The Lord Opens the Eyes of Those Who Hunger for the Truth
Sunday of the Man Born Blind
Acts 16:16-34; John 9:1-38
Today is the last Sunday when we sing "Christ is Risen" in worship, and until next Thursday we will continue greeting each other with the Easter greeting, proclaiming the resurrection of Christ to all. On this Sunday, we read the Gospel story of the healing of a blind man who had been blind since birth.
After the resurrection from the dead, this is the second most important miracle performed by Jesus Christ. The Pharisees, the Jewish elders, diligently investigated the whole matter. They first questioned the young man who had been blind from birth and whom Christ had made see.
They also questioned his father and mother, and they testified that their son was indeed born blind, but they did not know how he had become sighted,
"...who opened his eyes, we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself." (John 9:21)
The evangelist explains why the parents answered in this way:
"His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue." (John 9:21-22)
Both the son and his father and mother were telling the truth. The truth was that Jesus had performed a great miracle, a work of God that only God can do. It was a testimony, an affirmation that Jesus is the Christ, the Saviour, the Son of God, but the Pharisees did not want to accept this truth.
Why? - Because it was not profitable for them. If the Pharisees and chief priests wanted to know the truth, they would have to submit to Jesus Christ, but then they would lose their power over the people.
This is true at all times: those fighting against God are ready to investigate, interrogate, and tolerate a court trial as long as the witnesses speak in their favour, and if not, they will destroy the witnesses and the judges. Enemies of God tolerate the truth as long as the truth does not testify against them, against their power. The souls of the enemies of God remain spiritually blind, both during the time of Christ's stay on earth and now.
A person who wants to know the Truth, to know, to be convinced of the existence of God, can acquire this knowledge not only from reading the Holy Scriptures, but also from observing God’s creation in nature, from observing poppy seeds or cherry and pear blossoms...
Today, I would like to draw your attention to the passage from the Acts of the Holy Apostles that has been read today. The Lord Jesus Christ, through the Apostle Paul, opened the spiritual eyes of a prison (jail) guard. For preaching the Gospel, the teachings of Christ, the apostles Paul and Timothy were imprisoned in Philippi, but the rough prison walls did not hold the apostles. The Acts of the Apostles tells us that when they were released from prison, Apostle Paul baptized the jailer and his entire family.
This was in Philippi. Where is Philippi? There is no such city now. But more than 30O years before the birth of Jesus Christ, it was the capital of Macedonia, renamed by the father of the famed Alexander the Great (356-323). It was the first place in Europe where the Gospel of Christ was preached.
Apostle Paul, to whom Christ also opened his spiritual eyes (he had previously persecuted Christians), had not planned to go to Macedonia. He arrived in Troas (the crossroads of the east and west), still in Asia, and planned to go to Bethany, on the Black Sea coast. It was here that he first met Apostle Luke, a physician.
But at night, Paul saw a vision:
"A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’"
(Acts 16:9)
And, according to the author of these Acts, Paul, Luke, and Timothy left Asia and arrived in Macedonia. There, Ap. Paul founded the church of Christ (Philippi was a Roman colony at that time).
There, in Philippi, and later in Thessalonica, in Athens, Ap. Paul opened the spiritual eyes of the Greeks, the Greek philosophers in particular, by pointing out to them:
"Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you." (Acts 17:23)
Thus, the Apostle Paul, not by human planning but by the providence of God, carried the preaching of the faith of Christ from Asia to Europe, first of all to the lands of the Greek language and culture. It was a largely uncomplicated, logical transition, for the Greek language and culture had been dominant in Palestine, Egypt, and the Asia Minor countries, especially since the time of Alexander the Great.
A certain segment of the Jews, from where not only the apostles but also other followers of Christ came, were "Hellenists”, as mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 6:1). And from the Greeks, other nations received the gospel of Christ. In the end, the first texts of the Gospel, with the exception of The Gospel of Matthew, Acts, and the Apostolic Epistles, almost the entire New Testament, were received in Greek first.
(The Greeks, when they were conquered by the Roman state politically and militarily, did not dominate the state, but they did dominate culture. The Greeks also overwhelmed the Romans, their conquerors, with their more developed civilization, their advanced levels of art and philosophy.)
For us Christians, it is important to remember that through the persecution of Christians in Palestine, by God's providence, the faith of Christ spread to other countries. The preaching of this faith was brought to the land of our ancestors by the disciple of Christ, Andrew the First-Called, but the final victory of Christianity occurred in Kyivan Rus during the time of Prince Volodymyr the Great.
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
