+ “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will
give you light!” And where there is light,
there is hope! And so, we rejoice in hope on this Laetare Sunday – the
mid-point of Lent. This is the compelling summary of our readings today! The
images of darkness and light, blindness and sight and hope are quite
apparent and eloquent!
Yet the message is so plain
and simple: St. Paul tells the Ephesians that “once they were darkness” – because of their inherited affiliation with the
origin of the species: Adam, and Eve his wife.
Everyone born into the world
from then on would participate in that darkness: and how dark it really was!
Only a Person of Light could dispel
the darkness that enveloped the world.
And that Person could be none other than Jesus who was both man and God at the same time – who was Light from Light! Jesus became on
Calvary the very depth of the darkness of sin – he became sin – so to destroy sin, all sin – and restore the world
to the brilliance not only of light, but of color and beauty and truth and
goodness and most of all LOVE!
The action of Jesus curing
people of their “blindness” during his public ministry was two-ways effective.
Yes, curing someone born physically
blind is a great thing; but what is even greater is releasing one who is spiritually blind from his enormous load
of self-imposed “perspective-handicap.”
“There are none so blind as
those who will not see!”: goes the
modern proverb! And how true it is!
So very many in Jesus’ own day
were deliberately spiritually blind
– they could not and would not “see him” as the Messiah they
had been waiting for, for millennia. They could not “see” that he was awaited
descendant of King David, whose Kingdom would last forever.
They could not “see” that
there was a whole and completely different world of faith and supernatural
beauty, truth goodness and love that awaited them if they would only stop being so stubborn!
And so, very many, who were
right there with him, never did “see” Jesus; and never got to participate in
the light of life that Jesus did indeed bring!
And so, to the gentiles the
apostles were sent to bring the light of
life and the radiant Person of
the Crucified and Risen Jesus Christ. May we today pray for any who need to turn to Jesus and “see” him clearly, confess belief in him totally, and begin to perceive everything differently from now on!
Part of that “any” may even be
us! It is never too late: “O sleeper, awake and arise from the depths of now self-imposed darkness and have Christ give you light!”
I am
the light of the world, says the Lord; whoever follows me will have the light
of life – eternal life!
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