In third grade, my desk was five rows back. My teacher loved using the chalkboard, especially for math. It didn’t take long for him to begin wondering about the strange look on my face during class. Since my mom worked at the school, they had words, and before I knew it, I was sitting in a chair before an optometrist. Two weeks later, the glasses were ready.
I will never forget that day. Up to that point in my life, I just assumed the world looked the way it did. My jaw dropped when I first put on the glasses and looked around at the world, the brilliant colors, the definition of distant objects and the crystal-clear clarity.
On the drive home, my mother had to put up with my incessant declarations: “Wow, I can see that sign all the way from here. Can you see it?” To which my mom would politely answer, “Yes, Frank” over and over.
Vision. The gift of sight. It is something we take for granted every day, and it is often used in Scripture to describe faith.
Jesus’ healing of the man born blind in the Gospel of John, Chapter 9, is perhaps the most beautiful example of all. After Jesus gives sight to the man, we see that Jesus’ gift of sight isn’t limited to the man’s eyes. The man also gains spiritual sight that grows as the story progresses. He begins by referring to his healer as “the man called Jesus.” His spiritual sight progresses when he refers to Jesus as “a prophet.”
By the end of the story, his spiritual sight becomes crystal clear when he confesses Jesus to be “Lord,” a title reserved only for God.
We know that the sight given to us at birth isn’t sufficient for seeing God. We need a different sight for that, the sight that comes from faith. Because of our baptism, we are challenged to see the world differently because of our relationship with Jesus. We are sinners, and so this is not easy. It takes grace, and it involves a lot of work.
However, what would happen if we saw the world around us with Jesus’ eyes? Would we look at our family members, co-workers or classmates differently if we saw them with Jesus’ eyes? Would we see the vulnerable or our politics differently if we saw with Jesus’ eyes? My friends, would you look at the person in the mirror differently if you saw yourself with Jesus’ eyes? When you look inside your heart, can you see the beauty that God sees?
When we open our hearts to Jesus, we can gain new sight, not unlike a third grader with a new pair of glasses. Surprised by grace, we might even spontaneously sing: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see.”