Self-identity is important to all of us in this day and age. Our identity is marked in many different ways - I am sure many of you have done an exercise along the lines of labeling who you are - so you might be mother, daughter, sister, employer, retiree, friend, All of us can come up with a long list of identifiers.
There is a trend on Facebook at the moment for identity seeking quizzes - which Star Trek Captain are, which medieval profession would you have followed, which character out of Downton or Hunger Games or Harry Potter are you. It is all innocent fun - well except that your information is more often than not being captured by the quiz to construct and accurate computer model of your likes and dislikes in order to market to you more effectively. So identity is also a commodity in our society, in many ways we choose our identity by the car we drive or the places we buy clothes. We are very bound up in who we are.
The man in the Gospel today begins the story as a blind beggar - to those in his town who see him daily that is his identity. John's Gospel always works on lots of levels and whilst these stories during Lent are striking moments of encounter between Jesus and these characters - Nicodemus, the woman at the well, this blind man and next week Lazarus - the texts go deeper than simply a nice story. They offer not only a moment of redefinition and finding identity in the life of each person but also offer clues to who Jesus really is.
John's Gospel is probably, it is fair to say, the most deliberately theological of the Gospels. We assume it was written later and therefore John could, very reasonably, have reused the same material we find in Matthew, Mark and Luke and elaborated on it. He does not and whilst some of the stories are certainly the same they are often used with a much more deliberate purpose and even in a different order to the other three, Synoptic, Gospels.
One of the structural pieces of John's Gospel is that he frames around Jesus "I am" sayings, Jesus is bread, shepherd, light, resurrection and life etc. This story serves to illustrate one of these - that Jesus is light - but John explores in it what this might mean and especially what it means in the life of this man and in his changed identity.
The other thing that is worth noting is that the opposition to Jesus is becoming more and more intense at this stage in the Gospel. More questions are being asked and things are becoming tense - a tension which comes to it peak in Chapter 11 after Jesus raises Lazarus - not to spoil next weeks Gospel story but this is what finally tips the authorities over the edge and sets Jesus on a path towards the Cross from which he will not turn back.
We know by now in the Gospel that Jesus has effected miracles, we understand that the possibility of God breaking into the ordinary run of humanity has become very real. We understand that this man who is restored to sight goes from being the blind beggar to...well to what does he go.
The reaction of his neighbors is incredulity - they are chattering amongst themselves about whether this is him or not and be careful at this point - do not assume that the undercurrents would not have been apparent to the man who was healed - he had been blind not stupid - he has a choice. The crowd is not sure whether this man who can see really is the same person, he can, as the man healed in Mark's Gospel, keep it quiet, claim to know nothing of Jesus or he can do what he does
"It is me," he says and in the Greek we immediately tumble into the Garden of Gethsemane where there are soldiers and frightened disciples and they ask for Jesus and he too makes a decision,
"Who is Jesus of Nazareth," the soldiers ask.
"It is me," answers Jesus.
It is me. And where does this man now find his identity? In the simple phrase, "Lord I believe." The man has a new identity. His relationships have all changed -with his community, with his family, with everyone he meets, certainly with the authorities. He is the one whom Jesus has rediscovered and healed, he is the one who Jesus has called and who now boldly states- I believe and this is the basis, this belief in Jesus, for his new identity.
But in that new identity he is immediately identified with the suffering Christ, even though he is on the side of light, even though the rift between those in light and darkness is becoming ever greater in the Gospel, yet still this man is boldly and bravely stepping into his new life, into his new identity.
What does this say for us?
Well, it is tempting to candy coat it so that the pieces of identity which the marketers so hotly pursue in us still mean something central – but if this man is our pattern then they probably don’t. Our identity is not found in our posessions and neither is it found in our weakness – the man who was healed was not a different person he was simply given possibility – the possibility of life in abundance. But he started that life from a new and daring place as a follower of Jesus.
If we are called to say – I am the one, I am she, I am he. If we are called to say “I believe” then we are called to do so from a place of eternal value – a place where we are already identified as those whom God loves, where we are called to live into that love in every facet of our lives. Of course, on this journey ,it is vital to learn how to be who we are- to learn to use what God has made us to the best of our ability.
There was a Bishop called Polycarp in the very early days of the Church. He was arrested for being a Christian and when he was asked at his trial who he was he said, “I am a Christian”. Polycarp was martyred but isn’t that a strange answer to the question. He did not say his name or where he was from, he did not mention that he was a Bishop of who his parents were because his primary and overriding identity, his primary and overriding relationship was in Christ. I am a Christian.
Our primary and overriding relationship cannot be with what we can purchase, our identity cannot even be found wholly in another person – although, of course, other people often make us better at being who we are in a positive way. Our primary identity is in Christ and that is a challenge to accept in a world which tells us that we are in control.
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