Outside
Lent IV
No one knows his name. He has sat here so long he has become part of the place. People pass him every day and not one of them has thought to ask. He is not a person they are passing. He is a fact of the place. The blind man. That is all.
To be invisible, he has learned, you do not need to be blind. You only need to be inconvenient.
And then someone stops. Not to question him. Not even to speak to him, not yet. Just to stop. To see him.
Jesus makes mud. Presses it to his eyes. Says go wash.
And he goes.
And the world opens.
And then the world closes.
He has barely had time to see it.
Not all at once. Slowly. Question by question.
Is this the same man?
He has to stand there and argue for his own existence to people who only know where to place him when he is blind.
You were the blind man.
We knew the blind man.
Who are you now?
He tells them what happened.
A man put mud on my eyes.
I washed.
I see.
That is all he knows. It is enough. It is not enough for them.
They are not looking for the truth. They are looking for a way to make the truth not count. They circle it. They question the source, the timing, the man who did it. They send for his parents. They call him back. They start again.
And something happens in him that no one expected.
He does not shrink.
He grows.
Not because he has more answers. Because he has one answer they cannot take from him.
Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know.
I was blind and now I see.
They cannot move him. So they go looking for someone who can.
They go to his parents.
His parents, who knew exactly what this day meant for their son.
And fear spoke first.
He is of age. Ask him.
Four words that leave their son standing alone in the room.
He has his sight.
He has the truth.
He has nothing else.
They throw him out.
He is outside now.
That is not a location. It is a condition.
He has told the truth about the most important thing that ever happened to him, and it has cost him the only world he knew.
He gained his sight and lost his world in the same day.
There is an outside you do not choose. It is where you end up when telling the truth costs more than you thought it would. When the people who were supposed to stay do not. When you did nothing wrong and lost everything anyway.
You know the place. You may be there now.
The fear is not just being cast out. It is that outside is final. That the door closing is the last thing that happens. That what the room decided about you is what you are.
And he cannot go looking for Jesus. He wouldn’t recognize his face. He has never seen it. He only knows what was done to him. He doesn’t know where Jesus went.
He only knows where he is.
Outside.
And then Jesus finds him.
Not the other way around.
Jesus hears what happened. And he comes. Not to the synagogue. Not to the people debating his identity inside. He goes to where they put the man they couldn’t answer.
And for a moment they are just two people standing there. One who was cast out. One who came looking.
This is the moment.
Not the healing. This.
Do you believe in the Son of Man?
Who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe.
You have seen him. It is the one speaking to you now.
The first face he truly sees is not a neighbor. Not a Pharisee. Not someone who looked away.
It is the one who saw him first.
Lord, I believe.
And he worships.
And something opens that no one can close.
He was found outside.
He was known outside.
He worshiped outside.
Outside was not where his life ended. It was where Jesus was.
You know where you are. He does too.
He goes to where they put you.
And he finds you there.
These midweek devotionals aren’t sermons. They’re meant to complement the Sunday homily. I’ll share the sermon below after it’s preached:
That was such an insightful interpretation of that Scripture passage. Thank you!
Fr. Ben, outside is where we find the glory of God. Outside is where we are welcome into His fold. Outside is where you and I become the children of the most high, because there is where we are naked and He clothes us. We want to continue to be outside, but that is not his will for us all the time. Sometimes we are called to come into the cold. Blessings.