Homily on the Sixth Sunday After Pascha: The Blind Man
By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov
(Delivered in 1962)
By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov
(Delivered in 1962)
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Dear brothers and sisters, today during the service the Gospel was read about the healing by the Lord of the man born blind, and you heard how the Lord, moved by a feeling of compassion, took pity on the man blind from birth, and by His almighty power granted him sight. Look, dear ones, how loving and merciful the Lord is. Marvel at His immeasurable and ineffable love for mankind and mercy.
As He passed by, He saw a man who had been blind from birth. This man did not know and did not suspect that the Divine Miracle Worker was passing by, who could grant him sight, and therefore he was silent, did not ask for mercy for himself, like others. The merciful Lord, who knows all that is hidden and secret in the human soul, Himself approached the unfortunate blind man and, having anointed his eyes with clay from spittle, granted him sight. O the great mercy of God! O His ineffable love! He does not wait for prayers from the unfortunate man for help, but Himself comes to him with His mercy and grants him healing.
You can imagine, dear brothers and sisters, how terrible the state of the blind is. For them, everything is covered by the eternal veil of darkness and impenetrable night, so that they are deprived of all those joys, high and pure pleasures that sight gives to man. After all, sight is a precious gift from God. What could be more joyful than the pleasure of contemplating the beauties of nature, especially in the spring, when everything comes to life, when the sun shines so welcomingly and warms so tenderly, when the fields, meadows, and forests take on a festive appearance, dressing themselves in a living, luxurious and multi-colored veil? The unfortunate blind man is deprived of all these great joys. He cannot see the sun, nor the stars, nor the moon, in order to contemplate in them the wisdom of his Creator. This was the terrible state of the Gospel blind man, whom the Merciful Lord healed, returning his sight.
But what is even more important is that this blind man received sight not only with his physical eyes, but also with his spiritual eyes. O ineffable mercy of God! He believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Savior of the world, to the shame of all the wise and intelligent among the Jews, who did not believe in the Lord despite the multitude of miracles that clearly testified to His Divine omnipotence. From the further Gospel narrative we see how the Pharisees reacted to this greatest miracle of God. Malice and pride blinded their hearts' eyes so much that in their stubbornness they not only did not want to acknowledge the truth and believe in the miracle that had been performed, but they also hated Jesus Christ even more, slandering Him, as if He performed miracles by the power of demons.
So it was then, so it is now: people, gifted by the Creator with a rational soul, capable of knowing the truth, due to their pride, willfulness and stubbornness do not want to know God and go against their mind and conscience, and people, become like senseless cattle in their ignorance, distorting the truth and justice. Knowing about the miracles of Jesus Christ, the blessings He gave to the people, hearing His wise, saving instruction and teaching, seeing His life - completely righteous, holy, they nevertheless attributed the miracles to the power of demons, distorted the meaning of the words of the Savior, reviled Him, calling Him possessed, a flatterer and a deceiver, and, finally, condemned the Most Holy of all the saints, the Son of God, to execution, putting Him to a shameful death.
This is terrible spiritual blindness! Is it not worthy of all disgust and bitter tears? After all, the one who is blinded in soul by pride and stubbornness is the most unfortunate person, the prey of hell, the spawn of Satan, nourished by the pride and malice of his father the devil. This is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, when a person, through pride and stubbornness, does not want to believe the obvious truth, proven by obvious miracles. There is no forgiveness for such a person either in this or the next age.
Sin obscures the eyes of our soul – the mind, conscience, heart – and blinds them to such an extent that a person, seeing, does not see, hearing, does not hear and does not understand. It seems, for example: how can a reasonable person, directing his gaze to the beauty of nature, to the wise structure of the visible world, to the wonderful order of the universe, not see in creation the Creator, God, Maker and Provider? How can a reasonable person, reflecting on himself, on his conscience, on his thoughts and feelings, on his lofty aspirations, not see in himself an immortal soul? How can a reasonable person, observing life, not see in it the hand of God's Providence? And, still, there were and are now people who do not believe in anything, but create their own imaginary, false teaching and do not want to know anything more.
And what can we say about the blindness that comes from the darkening of our conscience by vices and passions? This blindness can be very diverse and often reaches the most extreme degree. A person turns into an insensitive idol, without mercy and compassion for his neighbor, without love for his family. A person is added to the senseless beasts when he indulges in drunkenness, stinginess, and greed. A person completely loses his conscience when he indulges in the vices of theft, deception, and robbery.
In everything we must strive to imitate how the Lord acted, as the Gospel teaches us. And in this example we should imitate the Savior: on every feast we must do good deeds. But at the same time we must conceal both our good deeds and our names in order to avoid glorification. And moreover, after doing good deeds we must not be offended if we are subjected to mockery, abuse and persecution for them. The blind man who regained his sight is also worthy of our imitation, as a truthful, steadfast and fearless man. For his firmness in confessing the truth he was honored by the Lord with a great gift: to believe in Him as the Son of God.
Therefore, dear ones, may the Lord save us from physical blindness, and especially from spiritual blindness. And for this purpose let us flee from vices: pride, self-love, conceit, malice, envy, willfulness, stubbornness, drunkenness and intemperance, despondency and everything else that is contrary to the Lord, so that, enlightened by the light of Divine truth, we may attain endless eternal life. Amen.
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
