2nd March - Lent 4:
The Blind Man: Seeing beyond the physical disability

He wouldn’t let anything get in his way. He knew what he needed and he used all his energies to get it. Nothing was going to stop him getting what I had to offer.

Not the crowd – that endless press of people who lined the roads wherever I went. Even though he was pushed to the back he still wanted to reach out to me. He was prepared to set himself apart. He was prepared to defy his friends who wanted him to suffer in silence. They didn’t want him to bring attention to his infirmity. While they sympathised with his suffering they didn’t believe there was anything that could be done to put things right.

He didn’t even let tradition get in his way. He had been blind since birth and everyone knew that this was a curse. This disability was caused by some great sin in the past history of his family. He had been chosen to bear the stigma, the burden of that long forgotten crime. His punishment was to atone for whatever it was that had displeased God.

But all he wanted to do was to be able to see. All he wanted, for the first time in his life, was to gaze upon the beauty of a flower, the pattern of light and shade as the sun shines through the canopy of a tree, the face of a child smiling when given a treat. Was that too much to ask for? Was that too much to expect? To have something that most people take for granted?

He knew that I could give that to him. He knew the opportunity to be healed was passing him by as he sat where his friends had left him. He knew the chance to be able to see was right there in front of him. And he was prepared to make his need heard by shouting out to me.

What would you have done? If you had what he had needed, would you have kept on walking? Would you, like his friends, have been embarrassed and told him to keep silence? Would you, like the crowd, have condemned him to a life in darkness because of no act or fault of his own? Or would you have reached out and given him what he wanted so passionately?

He knew what I would do. He knew what I could do. He knew that I had to stop and help him in his need. He knew that I am prepared to reach out to all who admit their infirmity and call upon my name for their healing. And now his friends know it too. And so does the crowd. And soon the whole world will know it through their witness.

So, where do I go from here?

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