Full of light

Acts 16:16-34 • John 9:1-38

Glory to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In today’s Gospel, a blind man is made whole by faith!

…No, wait… That’s a different blind man.

This blind man is just sitting downtown with his begging cup, and out of nowhere a stranger puts mud on eyes and says “Go wash your face at Siloám.” No reason given. There’s no promise. No expectation of any miracle. Just a command. So he goes.

And blind man is healed as he obeys.

We were just here at Siloám two weeks ago, on the Sunday of the paralyzed man: “Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches” (John 5:2-3).

Seven hundred years earlier, King Hezekiah ordered the Gishon stream diverted to flow through a stone tunnel and create this pool as a freshwater reservoir within the city of Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 32:2-4). 

The place has a few different names: Beth Hesda, Bethesda, is House of Mercy. Breikhat HaShiloah, the diverted stream, the river that’s sent. In our English Bibles, that name is Siloám. (Nehemiah 3:15, John 9:7.)

Coming down the wide steps from ground level to the level of the water at Bethesda, you’d see five pillared arches to shelter under, because this was a stopping place for pilgrims going up the hill, bringing animals to sacrifice at the Temple.

We saw this place two weeks ago when the Paralytic was healed there.

Today the blind man is healed as he obeys. He goes to the water at the House of Mercy, obeys the simple command, to wash his face — and he’s healed.

Two weeks ago, the paralytic was healed at the same place by Someone whose name he did not know – not through faith, and not by his right doctrine or understanding. And that’s a lot like another paralytic, over in Luke’s Gospel, who was healed – not because of his faith, but because the Lord saw the faith of those who brought him and lowered him through the roof (Luke 5:17-26).

It is no coincidence that in today’s Epistle reading, the jailer is told “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and your household will be saved” (Acts 16:31). The jailer and all his family are baptized. Just as Jewish boys are circumcised on their eighth day, before they ever personally decide to embrace the Jewish Law, this prison guard’s children are all baptized into the Church because of their parents’ faith.

I have never studied the pharmacokinetics of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. But Ibuprofen works when I take it. Its effectiveness has never depended on any reasoning in my brain.

And as with the blind man and the paralytic, the grace of the baptismal sacrament works, because it doesn’t depend on anybody’s mental capacity or conceptual formulations.

But what a waste it is, to receive the water of new birth, to be established in Christ, but then to go on unhealed in our sins and passions. Here we are, in the House of Mercy, like the blind man, but we remain darkened.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light…” (Matt 6:22). In the King James: “If therefore thine eye be single.” (aplous = clear, simple, single.)

“…But when your eye is bad, your whole body also is full of darkness. Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness” (Luke 11:34).

Man’s heart is the place where he is meant to walk with the Lord in the light – but the heart is darkened by passions. Man’s attention is splintered by compulsions and delusions, distractions and obsessions. “If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! A double-minded man [is] unstable in all his ways.” (Matthew 6:23; James 1:8)

Psalm 86:11, in the King James, reads: “Unite my heart to fear thy name.” When your eye becomes single, pure, clear and whole, you will be entirely full of light.

In baptism we made a beginning. But “he who perseveres to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13). Between what we are now, and the likeness of God, lies the journey that the Fathers call purification, illumination, and union with God.

Christ tells us, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12). But then he turns round and says, “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).

Last week, Christ taught the Samaritan woman that we receive the water of life in order to become sources of living water. Today it’s the same reality: We receive sight in order to shine and be the light of the world – by taking part in the action of God.

Saint Peter writes that God has called us to glory and virtue and committed himself that “you might be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

The Gospel is not about getting saved from hell so you can go to heaven when you die. Man is not made merely to be pardoned from sins. Man is made for union with the living God. For participation in the life and nature of God.

What does that look like? “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control: against such things there is no law…  Love is patient and kind; love does not envy… does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil… Love never fails” (Galatians 5:22-23; Corinthians 13:4-7).

Put your name in there: When you say, “Silouan is patient and kind, does not envy…” is it true? If not, then you may have something to bring to confession.

For all these weeks since Pascha we have been eating and drinking, rejoicing in the resurrection. But today is the last Sunday when we’ll say, “Christ is risen.” On Thursday is the Ascension – a bittersweet day, because Christ is glorified – but the Church is left alone.

After Ascension, for ten days, where we have been saying “Christ is risen” and where we will start saying “O Heavenly King” after Pentecost – for ten days there will be an empty spot. Something missing. There’ll be a hole in our prayers. Every prayer will remind us to look for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

We have rejoiced with the Bridegroom, but now begin the days when we need to remember: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness – for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

Like the Samaritan woman last Sunday, we need to recognize our thirst. Today we need to recognize our blindness, and cry out, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us!” (Mark 10:46–52).

What does hunger and thirst for righteousness look like? It looks like irritability, quick temper, coldness to the ones we love. It looks like dissatisfaction, increase in temptation. No desire to pray. Those are ways our soul lets us know we are darkened and thirsty. And nothing but the grace of God will satisfy us, fill us with light, make us whole, unite us to Christ.

In two more weeks Pentecost is coming, whether we are ready for it or not. So the Lord commands the prophet Isaiah to preach:

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, and every high mountain and hill will be brought low. The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth — And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed” (Isaiah 40:3-5).

Twice in the Bible, in Jeremiah and again in Hosea we’re called to “Break up your fallow ground” (Jeremiah 4:3) — Plow your hard, untilled, unwatered, unproductive farmland — “for it is time to seek the Lord, till he comes and rains righteousness on you” (Hosea 10:12).

Between now and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, let’s prepare the way of the Lord. Fast days right now are all fish and wine and oil days anyway, so that’s not so hard.  If, amid the riches of Pascha,  we’ve lost the habit of fasting, then now is the time to return to where we started: Christianity 101 — pray, fast, give alms, guard your lips, forgive everyone.

Even if your obedience is small, as small as obeying the Lord who tells you Go to Siloám and wash your face! The Holy Spirit of God will delight to empower your obedience and respond with grace.

“The eyes of the Lord go to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of the one whose heart is loyal to Him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).

I want to leave you today with a spirit of expectation.

Our English word hope is a pale, sad thing. I hope it doesn’t rain. I hope the store will be open when I get there. I hope the baby inherits mother’s face, not dad’s!

The word hope in the Bible is confident expectation: Every graveyard shift worker knows this: Three o’clock in the morning is the worst time in the world. Time slows down and it feels like night will never end. But even at the worst, you know for a fact that sunrise is coming. Darkness will come to an end. “Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 29:5).

That’s confident expectation. The Lord tells his disciples, “Wait here in the city of Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from in high… And you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8).

In these days before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Church at Pentecost, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Stay thirsty.

Isaiah says,

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost… For I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground: I will pour my spirit on your sons and daughters, and my blessing on your offspring” (Isaiah 55:1; 44:3).

“And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb… And the Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let him who hears say, Come! And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him receive the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:1,17).

To the glory of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.