May the Peace of Christ be with you,

I pray that you are experiencing the sacred joy of this Lenten season. This week, we will study the Gospel of John 9:1-7. Please remember to take a look at your Lenten devotional booklet. It’s a really helpful way to stay calibrated with the Scriptures.

As always, our weekly Soup Supper Lenten study will be happening this Thursday at 6pm. It’s a great way to connect with our faith community this season. Just a heads up, starting next week, I’ll be moving the release of my weekly e-note from Wednesday’s to Friday’s.

Below, I’m including an artist statement from Sanctified Art.

son, rise

by T. Denise Anderson Inspired by John 9: 1-7 Oil on canvas

Jesus’ community saw this man’s blindness as a curse or a punishment for sin (either his parents’ sin or his own). While it is true that blindness comes with challenges in a world made for sightedness, it is important that we do not problematize blindness in preaching and teaching this story the way they did. What happened here was an apocalypse—a revelation of the nature of Jesus and the heart and mind of God. That revelation challenged the epistemologies of the community, and it is the ones in the story who’d been sighted all along who were ironically unable to perceive what God was doing.

Jesus said that he “must work the works of him who sent me while it is day” (John 9:4). Daybreak is also an apocalypse of sorts; it reveals what we couldn’t readily see at night and allows us to perceive the work in front of us. In my portrait, I’ve lit this man’s face as if the earth and the sun’s light are moving slowly across the surface, signaling the

dawn of a new day. His eyes remain closed in my portrait because, for me, his newfound sightedness is not the miracle or the most important part of this story. What’s most important is the revelation of who Jesus is. Jesus has been revealed to this man in a way that even the witnesses around him could not comprehend. His encounter with Jesus raises him to a new life and offers the whole community a new understanding of God’s works. It’s a new day for everyone, though that proves to be a difficult gift to receive.

—Rev. Denise Anderson