Message of 3/6/2005 delivered at Smith Hill UMC, Carley Brook Charge.

The Scripture for this week was rather long:

John 9:1-41 (NLT) 

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. 2"Teacher," his disciples asked him, "why was this man born blind? Was it a result of his own sins or those of his parents?"

3"It was not because of his sins or his parents' sins," Jesus answered. "He was born blind so the power of God could be seen in him. 4All of us must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent me, because there is little time left before the night falls and all work comes to an end. 5But while I am still here in the world, I am the light of the world."

6Then he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and smoothed the mud over the blind man's eyes. 7He told him, "Go and wash in the pool of Siloam" (Siloam means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came back seeing!

8His neighbors and others who knew him as a blind beggar asked each other, "Is this the same man—that beggar?" 9Some said he was, and others said, "No, but he surely looks like him!"  And the beggar kept saying, "I am the same man!" 10They asked, "Who healed you? What happened?" 11He told them, "The man they call Jesus made mud and smoothed it over my eyes and told me, 'Go to the pool of Siloam and wash off the mud.' I went and washed, and now I can see!"

12"Where is he now?" they asked.  "I don't know," he replied.

13Then they took the man to the Pharisees. 14Now as it happened, Jesus had healed the man on a Sabbath. 15The Pharisees asked the man all about it. So he told them, "He smoothed the mud over my eyes, and when it was washed away, I could see!" 16Some of the Pharisees said, "This man Jesus is not from God, for he is working on the Sabbath." Others said, "But how could an ordinary sinner do such miraculous signs?" So there was a deep division of opinion among them.  17Then the Pharisees once again questioned the man who had been blind and demanded, "This man who opened your eyes—who do you say he is?"

The man replied, "I think he must be a prophet."

18The Jewish leaders wouldn't believe he had been blind, so they called in his parents. 19They asked them, "Is this your son? Was he born blind? If so, how can he see?"

20His parents replied, "We know this is our son and that he was born blind, 21but we don't know how he can see or who healed him. He is old enough to speak for himself. Ask him." 22They said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who had announced that anyone saying Jesus was the Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue. 23That's why they said, "He is old enough to speak for himself. Ask him."

24So for the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him, "Give glory to God by telling the truth, because we know Jesus is a sinner."

25"I don't know whether he is a sinner," the man replied. "But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!"

26"But what did he do?" they asked. "How did he heal you?"

27"Look!" the man exclaimed. "I told you once. Didn't you listen? Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?"

28Then they cursed him and said, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29We know God spoke to Moses, but as for this man, we don't know anything about him."

30"Why, that's very strange!" the man replied. "He healed my eyes, and yet you don't know anything about him! 31Well, God doesn't listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will. 32Never since the world began has anyone been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. 33If this man were not from God, he couldn't do it."

34"You were born in sin!" they answered. "Are you trying to teach us?" And they threw him out of the synagogue.

35When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

36The man answered, "Who is he, sir, because I would like to."

37"You have seen him," Jesus said, "and he is speaking to you!"

38"Yes, Lord," the man said, "I believe!" And he worshiped Jesus.

39Then Jesus told him, "I have come to judge the world. I have come to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind."

40The Pharisees who were standing there heard him and asked, "Are you saying we are blind?"

41"If you were blind, you wouldn't be guilty," Jesus replied. "But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.

Message:

This sounds like the same old, Scripture that we are used to reading.  Jesus was traveling, stopped and healed a blind man.  But here John points out a number of interesting things.

We get some background on this blind man.  He was blind from birth.  The words used here translate to mean that the man was totally blind.  Often we think of a person who is considered legally blind, but can still see shapes or colors and can even read with the help of glasses.  But this man was totally blind.  He had never seen anything, no shape, no color, no light.  His world was total darkness.  He knew nothing else, just darkness.

We know this man would sit in the city and beg for money, food and anything else he could get in order to survive.  He was poor.  This was the only thing he could do.  We can also tell from the text that the man was probably pretty young.  It is mentioned by his parents that he was of age and able to speak for himself.  In the time that this miracle took place, the son would be considered to be of age when he was 13.

It was a common belief back then that a child who was born with any kind of handicap was the result of the sin of the parents.  So this man’s parents would have been looked down on as being sinners.  Their son was probably not very well educated.  He certainly could not read or write.

So Jesus stopped by this young, blind beggar and He did what He did many other times.  He tested this man’s faith.  He spat on the ground and created some mud and smeared it on the man’s eyes.  Then He told the man to go to a certain pool of water and wash away the mud.  That was it.  He was not promised his sight, but just told to go and wash away the mud.

Can you imagine being blind, having to beg for your livelihood and suddenly this man walks up to you.  You hear him talking with his friends about your blindness.  You hear him say that it was not your parents’ fault that you are blind.  You hear him say that it was not your fault either.  The young man probably went through his entire life blaming his parents or wondering what he did to deserve this blindness.  Then you hear him say something about God.  You feel this mud being smeared on your eyes and you are told to go wash away the mud in some pool of water.

Now if this guy was anything like most of us, he would have just sat there, thinking “Yeah, sure, what planet did you come from?”, but not this guy.  For some reason, he got up and went to the pool of water and washed away the mud and was able to see for the first time in his life.  Can you imagine what a feeling that must have been?  Then the man returned.

And when he returned, many of his neighbors didn’t believe him.  He was questioned.  Then he did the unspeakable.  He said the name of Jesus.  Remember, this blind man had not seen Jesus yet.  He did not know what he looked like.  But he did know who was responsible for his new found sight.  It was Jesus.

So the people took him before the Pharisees, the makers of the law and heads of the temple.  They questioned this young man and decided to call his parents in to show that the boy was lying.  But the parents backed the young man up, sort of.  They said that this was their son and that he had been blind from birth.  They did stop short of saying anything about the healing and of Jesus.  For they knew they would be kicked out of the synagogue if they mentioned the name of Jesus.

The Pharisees called the young man in again and pressured him to tell the truth.  They said that this Jesus was a sinner and could not have healed the young man.  The boy said that all he knew was that he was blind, but now he could see.  And the Pharisees cursed him and said they knew about God, but they did not know about this sinner, Jesus.

Then the youthful innocence of the young man showed through.  He said, “This man healed my eyes, but you don’t know anything about him?”  “Don’t you think he must be from God in order to perform such a miracle?”  The Pharisees became furious and threw the young man out of the synagogue. 

Finally, the young man was able to meet Jesus.  He believed and worshipped the one who gave him his sight.

So, what are we supposed to get from this Scripture?  What are we supposed to learn?

The first thing that struck me was the young man being totally blind.  I thought about physical blindness and how horrible it would be not to be able to see all the beauty around us, not to be able to see the plants blossoming in spring or the unbroken whiteness of a new snowfall.  Not to be able to see the face of your mother and father or a newborn baby; nothing but darkness.

Then I thought about Spiritual blindness and how horrible that can be.  Some of us are blind from birth, never having experienced the grace and peace of God our father.  Others of us choose to be legally blind spiritually, turning our backs on God.  We can see and know his shape and form, but we choose not to become involved and stand at a distance where God becomes fuzzy and unreal.

How similar physical and spiritual blindness are.  In both cases we miss the beauty and spectacular brightness of the things around us.  In one case we cannot see the world around us.  In the other we cannot see the heaven before us.

Then we read about how the people 2000 years ago believed that this boy was blind because of some sin of the parents or sin of his own.  Sounds rather barbaric.  But we still do the same thing today.  How many times do we look at a child and blame the parents for how they turned out or how they behave.  And how many times do we look at the parents and know that their children will never be able to make anything of themselves.  We constantly impose the sins of the parents on the child and vice versa.  How barbaric.

We hear Jesus talking with His disciples and He says that it is neither the sins of the parents nor the sins of the young man that made him blind.  Then He says something hard to understand.  He says the blindness is so that the power of God can be seen in this young man.  I had a little trouble getting this until I read a comparison in The Teacher’s Commentary.

Jesus’ answer was, “Neither.” The blind man did not serve as a demonstration of the impact of sin, but rather as a demonstration of the power and love of God. His tragedy was a backdrop for blessing!

  How often this is true for us. Sue experienced a painful divorce, deserted by her husband when she was three months pregnant and with a two-and-a-half-year-old son. The struggles of the next years were brutal. Yet out of them grew an understanding and sympathy for the needs of the divorced, an active personal ministry, and a book on how Christians individually and as congregations can minister to the suddenly single. The tragedy was a backdrop. It need not be explained by sin, but can be seen as God’s avenue to blessing for her and for others.

We see this blind man doing the same thing.  He became an advocate for Jesus.  He worshipped Jesus and showed others the power of the love of Christ.

Too often we start blaming God for things that go wrong.  We withdraw and complain instead of allowing God to work in our lives.  Every affliction we encounter can and will be used for the glory of God if we allow it.  There is no greater witness and help to alcoholics than one who was an alcoholic and allowed God to work in their lives.  The same is true for drugs and other addictions.  The same is also true for illness and loss.  If you accept Jesus and allow him to work in your life, you will rise above any illness or loss and be able to show many people how wonderful your affliction really was and how it can be used to make others better in this world, all for the glory of God.

The next thing that struck me was the undeniable faith of the young man.  Jesus smeared the mud and said go wash it off.  Jesus did not promise anything.  But the man got up and found his way to the pool and washed off the mud.  I thought about how little faith we have.  Jesus said go to the pool and the man went to the pool. 

I guarantee you that at least once a day, every day, the voice of the Lord whispers in your ear, trying to tell you to do this or do that or to stop doing.  Most of the time we never hear it and those times we do catch a bit of what He is saying, we question.  Are you crazy, we think?  Or, there’s no way I could do that.  We think we know better.  We don’t have the faith of the blind man to just go and do.

I read about the parents who were afraid to talk about Jesus for fear of being kicked out of the synagogue.  And I thought about all the places where the words God and Jesus have been banned.  We dare not speak these names for fear of being kicked out.  Our schools won’t let God in the doors.  Some people in our government try to keep God out of our lives.  We act like the parents of the blind man, afraid to speak up.  And as long as we are afraid to speak up, the schools and the government will win.  God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit will be banned from even our churches.  I am ashamed to say that there are too many churches even now who limit the use of these holy words and the things that they stand for.

But the blind man, when he was healed, knew about the glory and the grace and the power of God through this man called Jesus.  He believed and had faith that Jesus would care for him and guide him and comfort him.  His physical blindness was healed and his spiritual blindness was awakened.  He became whole.

Then Jesus winds up this story by telling us we need to be careful.  Those of us here this morning claim to be Christians.  We claim to have been healed of our Spiritual blindness.  But I think that we sometimes need to take a visit to the eye doctor.  Our vision is not always as clear as it should be.  Things start to get a little fuzzy and out of focus.  We lose sight of our real goal here on earth.  We forget that we are here to be one with God.  We become too busy instead, trying to be number one.

Those of us who have seen the Lord are warned.  When we turn away, we stand a good chance of becoming blind again.  We stand a good chance of living in total darkness again.  We might not be able to return to the light again.   So make regular visits with your eye doctor, Jesus.  Let Him look deep in your eyes and clear up any fuzziness that is there.  Visit Him in church and at bible studies and at your neighbors and in your own home.  Always keep your appointments and you will have marvelous sight for the rest of your life and the bonus of eternal life with your eye doctor.

Amen.