By St. John of Kronstadt
Today, beloved brethren, the Gospel of John was read about the healing by Jesus Christ of a man blind from birth: you have heard this divine story. The Lord, the Light of the world, performed this great miracle in this way: by spitting on the ground, He made clay from the spit, i.e. a solution of earth with moisture, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay, saying: "Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam (which is translated 'Sent'). So he went and washed, and came back seeing" (John 9:6–7). But, more importantly, this blind man received his sight with his spiritual, not just his physical, eyes. He believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Savior of the world, to the shame of all the wise and prudent among the Jews, who did not believe in the Lord despite all the multitude of His miracles, which clearly testified to His Divine omnipotence. This circumstance, i.e. the unbelief of learned and noble Jews in Jesus Christ as the God-man gives me reason to talk with you briefly about spiritual blindness, which is much more dangerous and more worthy of pity, and sometimes tears, than physical blindness.
Vision is the noblest member of our mortal body and it gives a person the greatest benefit and pleasure, as each of us knows, and to lose sight means to lose almost half of your life: not to see the sun, not to see anyone or anything, neither yourself nor others, nor what is around us, not to see the beauty of heaven and earth, nor everything that is in heaven and on earth and in the sea, hence this almost means the same thing as being dead. But, brothers and sisters, a person who is gifted by the Creator with a rational soul, capable of cognizing the truth, which is its life, and who, out of pride, willfulness and stubbornness, does not want to know it, who goes against his own reason and conscience and God and people, is he not the most unfortunate blind man, unfortunate by his own free will, maliciously unfortunate, who himself voluntarily uses for evil the greatest gift of God to man - reason and free will, which distinguish him from all dumb animals? Is he not the most ungrateful animal, before his Creator, reproaching His wonderful gifts with His intelligent creatures? Is he not a voluntary fool or madman who has perverted God-given wisdom into madness and calls good evil and evil good, sweet bitter and bitter sweet? And such were the Pharisees and scribes and the high priests and elders of the people of Israel during the earthly life of Jesus Christ; seeing the miracles of Jesus Christ performed among the people, the most beneficent miracles, hearing His wise, saving teaching and seeing His completely righteous, holy, exemplary life, they attributed the miracles to the power of demons, distorted the meaning of His words, blasphemed Him as a madman, possessed and a flatterer, or a deceiver and, finally, as a rebel villain, they betrayed the most holy of all saints, the Son of God, to shameful execution. This is terrible spiritual blindness! Is it not worthy of all disgust and bitter tears? For a person whose soul is blinded by pride and stubbornness is the most unfortunate, like a sure prey of hell, like a satanic fiend, imbued with the pride and malice of his father the devil. This is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, when a person, out of pride and stubbornness, does not want to believe the obvious truth, proven by obvious miracles. There is no forgiveness for such a person either in this or in the age to come (cf. Matt. 12:32), not because our sins defeat God’s love for mankind, but because the person himself perishes in pride, stubbornness, malice, lies and unrepentance.
What gives birth to such blindness in a person? Why is it? – From extreme self-love, pride and self-conceit, from a malicious disposition of the heart, from envy and from constant satiety and gluttony. "You grew fat, you grew thick, you are obese! Then he forsook God who made him" (Deut. 32:15), says Scripture. There are many such libertine blind people, sons of perdition, in our time, just as there have always been. In our time, these libertine or liberal blind people are produced either by libertine science, not according to the reason of the Gospel, which teaches that everything in the world happened by itself, by nature, and that man, as a child of nature, disappears with his death, that supposedly there will be no resurrection and judgment and another endless age - rather there will be liberal conversations and, in general, a community and conversation with frivolous, unbelieving people, or a contented, carefree, cheerful life, full of daily lawlessness and vices, in which the last Christian spark goes out. Even the hardened blind of soul are afflicted by embitterment and despair, disobedience to existing authorities, a frantic, absurd intention to stand on their own, to carry out their absurd ideas or plans and intentions. Such are today's anarchists or nihilists who, in their blindness, think of re-creating and revolutionizing society in their own way, imagining that their plans are the best and will bring the greatest benefit to the people - almost a golden age. These cursed ones themselves go straight to hell and do nothing but evil and dirty tricks, but dream of some benefit to the people. What good can you expect from them? A tree is recognized by its fruits, and nihilists by their hellish deeds. God, save the Orthodox people from such leaders!
Brethren! flee from this blindness and from all blindness that is born from sinful passions: self-love, conceit and pride, malice, envy, waywardness and stubbornness, drunkenness and intemperance, greed, fornication and lewdness, despondency and despair. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
Brethren! flee from this blindness and from all blindness that is born from sinful passions: self-love, conceit and pride, malice, envy, waywardness and stubbornness, drunkenness and intemperance, greed, fornication and lewdness, despondency and despair. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.