For three years Jesus took time to teach his disciples the central tenets of the Christian faith. He showed them the way of radical discipleship, the way of total commitment to the will of God, and the way of sacrificial love. But the disciples, like many of us today, understood nothing of his message. In Mark 8:35 Jesus says that in order to follow him faithfully, in order to belong to the Kingdom which he has come to establish, one must lose one’s life, for the one who seeks his life will lose it. In Mark 9:35 he says one must make himself last and servant of all, if one wishes to be first in the Kingdom of God. In Mark 9:47 he points out that following him faithfully may demand that one plucks one’s eyes if they make one fall into sin; following him may require that one cuts off one’s hands or feet, and throw them away if they will drag one into sin. It is better, he says, that one should go into heaven crippled, than that one should go into damnation with all the physical faculties intact.

In Mark 10:9 Jesus prohibits divorce and demanded for total conjugal fidelity from his followers if we truly wish to respond to his calling. In Mark 10:21 he challenges the young man who wanted to follow him to go and sell all he has and give to the poor, then the man could become his disciple. In Mark 10:38-44, responding to the demand for executive positions in his Kingdom by the sons of Zebedee, Jesus calls upon those who wish to share in his glory to first drink the cup of suffering that he would drink, and be baptised with the baptism of pain and death that he himself will experience.

All these lessons and more, proved to be too difficult for the disciples to understand. We know that the rich young man whom Jesus told to go and sell everything, did not accept his admonition. He went away sad. We know that rather than accept to be last and servant of all, the disciples of Jesus were often arguing among themselves on who is the first and who is the greatest. We know that when Jesus spoke of his impending suffering and death, even Peter, his closest associate thought he was crazy.

Yes indeed, the lessons were too difficult for the disciples to understand. Like many of us who fill up churches and worship centres today, they were blind but they did not recognise that fact. Perhaps the most difficult problem to deal with is that of a blind man who believes that he can see. Such a blind person keeps falling into the ditch, but he refuses to be helped, because he says “I know what I am doing.” Our world of today, like the world of Jesus’ day is full of blind people who believe they can see, and who even go around pretending that they can show other people the way to happiness, the way to peace, and the way to salvation. Like the disciples we are often blinded by selfishness. Our vision is often blurred by greed and inordinate ambition for power and prestige, or rendered opaque by the culture of materialism and crass individualism. Our world is blinded by sin, individual and social sin, sin committed in the privacy of our hearts, and sin committed in public and through public policy. Yes, we live in a world of a multitude of blind leaders and blind followers. And the consequences are the chaos and turmoil we witness all over the place. The consequences of having so many sick people who think they are well – including highly placed people who direct the affairs of society, are the economic distress, the social unrest and the political instability we witness in our country today. The blindness in our society shows itself in the widespread fraud, corruption, ethnic bigotry, religious fanaticism, secret cults, indiscipline and violence that have plagued the Nigerian public life all this while. Thus the lack of peace in the world and in our country Nigeria, is a direct consequence of sin in the hearts of men and women, described today as blindness.

In the story of the man born blind which we just read in John 9:1-41 however, we meet a blind man who had no pretensions that he could see. He was born blind and remained blind until he met Jesus. When he met Jesus, he submitted himself to the healing power of Jesus and a major transformation occurred in his life. In healing this man, Jesus demonstrates to everyone in word and deed  that he is the light that has come into the world, which darkness cannot overpower. He opens the eyes of the physically blind, but also, and more importantly, he removes the darkness in the hearts of men and women that is the root of so much evil, so much wickedness and corruption in the world. He shines his light upon the human society which had been dominated all the while by the prince of darkness. In John 8:12 he says that he is the light of the world, and that no one who follows him will ever walk in darkness. He has power to heal us of our blindness and make us the light of the world.

Among the Jews of old, blindness was synonymous to poverty. The blind person was the quintessential poor man, the man abandoned to his own forces. In healing the man of blindness, Jesus elevates him, restores his dignity in the human society, and assures him of a place in the kingdom of light. In performing the miracle of healing for this man today, Jesus conquers the night in which the blind man was imprisoned. He brought daylight into the poor beggar’s life. He can do the same for us as individuals, and for our sick society if we abandon all our pretensions and admit that we are sick and in need of healing.

The Lord can restore our sight and our sanity, if we shout his name loud and clear like the blind beggar did on the way to Jericho. He is full of mercy and compassion. He wishes to heal our bodies of heartaches and headaches, our hypertension and our diabetes, and even our cancer and AIDS. He also wishes to heal our souls and spirits of sin and the resultant alienation from God. He wishes to heal our sick human society of corruption, injustice, wickedness, violence and war. From Nigeria to Liberia, and from Israel and Palestine to Pakistan and India, Jesus wishes to heal the world of the scandal of war and the embarrassing phenomenon of child soldiers, and refugees. He wishes to heal our natural environment of the pollution and degradation which our sinful and irresponsible lifestyle have brought upon it, and to restore the whole of creation to its original order and beauty. He will not pass us by without stopping to heal us of our woundedness, and free us from our dark prisons. He will not pass us by without stopping to free us from our agony and distress, for as he says, “if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed.”