Eye Checkup

Do You See What the Lord Sees?

When was the last time you had your eyes checked? We shouldn’t take our eyesight for granted. Periodic check-ups are important because they assure us that what we’re seeing is really what’s there. Just as we need to have an ophthalmologist check our physical eyes, so we need Jesus to check our spiritual eyes. God’s Word from 1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 23:1-6, Ephesians 5:8-14, and St. John 9:1-41 provide us with a check-up for our spiritual eyes to offset our vulnerability to spiritual blindness to the truth, the way, and the life which Jesus calls us to embrace in order to get to Heaven. The first verse of a Christmas Song asks, “Said the night wind to the little lamb/ Do you see what I see/ Way up in the sky little lamb/ Do you see what I see/ A star, a star/ Dancing in the night.” Jesus asks each of us, “Do you see in yourself and in the world around you what I see?” The goal of every Christian must be to see himself or herself as Jesus sees him or her. The musical, Godspell, reminds us of what’s important, “Three things I pray/ To see Thee more clearly/ Love thee more dearly/ Follow Thee more nearly/ Day by day.” Our daily wish should be that of the blind man, Batimaeus, when Jesus asked him what he wanted and he blurted out, “Lord, that I may see” (Lk 18:41). The reality is that our sight, especially our spiritual sight, is never as sharp as it ought to be.

Convenient Blindness

There’s a saying that “there are none so blind as those who will not see.” Jesus told the Pharisee who saw themselves as the most faithful of all to God’s Law that they were blind to God’s love and compassion. He told them: “You have eyes but you do not see …” (Mk 8:18). Very often the problem is that we see only what we want to see so that our perception becomes reality for us leading to the distorted notion that we’re in touch with what’s real when in fact we’ve created our own reality at the expense of the truth. When God sent Samuel to anoint a king from among Jesse’s family the son he saw as king material was not what God saw as king material. What we see and what God sees are not the same. We see the externals but God sees the interior – the heart. God’s ways are not our ways (Is 55:8-10) but we need to follow His ways because in following them we store good things in our heart. Adam and Eve chose their ways over God’s ways and they led to suffering and death.

The Importance of the Mind’s and Heart’s Eyesight

Without physical sight we’re in darkness, although the ability to see isn’t solely dependent on our physical eyes. We see more through the eyes of our mind and heart than with our bodily eyes. This is why eye witnesses aren’t always reliable. The mind and heart influences what we see. It’s what we put in mind and heart that matters. “A good man brings good things out of the good stored in his heart an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored in his heart” (Lk 6:45). Jesus reminds us that sighted people can be blind and blind people can see. Jesus is our divine ophthalmologist who heals the eyes of our mind and heart. He confronted the Pharisees with this issue when He cured a beggar’s physical blindness (Jn 9:1-41). After mixing clay with His saliva and rubbing it on the man’s eyes, Jesus told him to, “‘Go wash in the Pool of Siloam.’” The result after he went was that he “came back able to see” (Jn 9:6-7). The Pharisees saw physical blindness as an outward sign of personal sin instead of just being a physical disease or deprivation. Jesus rejected their belief. Instead of seeing Jesus’s miracle and applauding it, they tried to discredit Him and accused Him of breaking the Sabbath rest. They blinded themselves to the power of God exhibited by Jesus and instead labelled Him as sinful by healing on the Sabbath. They refuse to see that Jesus came as God’s Light to dispel darkness of evil by enabling people to be freed from it. He informed His disciples: “We have to do the works of the One who sent me while it is day… While I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (Jn 9:4-5). Earlier, Jesus revealed, “I am the light of the world; no follower of mine will ever walk in darkness; no, he shall possess the light of life” (Jn 8:12). The light of life is the light which faith in Jesus provides. Jesus as the Light of Life dispels the darkness of evil by exposing Satan’s temptations for the lies that they are. Thus he fills our mind and heart with His grace so that we can participate in God’s divine life, the Life of the Holy Trinity.

The One and Only Light-Giver

As the “light of the world” Jesus came to help everyone see what is real, true, good, and beautiful. Healed of his physical blindness, the beggar now came to recognize Jesus as Lord. Jesus said to him, “‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered and said, ‘Who is he, that I may believe in Him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen Him, the one speaking with you is he.’ He said, ‘I do believe, Lord,’ and he worshipped Him” (Jn 9:35-37). The words of Johnny Nash’s song sums up his joy, “I can see clearly now, the rain is gone/ I can see all obstacles in my way/ Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind/ It’s gonna be a bright, bright/ Sunshiny day.” Jesus alone can help us to see clearly what is freedom, justice, love and peace. He does this through the preaching, teaching and the Sacraments of His Church.

If the beggar was able to recognize Jesus for who He was, why didn’t the Pharisees? In the Old Testament God warned Samuel: “Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart” (1 Sam 16:7). The Pharisees looked through the eyes of what they had put into their mind and heart, namely pride, envy, and jealousy which clouded their perception of Jesus. They didn’t see Jesus the Miracle Worker; rather they saw Him as the Sabbath law-breaker. Flip Wilson, an American comedian, used to say, “What you see is what you get; what you give is what you keep; and what you do is what you is!” They saw Jesus with the closed eyes of their mind and heart, so their thinking was already made up against Jesus. Biased minds and deaf hearts blind us to reality, truth, goodness and beauty wherever they present themselves. The beggar viewed Jesus with an unbiased mind and a hopeful heart.

Spiritual Cataracts

Sin clouds our mind and hardens our thereby distorting the truth making us myopic at best and totally blind at worst. When the Pharisee became upset by Jesus confronting them with their blindness He said to them: “I have come into the world … to make the sightless see and the seeing blind. … If you were blind there would be no sin in that. ‘But we see,’ you say, and your sin remains” (Jn 9:40). They saw themselves as seeing God’s truth while in fact they were rejecting His Truth, namely Jesus Christ. It is one thing to be blind and know it, but it is far worse to be blind and not know it. When I know something I can do something about it, but if I refuse to admit something it continues to infect me. To see God, ourselves, and the world in which we live clearly we must eliminate our spiritual cataracts caused by our biases and our sinfulness. Then, in the words of Martin L. King, we will judge ourselves and one another “not on the colour of our skin but on the content of our character.” Only Jesus, the Divine Physician, can free us from our blurred vision with the scalpel of His word of truth through which He enables us to see as He sees and then act as He acts. Then, when we can see clearly what is real, true, good, and beautiful, we can enjoy every day as a bright, bright sun-shiny day because the Son’s rays flood us with His Light. (fr sean)