Most people who have ever been prescribed corrective lenses can remember the day that they learned the way they had always seen the world was not quite the whole story. They were seeing shapes and colors, perhaps, or the blurry edges of objects and the fuzzy words on signs or in books. But they weren’t perceiving the world in all its richness – weren’t seeing the fullness of creation.
And then when they first put on glasses or put in contact lenses – what a transformation! Life leaps into focus. Trees have leaves, the blackboard is actually legible. The world has not changed, really, but the person’s perception of it has. They begin to see their surroundings in a whole new way.
This week’s lectionary texts tell stories of people seeing and not seeing, being blinded and having their eyes opened, coming to new understandings of the world and the role they are to play in it. The authors of these texts understand that God is constantly helping us to see things in new ways – constantly pushing and challenging us to seek new perspectives and stretch ourselves.
In Acts, we read the powerful story of the conversion of Saul. Saul was a notorious persecutor of the early Christians, a man who hated those who followed Christ and what they stood for – indeed, we read, he “breath[ed] threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). But one day, traveling along the road to Damascus to find new victims, he was blinded by a heavenly light that was accompanied by a voice asking, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? […] I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:4-5).
Saul was utterly helpless – ultimately forced to depend upon a Christian disciple, Ananias, in order to regain his sight. Ananias worried that assisting Saul would mean the guarantee of increased persecution of the young Christian community. But God tells him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel” (Acts 9:15). So Ananias lays his hands upon Saul and heals him: “something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored” (Acts 9:18). Just days after setting out with the intention of destroying the followers of Christ, Saul (who will become known as Paul) begins “to proclaim Jesus in the synagogue, saying, ‘He is the Son of God’” (Acts 9:20).
Even before Saul was temporarily blinded by God, the author of Acts seems to be implying, he was already blind: blind to the pain he was causing, blind to God’s truth. It took the imposition of blindness and the helplessness that entailed to force Saul to reconsider the ways in which he was living, and to realize that the way he had been seeing the world was not the way God wanted him to interpret it.
The psalmist, for his part, also recalls a time when he could not see. There was a time, he explains, when God seemed to have withdrawn from him, and he could no longer see God: “By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed” (Psalm 30:7). And indeed, the psalmist never explains when (or if) he is able to see God’s face again. The psalm leaves us with questions about what it might mean to feel that God's face is hidden from us -- why and how does such a thing happen?
But the psalmist also explains that God has “turned [his] mourning into dancing; [God] has taken off [his] sackcloth and clothed [him] with joy” (Psalm 30:11). As he exclaims, “O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit” (Psalm 30:2-3). Even during those times in his life when he could not sense God’s presence, the psalmist could recall the times in the past when God had intervened on his behalf. He was able to draw on those memories to help move through the dark times in his life, trusting that he would be able to see what lay ahead by the light of God’s past help.
In the reading from John’s gospel, we hear the striking story of Jesus’ appearance to seven of the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. Peter and several of the other disciples had decided to go fishing, when suddenly they saw Jesus standing back on the beach – but “the disciples did not know that it was Jesus” (John 21:4). It was only after Jesus told the men, who had thus far failed to catch any fish, to cast their nets to the other side of the boat, that they began to catch more fish than they knew what to do with – and realized that the man on the shore was their friend Jesus. Their eyes, blinded to the real identity of Jesus, were opened.
After the disciples returned and cooked breakfast with Jesus, John tells us that Jesus asks Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” to which Peter replies, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you” (John 21:15). And Jesus tells Peter, “Feed my lambs” (John 21:15). A similar exchange happens two more times, with Jesus adding, “Tend my sheep” (John 21:16).
Peter does not seem to initially realize why Jesus continues to ask him the same question over and over; he feels “hurt because [Jesus] said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’” (John 21:17). But Jesus seems to only want to make sure that Peter understands just how seriously Jesus is taking the role Peter will play in the early Christian community. He wants Peter to know that loving him – loving Jesus – really means loving everyone. Peter and the disciples are to live out their love for Christ by loving and serving everyone they encounter. In this way, Jesus is giving them a new way of seeing: that is, seeing every woman, man, and child as a representation of Christ, and a person worthy of love and care.
Notice that the readings for this week do not always show a neat progression from blindness to sight. Sometimes, as in the case of Saul, people are blinded before they can learn how to see in a new way. Sometimes, as in the case of Peter, painful misunderstandings can result from God's efforts to help us to see things in new ways. And sometimes, like the psalmist, there may be times when we feel that we cannot see God at all. This Easter season, let us wrestle with these questions of blindness and sight, trying daily to see our lives, family, friends, and faith in a new light, looking for ways that we have been blind to the needs of our neighbors, and envisioning better possibilities for our world. And let us remember that all around us are people who view the world in a completely different way, a way we could never have imagined ourselves -- why not take a chance and try on their glasses for a while?
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