Looking forward to something can be exciting and motivating or it can be depressing and burdensome - it all depends on what it is that we are looking forward to. When we are looking forward to a long holiday weekend or a vacation, we find the energy to get things done so they won't get in the way of our relaxation. Looking forward to a surgery may bring both the hope of relief and the dread of suffering. When we look forward to things we are working with expectations. Often times the expectations that we create while we are looking forward to something don't match up well at all with the realities of what we end up experiencing. Looking forward may very well lead us into disappointment.
In today's Gospel lesson we meet a man who wasn't looking forward, but seeing forward. This man had been born blind. There really wasn't much for him to look forward to. In his world, a blind person was fortunate to keep body and soul together through the generosity of family members and neighbors or through the sympathies or strangers through begging. This man had to resort to begging - a life in which there isn't much to look forward to. When Jesus comes across this man He gives him both his eyesight and the gift of seeing forward - a gift that he would have to make use of immediately. Called before the Jewish leaders who were opposed to Jesus, this simple man who had no training or experience in life other than begging needed to see through the travesty of their accusations and see clearly who Jesus truly was. Looking beyond the circumstances, he had to see forward to find the wisdom and strength to confess Jesus - and by God's grace he did.
We are people called and equipped to see forward too. We have been rescued from the blindness of our sin and the darkness of our fallen world. Having our spiritual eyes washed in the waters of Baptism, we have been joined into the Faith and given purpose, hope, and power through which we can see forward. Seeing forward in faith we are more than we might have looked forward to being and able to do more than could ever have looked forward to doing. Praise be to the One Who has given us the sight to see forward!
