The fourth Sunday of Lent is known as Laetare Sunday – Rejoice Sunday – marking that we are more than halfway through our Lenten journey and so we begin to anticipate the joy of the Risen Lord on Easter. We wear rose vestments not to celebrate a birthday, but to celebrate the joy of the Risen Lord beginning to invade the Lenten season as we have passed the halfway point in our journey to Easter. Today we journey in the company of the blind man. It is the long, often painful, journey of a person who is called to see life in a new way and as a result makes a new commitment. As his blindness was removed, the man could now see. The gift of sight is a most precious gift. But the real message of this Gospel is greater than the gift of sight is the gift of faith. Jesus bestows not merely sight but a faith-filled insight. The man born blind eventually sees Jesus, but – a greater gift – he comes to see who Jesus really is. The man born blind is symbolic of the human condition. We need the continuing creation of God, spreading mud on our eyes and washing in the waters of the pool of Siloam.
The intriguing account of the Samaritan’s woman encounter with the Lord is a most beautiful story of an outcast, an outsider, a Samaritan woman, someone who has endured the school of hard knocks, one who is even cynical and sarcastic and suspicious even when someone is trying to be kind to her. And yet, through her encounter with Jesus at this well in Samaria, she is transformed from being an outsider to becoming an enthusiastic evangelizer inviting other people in town to come to know Jesus. Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, wasn’t too busy to listen patiently and dialogue with and affirm with considerable love this outcast of society. If we are to follow the way of Jesus in our ministry, may we take the time to listen and to affirm the beauty of people in their time of need. This is a most dramatic conversion story.
I call your attention to the first sentence in today’s Gospel: “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.” Jesus finding himself in the desert being tempted by the devil was not the result of bad luck or being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes we can find ourselves in the desert of disappointment or failure, not led by the Spirit of God’s love but rather they are the result of bad choices we have made. Our desire for pleasure, power, or greed can sometimes get the best of us and lead us into the wilderness... My question for you and for me is what desert have we been led by the Spirit of God’s love to be humbled, to be tested and tempted to validate our faith and trust in Jesus as the Lord and Savior of our lives?