1 Timothy 1:15-17; Luke
18:35-43
We remain in a
period of preparation to behold Christ at His appearing. The One born at Christmas and baptized at Theophany
is brought by the Theotokos and St. Joseph the Betrothed to the Temple in
Jerusalem as a 40-day old Infant in fulfillment of the Old Testament law, which
we will celebrate later this week at the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.
By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the old man St. Simeon proclaims that
this Child is the salvation “of all peoples, a light to enlighten the Gentiles
and the glory of Thy people Israel.” The aged prophetess St. Anna also speaks
openly of Him as the Savior. At the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord
in the Temple, we celebrate the appearance of the Lord Who fulfills the ancient
promises to Abraham and extends them to all with faith in Him. By His appearance, He has enlightened the
whole creation. Christ is “the true light which gives light to everyone coming
into the world.” (Jn. 1:9)
If we have any level
of spiritual integrity and insight, however, we will recognize how far we are
from having the clarified spiritual vision necessary to behold the glory of the
Lord at His appearance. Despite our
celebration of these great feasts, we remain very much like the blind beggar in
need of the Lord’s healing mercy for the restoration of our sight. That may seem odd, for we are illumined in
baptism, filled with the Holy Spirit at Chrismation, and nourished by Christ’s
Body and Blood in the Eucharist. As we
sing after receiving Communion, “We have seen the true Light. We have received the Heavenly Spirit. We have found the true Faith, worshiping the
Undivided Trinity Who hath saved us.” Yes, the eyes of our souls have been cleansed,
but not to the point that we are fully transparent to the brilliant light of
Christ.
St. Paul wrote, “For
it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who
has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 4: 6) The Apostle gained
the spiritual vision to see himself, as he wrote in today’s epistle reading, as
“the foremost of sinners.” We quote him
in confessing that we are each “the chief” of sinners in our pre-Communion prayers.
To pray those words with integrity is a clear
sign that Christ is enlightening our hearts, for otherwise we would remain in
the utter blindness of thinking that we are justified in self-righteously exalting
ourselves before God and over other people.
St. Paul had the vision to do precisely the opposite when he wrote that “I
received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might
display His perfect patience for an example to those who were to believe in Him
for eternal life.” In other words, Paul
knew that if the divine mercy could extend even to a miserable sinner like him,
then there is hope for everyone in Christ Jesus. That is precisely the kind of humility that
even the smallest ray of spiritual light should inspire in our souls.
If we have truly
embraced the Lord’s mercy with the humility of the chief of sinners, then He has already
corrected our spiritual vision to the point that we can catch at least a
glimpse of how infinitely beyond us the fullness of His eternal glory remains. That is why we are able to see, at least partially,
how much darkness remains within us and how far we are from fulfilling the Lord’s
command: “You shall be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matt.
5:48) He also taught: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matt.
5:8) If we are not completely blind spiritually, hearing these words will
inspire us to call out with the humble persistence of the blind beggar for mercy
that will further restore and perfect our sight.
The blind beggar
is a model for us in many ways in how to gain spiritual clarity. First, he neither denied nor embraced his
inability to see. He did not accept some
kind of fantasy that distracted him from facing the truth about his
situation. He did not somehow convince
himself that the best he could do was to make the most of being a blind beggar. He knew that he could not see and desperately
wanted healing. Is the same true of
us? Have we become so comfortable with
our darkened spiritual sight that we do not long to become radiant with the brilliant light of our Lord, sharing as fully as possible in His blessed
eternal life? Have we become content
with a faith that is little more than an assortment of religious ideas and
practices that we use to distract ourselves from confronting where we truly
stand before God and in relation to our neighbors? If we are honest, we will answer those
questions not according to our passions but in light of our Lord’s infinite holiness,
for we must all engage in the perpetual spiritual struggle of opening our
darkened souls more fully to the light of Christ. We have all become too comfortable with the
darkness with us; to the extent that we recognize that, it is because we have
opened the eyes of our souls to receive at least a small measure of the light
of our Lord.
The blind beggar
is also a model for us because he called out to Christ when he did not fully
understand who He was. The beggar used a
very Jewish term for the Messiah, “Son of David,” when he asked for mercy. Like everyone else who was waiting for the
Messiah or “anointed one” at that time, the beggar surely thought of Christ as
merely an especially righteous human being who would bless the Jews by healing
the sick, casting out demons, teaching strict obedience to the Old Testament
law, and delivering Israel from occupation by the Roman Empire. They wanted a new King David, not One Who appeared
truly as the Son of God Who would conquer death through His cross and empty
tomb. The Savior did not, however, reject
the blind man’s request due to this lack of full understanding. Instead, the Lord graciously restored the man’s
sight because he had faith that He could heal him. Likewise, we must not be discouraged from
persistently calling out to Christ due to our imperfect faith or knowledge. Uniting
ourselves fully to Him is an infinite vocation that none of us has
completed. We may face deep struggles in
entrusting our most painful wounds and weaknesses to the Savior for
healing. We may wrestle with doubt almost
to the point of despair. God may seem
distant from the challenges that break our hearts. Like that blind beggar, however, we must
refuse to be denied, cultivating the trust to call for the Lord’s mercy from
the depths of our hearts in some form of the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
If we can pray that prayer with any measure of spiritual integrity, even
with faith the size of a mustard seed, that is because His light is already shining
in our hearts. The way to grow in faith
is to cultivate and magnify that light, which we do by offering even our deepest
pains and darkest fears to Christ through prayer from the depths of our hearts,
especially when we are sorely tempted not to. Let us do so with simple trust
that, as St. Paul wrote, “’whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall
be saved.’” (Rom. 10:13)
There is simply
no way for us to gain the spiritual vision to behold and know Christ more fully
than to embrace the daily spiritual struggle to share personally in His healing
and fulfillment of the human person in the image and likeness of God. When we stumble in doing so, let us use our
fall to grow in humility and sense of dependence upon His grace. There is no way to open the eyes of our souls
to His brilliant light without calling persistently from the depths of our
hearts for His mercy. That is precisely
the humility that attracts the grace without which we would be completely
blind. That is precisely the humility
that we see in St. Paul, who knew himself to be the chief of sinners. That is precisely the humility that we see in
the blind beggar, who refused to stop calling out for the Lord’s healing mercy. And it must be the humility that becomes
characteristic of us as those who recognize the 40-day old Christ at His Presentation
in the Temple as the Savior “of all peoples, a light to enlighten the Gentiles
and the glory of Thy people Israel.” He alone can overcome the darkness that
remains within us.
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