Bishop John of Caracas and South America: Sermon on the Blind Man

In the Gospel we find that the Lord many times healed the sick and suffering, yet each time He did it differently. He would heal sick person with the words that “your sins are forgiven.” It is clear that these people suffered ailments because of their sins. The Lord forgave their sins, and they recovered.

It happened that the disease was due to a demonic action, the enemy of man entered into a person, and because of this he suffered. The Lord then cast out demons and thus also healed the sick and suffering.

And it happened that the demon did not just enter a person, but tormented them simply because of envy, like in the Gospel account of a hunched woman, about whom the Lord said that Satan had bound her for 17 years. The Lord said that he had tied her up, but he hadn't entered her. The woman also prayed and observed piety.

And today we read that the apostles themselves asked the Lord a question about the man born blind. They thought it was probably because of sin, so they wanted to know who had sinned: the parents or the blind man himself. The Lord then answered clearly that he had not sinned, nor did his parents. We know that there are diseases due to natural causes, without sin and without demonic influence, as in today’s readubg the Lord said that this was given to him so that the Lord would be glorified, but this does not mean that because of what was necessary for the Lord to be glorified, a person was born blind and suffering, and as a result of seeing again, it will all be For the Glory of God.

I wonder how people reacted to the fact that the Lord healed and gave sight to a blind person. It was unheard of and hard to believe, and even people could not believe that it was the same person, and they asked if it was true that it was him. There were even some Pharisees who did not believe this man, even though he said so himself, and they wanted to ask their parents if he was blind from birth, and so on. And the parents seemed to be a little surprised and not without humor, saying that he was already at an age, that he could answer. And he himself, too, when asked a second time, replied that he had already told them, are they mocking me again? Do they themselves wish to become disciples of Christ?

The Pharisees could not accept it, even when they saw and heard it for themselves. This miracle was not imagined, yet the Lord did not meet their expectations of what the Messiah, a holy man, should be. They believed that this should not be done on the Sabbath, and so not only did they not accept the obvious miracle, they did not accept Christ Himself. Maybe they did not know that this was the Son of God, but they couldn't help but know that this Man was a saint, a great Prophet, for doing such things, and then they blasphemed.

We also see today that there are people who cannot accept God's manifest actions and reject and even blaspheme the Lord because the Lord does not act according to their own notions. We must accept the Lord as He is, and accept His actions, and give thanks and praise Him.