LORD, I WANT TO SEE

Evangelist Luke recorded in his gospel an episode in which Jesus, accompanied by a crowd, approached the city of Jericho, when a blind man sitting by the road began to shout, “Jesus son of David have mercy on me". Hearing the beggar's cry, he ordered to be brought and asked, “What do you want me to do for you? Lord, I want to see, he replied. Jesus said to him, ‘Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God” (18: 35-43).

At the time of Jesus, there was a strong expectation of the imminent coming of the Messiah. This, however, gained over time, due to successive foreign domination, a political and military sense. The Jews believed that the Anointed would come to redeem the glory of the kingdom of Israel among the nations. For this reason, Jesus did not accept being called by messianic titles, such as “Son of David,” especially in public. He used for himself the title "Son of man." But in that case, He accepted. For what reason? His speech to the blind indicates the answer: "his faith healed him".

Jesus saw in the beggar the faith that opens the door to life in the Spirit. In healing him, he was teaching that the Kingdom of God is attained only by faith and that spiritual reality is seen only by the one who believes. It is faith that opens the human mind to see spiritual things. In his cry, the blind man showed that he did not see the physical world, but already saw the spiritual, for he saw Jesus Christ as divine, as the Son of God. There was not only a cure of physical but also spiritual vision. When that blind man opened his eyes, he saw not only a Galilean, but God himself incarnate.

Humanity, as it is separated from God, is spiritually blind. Only sees the concrete reality. For many God does not exist, there is only matter. Those who believe do so without understanding. Only few believe in divine Revelation, of which Jesus Christ is the climax. But human life, according to the first pages of the Bible, develops on two planes of existence: the material and the spiritual. According to Scripture, man is a unique being, yet made up of body, soul, and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Therefore, in the beginning, before original sin, man saw the world in the fullness of these dimensions. 

However, this view of existence in which the material and the spiritual simultaneously discern each other has been lost. Paul said in his second letter to the Corinthians that “the gospel is veiled” to man, for “the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (4:3,4). In fact, in Genesis 3, the "serpent" in urging Eve to sin said, "your eyes will be opened". And, indeed, they opened themselves, but to a new view of existence, in which man became ashamed of himself (3.10), afraid of God and seeing Him as one who reproves him (3.10), and to be hostile towards each other (3.12). The loss of his original vision led him to plunge into a concrete and disconnected reality of God [1].

Faith defies human rationality. Therefore, without it, it is impossible to approach God (Hebrews 11: 6). But when man is ready for faith, God works the miracle in man to experience the original vision again. Mary Magdalene, on the resurrection Sunday, went to the tomb of Jesus and spoke to him, risen, but did not recognize him. She thought he was a gardener, but the Lord allowed her to recognize him and so she could say to others, "I saw the Lord" (John 20:18). Paul writing to the Ephesians, said: “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, ¹⁹ and his incomparably great power for us who believe”(1:18).

Antônio Maia - M. Div.

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[1] MAIA, Antônio. O Homem Em Busca de Si – Reflexões Sobre a Condição Humana na Parábola do Filho Pródigo.