There is sight, and then there is sight

There is blindness and then there is blindness. There is sight and then there is sight.

Today we hear of a man who was born blind…healed by Jesus he gains both sight and vision.

The man born blind did nothing to deserve Jesus’ attention. He did nothing to earn the free gift of Jesus’ healing. But his healing revealed that there is sight…and then there is sight. And along the way, the gift of sight is passed along to us and other followers of Jesus.

Let’s see what happens!

Jesus meets a man blind from birth both begging for a few shekels for food. He heals the man and tells him to go and wash in a pool that was supposed to be a place where the sick could be healed. Jesus makes a paste or a salve of mud and spit and says go wash. And when he does what he is told, he is healed. And everyone is excited! But not everyone believes it.

The religious leaders are skeptical about Jesus. They’ve seen it all before: snake oil salesmen and religious hucksters were a dime a dozen in Jesus’ day. People claiming to be prophets who were in fact only attributing their own strange ideas to God. Others offering quick fixes for one low, low price. And I am sure that they have seen all kinds of, ahem, interesting people who want to, uhm, share their stories. Sound familiar? Me, too. The truth is, I’m kind of sympathetic to their skepticism.

The problem is that their skepticism doesn’t allow them to look at the evidence right before their eyes. Skepticism means you look at the evidence, not laugh it off just because it looks weird! And you don't write someone off because you've been burned in the past. But listening and investigation requires attention and work, and these folks didn’t want to give this formerly blind beggar the time of day. They try to say that he is not the same man, or that he only pretended to be blind. And when those explanations fail, they essentially stick their fingers in their ears while saying “la la la! I can’t hear you!” by saying that the was born entirely in sin and kicking him to the curb.

As I said, there is blindness and then there is blindness.

Jesus meets the man again. It’s a good thing for Jesus that he did not ask the man how he received his sight, because after the grilling he just came away from, he might have hauled off and popped Jesus one right in the kisser!

Instead, Jesus asks the man if he believes in the Son of Man.  The man says “show me, and I will believe.” Of course, he is being shown because Jesus is standing right there. And the man does believe.

The most religious and righteous people in the land see Jesus and do not believe. But this man, who was blind sees Jesus for who he is, and believes.

There is sight, and then there is sight.

Blindness can come from seeing too much. It can come from thinking we know how the world works and ought to work. It can come from thinking we have everything under control. It can come from thinking that we can get God on our side if we are good enough, smart enough, clever enough. Blindness can come from thinking that we have in ourselves everything we need, and that we don’t need anyone else—and that we above the need for spiritual help.  Often, when we think we see the most, this is when we are the most blind.

But sight can also come when we can see the least. Have you ever wished you could see around life’s corners? Have you ever believed that what you thought you saw turned into something else? Have you ever been let down by what you thought you saw clearly? Have you ever been blind to the world around you—it’s gifts, it’s beauty, it’s possibility? Have you ever turned a blind eye to the people most in need of care, compassion and a taste of hope?

These are the people that Jesus touches. The ones who knew they had no sight, no hope, no direction, only dependence and fear and limitation and dead ends. These are the people Jesus touches and the one to whom he brings sight.

The man born blind did not just get up and dance around the room. There were skeptics. He did not see clearly. He knew that he had been healed, and he knew that his healing was a gift; but it took time from his sight to become vision. His vision grew and grew until he saw and recognized Jesus. He knew the change in him came from God through Jesus and then it all clicked.

Vision is like that. The spiritual life starts with a dim awareness of grace.  And if we follow it, that awareness grows and grows. We know that God is doing something. We know that we are being changed. Those around us may not understand it, they may even discount it. But it is real.

But as our sight grows, as our awareness of God grows, we find that Christ is there. He was the one who touched us. He is the one making us whole.  He is the one who lifted our blindness and allows to see the world for the first time—as if it were through God’s eyes.

There is blindness and then there is blindness. There is the blindness that comes from not being able to see. And there is the blindness that comes from choosing not to see what God has put before us.

And there is sight and then there is sight. There is the sight that comes from resting in our own knowledge, our own power, and our own keen sense of the world as it is. We may think we are being realistic in our skepticism, but we may simply be locking the door on grace. There is another sight, a sight that brings vision. That is beginning to see ourselves and creation as loved, cherished and worthy of being renewed.

There is sight that sees God at work in simple acts of kindness. There is vision to see God at work in the care for the poor, the outcast and the lonely. There is light that comes from encountering the face of Christ in every person that God brings to us.

The world sees Jesus as a long-ago figure of history and myth. The realists in the world see our faith as a desperate allegiance to a good man who failed miserably on an executioner’s cross. The skeptics see us as sadly deluded. All of them can see for themselves.

But we who have been touched by Jesus, and washed in the waters of baptism, and who have seen the Christ in faith, in sacrament, in community, in the faces of our neighbors… we have a different vision. And for all that we have seen and heard, we have only caught a glimpse of what God sees: a people capable of love, of faithfulness, and compassion, and a creation full of wonder and possibility. We don’t claim to see everything, but we know that in Christ, God removes our blindness to gives us hope and the ability to see the world bit by bit and more and more as God does.

So there was only seeing, but now there is sight!

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Here are the Scripture readings for 4 Lent A, March 15, 2026

Here is the website for St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida 

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here