Sunday of the Blind Man: The Clay (Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Mani)

Sunday of the Blind Man:
The Clay
 
By Metropolitan Chrysostomos III of Mani

“He made clay.” And with it Christ healed the blind man. Why did it say “clay”? What does this action of Christ mean? He could have done it with a word of His. With a touch of His. From afar. In another way. However, “He made clay.” From the dust of the earth.

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This action of Christ is intended to commemorate the creation and shaping of man by the Creator God. It refers directly to “ And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7). It is the reminder that “we are dust.” It is about the material component of man, the material nature of man with all the special idioms that come and express the perishable, the fragile, the transient, the finite. That is why the human physical element is also attributed with other terms and words, such as "earth", "dirt", "soil", "grass", "flower of the field", "shadow", "earthen house". Very enlightening, in this regard, are the words addressed by God to the fallen first-born Adam: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:19), Abraham’s confession: “I am dust and ashes” (Gen. 18:27), Job’s: “All dust returns to the ground, from where it was taken” (Job 34:15). And the Prophet’s: “He knows our frame; he remembers that we are made” (Ps. 103:14). Indeed, in Isaiah God is represented as the “potter,” and man as the “clay” in the hands of the Divine Creator. Thus: “Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; for shall the thing made say of him who made it, 'He did not make me?' Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, 'He has no understandin?'" (Is. 29:16).

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But into the mortal, the corruptible, and the futile, into the clay, God “breathed the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7), creating this man in the image of God and in the likeness of God. Man exists as the most perfect divine creation, the epitome of all creation. Psychosomatic unity, with value, honor, position and divine destiny.

This is why the wise Basil the Great will summarize: "That which is in man in the image of God is in the likeness of God in power, and that which is in the likeness of God is in the image of God in activity" (PG 30, 32c).

After all this, only “as children of obedience” before God can we continue the course of our life, so as to find our worthiness.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.