
To see clearly is not just to have eyesight but also to have insight. True insight allows a person to see clearly God’s purpose for His creation and to recognise in every person’s face a child of God who is destined for life eternal. When Jesus cured the man born blind, many others were also healed. Here the healing brings an insight, a gift of faith, that lets the healed see things differently—to see with the eyes of faith. Those who were healed rejoiced, saying a great prophet has arisen in our midst and God has come to visit His people. Only God can restore eyesight and arouse insight in those who willingly seek God. There are always people with closed minds like the Pharisees, whose eyesight and insight are blind. “This man cannot be from God; he does not keep the Sabbath.”
The man whose eyesight was restored was privileged to see colour for the first time, and devoid of any fear, he proclaimed, “He is a prophet.” What do you see? In your line of sight, are there merely objects with colours, or do you see the deeper reality behind the objects? If colour is the formal object of one’s eyes, the formal object of insight—the eyes of faith—is the Creator, God. Is your sight clear, or are there blind spots? In Jesus, man was privileged to witness the reality. Do you see in Jesus the Christ of God? The faith and insight of the man born blind provide true revelation: “Ever since the world began, it is unheard of for anyone to open the eyes of a man who was born blind; if this man were not from God, he couldn’t do a thing.” “I was blind. Now I see.”
