Fourth Sunday in Lent
What and How Do We See?
Once
you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of
light— for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and
true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the
unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even
to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light
becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it
says,
Ephesians 5:8-14
The Light of the World
HUNT,
William Holman
1853-1854
Keble
College Chapel
Oxford
Great
Britain
The original is variously said to have been
painted during the day in an expensive hotel at Worcester Park Farm in Surrey and in the
garden of the Oxford University Press[4] while
it is suggested that Hunt found the light he needed inside Bethlehem on
one of his visits to the Holy Land.[5] In
oil on canvas, it was begun around 1849/50,[5] completed
in 1893, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1854 and is now in a side
room off the large chapel at Keble College, Oxford.[6][7] The
painting was donated to the college by the widow of Thomas Combe,
Printer to the University of Oxford, Tractarian and
a patron of the Pre-Raphaelites, in the year following his death in 1872[4] on
the understanding that it would hang in the chapel (constructed 1873–6) but the
building's architect William Butterfield was opposed to this
and made no provision in his design. When the college's library opened in 1878
it was placed there, and was moved to its present position only after the
construction in 1892–5 by another architect, J. T. Micklethwaite, of the side chapel to
accommodate it.[8]
That the college at that time charged to view
it[4] persuaded
Hunt toward the end of his life to paint a larger, life-size, version, begun
about 1900 and completed in 1904, which was purchased by shipowner and social
reformer Charles Booth and hung in St Paul's Cathedral, London, where it was
dedicated in 1908 after a 1915–7 world tour where the picture drew large crowds.[9] It
was claimed that four-fifths of Australia's population viewed it.[10] Due
to Hunt's increasing infirmity and glaucoma, he was assisted
in the completion of this version by English painter Edward Robert Hughes (who also
assisted with Hunt's version of The Lady of Shalott). Hunt was buried in
St Paul's.[11]
A ninth smaller version of the painting,
painted by Hunt in pastels between 1891 and 1896, is on display at Manchester City Art Gallery, England,
which purchased it in 2014.[12]
This painting didn't inspire
any popular devotion in the late Victorian period but inspired several musical
works, including Arthur Sullivan's 1873 oratorio The Light of the World.[3]Engraved reproductions were widely hung in nurseries,
schools and church buildings.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_the_World_%28painting%29
The eye sees only what
the mind is prepared to comprehend.
~
Robertson Davies
It’s hubris to think that the way we see things
is everything there is.
~
Henry Ward Beecher
Joan
Evashevski, Vicki Kyle
Joan
had Bunco at her home on Tuesday evening.
This
is the third event at her house this month that I have attended.
Since
she is Irish, she likes to get all of her entertaining done in March.
Jeanne
Gibbard and I enjoyed lunch and then saw
The
Drowning Girls at the Arvada Center on Wednesday.
I
felt very wet by the time it ended!!!
Marilyn
Stechert refreshed us at our Thursday evening book club.
We
had a nice discussion of Transitions, by William Bridges.
Anita
and Jim Kreider
Anita
was our speaker at Rotary and gave us an update on diabetes research.
Her
husband, Jim, is a member of our Rotary Club.
Janet
Way celebrated her 90th birthday with a delicious reception
at
The Wild Game on Saturday.
The value of experience is not in seeing much,
but in seeing wisely.
~
William Osler
March 26, 2017 Fourth Sunday in Lent
As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”
The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.
Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found
him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he,
sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen
him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he
worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those
who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the
Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?”
Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that
you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
John 9:1-41
Agnus Day, by
James Wetzstein
Agnus Day appears with the permission of www.agnusday.org
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5:8-14
John
9:1-41