Sunday Readings for March 14-15, Fourth Sunday of Lent
By Lyn Zahorik | For On Mission
What kind of physician asks a person to let themselves be touched with spit and dirt? I know my insurance carrier does not cover that method.
The Scripture account of a man born blind, however, tells us he did not flinch at that treatment. He did not recoil from what others might have called crude or humiliating. All he knew was the sound of a stranger’s voice and the feel of hands shaping mud over his eyes, the very eyes that had never seen a face, a sunrise, or their own reflection. Allowing that touch required more than hope; it required surrender, humility, and trust. In that moment, the man placed his dignity, his body, and his future into the care of someone he could not see, trusting that this unusual healer saw him completely.
Like the man born blind, we come to Jesus in our own darkness, without certainty, often without words. We come carrying wounds we cannot diagnose and burdens we cannot fix. Sometimes we reach out to him in the quiet safety of private prayer, where no one else hears the ache of our hearts, and we dare to let him touch the places we keep hidden.
At other times, we come as the Church gathers around us at a healing service where candlelight softens the shadows and sacred music steadies our breathing. Both provide a comfortable, safe way to approach Jesus for healing.
However, what if Jesus comes to you with spit and mud on his hands? Are you willing to embrace a healing disguised in unanswered prayers, inconvenient truths, humbling circumstances, or obedience that feels beneath your dignity? It may come in forgiveness that tastes bitter, in confession that feels exposing, in a season of waiting that seems useless and messy, or in quiet, salty tears that fall from our eyes and wash away the mud.
There is something deeply unsettling — and deeply revealing — about Jesus choosing to come to us with spit and mud. These are not clean or refined instruments; they come from the earth and from his own body. The spit and mud remind us that Jesus is not afraid of our mess, our brokenness, or our vulnerability. He enters into it; God kneeling in the dirt beside us.
In the end, we stand with the man born blind — vulnerable, unseeing, and invited to trust a healing we do not yet understand. Jesus’ hands come to us — steady, reverent, unhurried — asking only that we receive. The mud and spit of our own lives may feel uncomfortable or undignified, but they are held by hands that know exactly what they are doing.
Whether our healing comes swiftly or unfolds slowly, whether our sight is restored in ways we expect or in ways we do not, we can rest in this truth: the One who touches us sees us fully, loves us completely, and is already at work making all things new.
The readings for Sunday, March 15, can be found at Fourth Sunday of Lent | USCCB.