Learning To See

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, thank you for joining us for our time of worship. I hope you’ve been lifted up by how God has blessed you this week.

I have some announcements to mention from your bulletins as we get started. Men’s group will meet tonight, and there will also be a men’s prayer breakfast next Sunday. All men are invited to attend.

Our combination safety and building and grounds team meeting is tomorrow. If you’re on either one of those teams, please try to attend.

And please keep bringing in your items for this month’s Operation Christmas Child focus. You can leave those in the Sunday school room across from Randal’s.

Jesyka, do you have anything this morning?

Sue, do you have anything?

Opening Prayer

Let’s pray:

Father on this glorious Sunday morning we’re reminded of the beauty of your creation, of this season of the cross, and of the depth of your love for each of us whom you know by name.

We ask this morning, Father, that you give us the eyes to see your hand moving in our lives, in the life of this community, this nation, this world. We’re inundated with the bad, help us see the good. We’re overwhelmed by pessimism, help us to be hopeful. We see our struggles, help us to focus on your goodness. Give us new eyes, Father, that we may see better see your abundant grace. For it’s in Jesus name we ask it, Amen.

Sermon

I remember this boy from high school. Typical teenaged boy in 1987. He was a senior and a varsity football player and loved to terrorize underclassmen. Can’t remember his name for the life of me, but I can picture him plain as day. Muscular guy, bleached hair and a mustache, always wearing these fancy sunglasses. Honestly I would have forgotten about him years ago if it weren’t for the day one of the science teachers decided that this arrogant varsity football player should spend one whole school day as a blind person.

I’m not entirely sure how this was allowed to happen, other than teachers in the 1980s enjoyed a lot more leeway than they have now. If I remember right, it all had something to do with how when one of our senses gets taken away, the other senses grow stronger to compensate. Or maybe that teacher was as tired of this kid as everyone else and wanted to teach him a lesson.

Either way, one morning my friends and I — lowly sophomores — walked into school to see this football player with a bandage over his eyes being led around by a couple of his buddies. And I’ll put that word in quotes — “buddies” — because they weren’t acting like it.

They were leading him by the elbow to his locker and accidentally ran him into the wall. I’ll put that word in quotes too — “accidentally”. They they “accidentally” let him trip over a book bag in the hallway.

He was trying to play it cool (he was even wearing his fancy sunglasses over the bandages), but he couldn’t manage that for long. Word got around about the assignment he had to do, so as he was feeling his way down the hallway between classes, some of the students he’d tormented over the years would sneak up and slap him in the back of the head, knowing he couldn’t see who’d done it. The longer the day went, the more his arrogance started to fade. He started finding out what it was like to be the kid who’s picked on.

It’s funny how some things stick with you over the years. To this day, whenever I see a blind person I’ll think about the assignment given to that boy (which was maybe a little mean, but again, it was the 80s and those were simpler times), and I think about how he discovered there’s more than one kind of blindness. I’m pretty sure that’s what his teacher had in mind. I think he was hoping that if this boy’s physical sight was temporarily taken away, he’d gain a greater sight that showed him how he treated people and the sort of person he really was.

I remembered that day in high school while looking over today’s scripture, because these verses deal with those same two kinds of blindness — blindness of the eyes, and blindness of the soul.

A lot of the New Testament is a warning about spiritual blindness, which is not staying true to Christ because our eyes are too focused on the things of this world and our own arrogance. It’s trusting ourselves instead of him. And in John chapter 9, we’re given this incredible story of Jesus giving sight to a man who’s been blind since birth, only for that man to be confronted by the spiritual blindness of others.

Our level of joy and peace and even comfort in this life has everything to do with seeing God as clearly as possible. We can’t do that if we’re spiritually blind. And to he honest, we’re all a little spiritually blind. Thankfully, Jesus can help us learn to see with our souls, and John 9 tells us how in three ways: in order to gain spiritual sight we need to obey Christ, let go of our human opinions about God, and be willing to face rejection.

Ready? Turn to John 9. We’re going to begin today with verses 1-3:

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

And this is God’s word.

There are three questions posed in these three verses, but only one of them is stated. First, how do John and the others know that this beggar was born blind? That detail is such a crucial point to this story. In many ways, being born blind makes him even more pitiful, doesn’t it? He’s never had a chance at life. He’s never enjoyed a single day as a normal person — and I’ll put that word in quotes too, “normal”.

Any sort of handicap in the ancient world was seen as a burden not just to the person affected by it, but to their family. Parents would take care of and provide for their children, and once those children were older, they would in turn take care of and provide for their parents. That wouldn’t happen in this case. This man’s parents would always be taking care of him. He had no promise of a full life, and it’s likely he was shouting that as he begged from the people who passed.

“I’ve always been this way, I’ve never had a chance, I was born into a dark world that I can’t see, please help me.”

It’s easy for us to see someone like that and wonder why God let this happen. That’s what the disciples are thinking as Jesus stops beside this man. There has to be a reason why he was born blind, and that reason has to be something bad, because it can’t be that God is cruel or doesn’t care.

That leads us to the second question, the one that’s asked by the disciples in verse 2: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents?”

We’ve talked before about our very human need to have an answer to why things happen in our lives. It’s the same thing here. And there’s nothing at all wrong with asking God that question, which is what the disciples do. I’m sure this blind man has asked that question every day of his life. I’m sure his parents have. But where the disciples get it wrong is that they’re trying to connect this man’s suffering to the idea of sin.

“Did his parents sin?” they ask. “Was it something they did?” Now, we have to say that often the effects of a parent’s sin is visited upon his or her child. Our schools are filled with children who were born suffering the effects of their mothers’ drug and alcohol use. But you can’t say that God has punished the children for that.

The other possibility that the disciples put forward is a little stranger. They ask Jesus whether the man himself sinned while in his mother’s womb. People of that time believed that babies in the womb had emotions, and with emotions comes the possibility of sin, even in unborn children.

But Jesus answers and says it’s neither. It isn’t that this man’s parents sinned. It’s not that he sinned. It’s not that anyone did anything wrong. It’s just that good people aren’t spared from hurt. In fact, some of the best people are the ones who suffer ailments and afflictions. Sometimes the most blessed suffer the most. After all, look at Christ.

“Sin has nothing to do with it,” Jesus says. “The reason this man was born this way is so the works of God might be displayed in him.”

It’s an amazing thing that Jesus says. He says that if you want to see what God can do, don’t look to the people who are whole, look to the ones He’s allowed to be broken. He says don’t think of your sickness or disability as evil. It’s not. But understand that if God can use even evil to further His work in the world, how much more He can do with your sufferings? He’s saying don’t wonder Why, wonder What. Don’t ask where suffering comes from, ask what God will do with that suffering for His glory. “Let God be God,” Jesus says, “and trust Him with your ills, and then watch what He will do.”

Then, in verses 6 and 7, we read this:

Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

There is a lot packed into these two verses, and it all has to do with how different this miracle of Christ is from any other in the gospels. First, look at the way Jesus does this. He spits on the ground and makes mud with the saliva, and then he puts the mud into the man’s eyes. What in the world is that all about? Jesus didn’t have to do any of that, did he? All he had to do to cure this man is say, “You’re cured.” But he does it this way for some very specific reasons.

We know from Roman historians that saliva was used as a remedy for a lot of different ailments, including blindness. The Jews had adopted this practice as well. It was common. It was ordinary. That’s one reason why Jesus did it this way, because he wanted to show that he’ll use the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary. He’ll use the common to achieve the uncommon. That’s how he works in your life, and that’s what he does with this man here.

Another reason: Jesus mixing his saliva with mud also reminds us of the first creation of Adam, doesn’t it? God made Adam from the dust of the earth. So Jesus is using the same creative power to give this man sight that his Father did when He fashioned Adam from the earth.

But maybe the biggest reason Jesus chooses to heal the blind man this way is because of what day it is. Jesus and his disciples are speaking with this blind man on the Sabbath, and we all know what sort of rules the Jews had about the Sabbath. There were a lot of them, including a rule that you couldn’t use medicine on the Sabbath. And you really couldn’t use saliva to heal diseased eyes on the Sabbath.

Jesus knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s going to give this man physical sight while exposing the spiritual blindness of the religious leaders.

And here in verse 7 we see Jesus’s first requirement of learning to see spiritually: you have to obey him.

After putting the mud in this man’s eyes, Jesus tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. The pool of Siloam was fed by a natural spring. People would bathe in that pool to become ritually clean. Why did Jesus send this man to the pool? Maybe because he knew the miracle would get the attention of more people since the pool was a public place. But the reason doesn’t matter. What matters is that he told this man to do something, and the man did it. Period. There aren’t any question. The man doesn’t say, “Why do you want me to go there? What are you doing? I don’t understand why you want me to do that.” No. Jesus says, “Go,” and the man goes.

And when the man goes, by the way, he’s still blind. Remember that. Jesus will often tell you to do something that won’t be easy. There’s often going to be a challenge involved in receiving your blessing, because that challenge will increase your faith and make that blessing even greater. The key is always your obedience.

Two more things about this miracle before we move on. First, and this will become even more important later on, nothing like this has ever been done before. Not even Jesus had ever done this. He’d restored the eyesight of people who at some point had seen, but this is the first and only time he gives eyesight to someone who’s never seen, and this is the only instance of this happening in the entire Bible.

Which makes the second thing about this miracle even more special, because this blind man never asks to be healed, does he? People were always asking Jesus to heal them. I’m sure this man wanted to be healed too. But he never asks, because he doesn’t realize at the time who Jesus is. He doesn’t know Jesus is the Christ. When people ask him how his eyes have been opened, he says in verse 11, “Somebody called Jesus did it.” And since Jesus isn’t at the pool of Siloam, nobody knows where he is.

So now we come to the second thing Jesus says we need to prevent spiritual blindness. We have to let go of our human opinions about God. Look at verses 13-17:

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”

Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”

But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.

So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”

Now maybe the people who brought this man to the Pharisees had good intentions. Maybe they were trying to show the religious leaders that Jesus wasn’t the terrible person they thought he was, that he was a good and great man.

But instead this just makes the Pharisees hate Jesus even more. Because it’s the Sabbath. It’s God’s holy day, and you can’t be using medicine on God’s holy day. The Rabbis had decreed that no work of healing should be performed on the Sabbath unless it was a matter of life or death, and this blind man — who had always been blind — was not in a life-or-death situation.

“He’s doing this on purpose just to thumb his nose at us,” the Pharisees say. “When did this Jesus cure a man at the pool of Bethesda? On the Sabbath. When did he cure the man with the withered hand? On the Sabbath. Hasn’t he even said he is the Lord of the Sabbath? He’s blaspheming God.”

So they ask this formerly blind man how he’d received his sight, and it’s great how he answers. We don’t even know this man’s name, but I bet this guy made a great disciple. There’s no long story, no commentary, no arguing with the Pharisees. The man just says, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”

And now in verse 16, the Pharisees start arguing with each other. Some of them think Jesus can’t be a friend of God because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath. Others think he has to be a friend of God, otherwise how could he perform a miracle like this? But they’re all completely missing the point. The Pharisees are arguing over the possibility of a miracle while the miracle itself is literally standing there in front of them.

Think of this man standing there who’s never seen anything. Think of the look on his face, the absolute wonder in his eyes. He’s thinking, “look at that beautiful chair! Look at that gorgeous sun! And look at these Pharisees. I always knew they sounded ugly, but I had no idea they looked so ugly too! There’s a dog out in the street. Dogs are wonderful! Walls are wonderful! Trees are wonderful! Everything is wonderful!”

But the Pharisees can’t see any of that. Right now they can’t even see the man standing in front of them because of all their arguing. He’s invisible because they’re spiritually blind.

So then they ask him in verse 17, “You’re the one he’s healed. Who do you say he is?”

And now this man is getting a little impatient. He’s got better things to do and a whole world to see. He doesn’t want to waste his time with these guys, because these are the ones who are dangerous. Again, he keeps it simple: “He’s a prophet,” he says. “How can you not know that? How can you not see that? I mean come on, I could see better than you people when I was blind.”

But the Pharisees don’t want to hear what he says. They’ve already made up their minds about Jesus — he’s a sinner, a danger, a fake. Jesus absolutely cannot be a prophet, because guess what? According to Jewish tradition, a prophet could say it was lawful to violate the Sabbath because a prophet’s work was given by God Himself.

And this is the Pharisees’s problem. They can’t believe Jesus is a prophet, much less the Son of God, because he doesn’t match up with their opinion of what God should look like, and be like, and act like. Our idea of God is always smaller than who God really is, because God is bigger and more than anything we can even imagine. We always have to keep that in mind. We always have to be ready to let go of what we think God should be doing and saying. Because as powerful as that real God is, as immense as that real God is, whenever the real God comes up against our small idea of Him, our small idea is always going to win out. Always. Because we don’t want to admit that our opinion of God is wrong.

Look at these Pharisees, these people who are the most religiously educated preachers and scholars in all the land. If anyone should know the truth of what Jesus is, it’s them. But they’re the ones who are blind. And if we’re not careful, we can be blind in the same way. They lived their lives to show an enthusiasm for God, but they couldn’t let go of their opinions of God enough to know His will and His plan, and so all through the New Testament these religious leaders are working against God even while they believe they’re defending Him.

This man has offered the Pharisees the truth of what happened, but they won’t listen to the truth because it doesn’t fit with their opinions. So now what? Well, if they’re too blind to accept what this man is saying, they’re going to have to start poking holes in his story. That’s what they try in verse 18 when the authorities summon this man’s parents, and that’s where we come to the third thing we need to prevent spiritual blindness: we have to be willing to face rejection for Christ’s sake.

Remember, the Pharisees don’t want the truth. They’re blind, so they’re not interested in the truth. What they want to do is twist the truth into a lie that fits their opinion. Their goal is to prove this man’s story is false. So they ask his parents three questions in verse 19: Is this your son? Was he born blind? How is it that he can see?

And the parents want nothing to do with any of this. They say, “Yes, this is our son. Yes, he was born blind. But the rest? Don’t ask us, ask him. He’s old enough to answer.”

That sounds kind of awful, doesn’t it? This man’s own parents are turning away from him in the very moment when they should stick up for him the most. Why would they do that? We get a hint from the original text in verse 19. In the Greek, there’s an emphasis on the “you” in the phrase “who you say was born blind ... ”. “YOU say he was born blind,” the Pharisees are saying, “but we don’t think he was. And if your son’s lying about that, he’s probably lying about this whole story. So are you — his parents — going to agree with us or not?”

And these parents love their son. I’m sure they love their son. But they don’t want to disagree with the Pharisees because of verse 22: “His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.”

If these parents tell the truth here (and I’m sure they know the truth — I’m sure their son ran straight home to tell them everything after regaining his sight), if they say what really happened, they’ll be excommunicated, put out of the synagogue. This isn’t the same thing as being kicked out of a church and having to go to another church. This affected more than just your worship, this affected your entire life.

With this kind of excommunication, you could never worship in any synagogue again. You’d be cursed by God. You couldn’t be in contact with any other Jew — including your family. You couldn’t buy even the necessities of life — food, medicine, whatever — from another Jew. You’d be an outcast, alone forever, cut off from all you’d ever known. That was the sort of rejection waiting for anyone who said Jesus was the Messiah. And this man’s parents just can’t say it. They can’t take that kind of rejection.

So next they call for the man who was blind a second time. Let’s read verses 24-34:

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.”

He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”

And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”

The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.

This man hadn’t been with his parents during their interview. The Pharisees want him to think that his parents have either said he’s not their son, or he wasn’t really born blind. When they say, “Give glory to God,” they’re not telling him to give God the credit for his healing, they’re reminding him that God is present, so it’s time for all this lying to stop. He better tell the truth.

But he’s already told them the truth, they’re just too blind to see it. He says in verse 27 (and this is just amazing), “Why do you want to hear my story again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”

Wow, right? I mean, the boldness of this guy, this beggar, this piece of trash, talking like this to the leaders of the faith! He’s not afraid of rejection, because if he’s going to be rejected, he’ll be rejected for the truth. And then he actually begins teaching the teachers! He says, “You know that nothing like this has ever happened. Nobody’s ever opened the eyes of a man born blind. And this Jesus could never do such a thing if he wasn’t from God. So he has to be from God.”

And the Pharisees can’t take it. Nobody talks to them that way. And so, it says in verse 34, they “cast him out.” He’s just been kicked out of the synagogue.

Everything this man’s parents had feared for themselves has now happened to their son. According to the law, the son can’t even be around his parents anymore. Can’t visit them, can’t even talk to them. It’s just one day in this man’s life, and it’s become the best day he could ever imagine by being given the one thing he never had, and it’s also become the worst because everything else he did have has now been taken away. As he leaves that synagogue, he literally has nothing but his sight.

But like so often in our own lives, when he loses everything, when this man has nothing to turn to and no one to lean on, Jesus finds him.

Verses 35-38:

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

Remember we talked last week about worship, and how that should be our constant attitude no matter what’s happening in our lives. This man walked away from the synagogue thinking he’d lost everything. Now he realizes that’s not true — he’s GAINED everything.

“Do you believe in the Messiah?” Jesus asks.

Up to this point, this man knows almost nothing of Jesus. He knows Jesus has the power to heal, he knows Jesus must be a prophet. He believed according to what God had shown him, and so now he’s ready to believe even more. This man is ready to believe the truth. He obeyed by going to the pool of Siloam. He believes all that God had made known to him over the course of his life, but he also understands that God’s going to teach him more. He was willing to face rejection by the world for the truth that he knew for certain. And that, friends, is faith.

This Easter season is the perfect time to ask yourself if you’ve gotten a little spiritually blind. Do you believe that God can work in your life? But do you see it? Do you believe that He loves you? But do you feel it?

If you don’t, maybe it’s time to start obeying. Maybe it’s time to let go of what you think can’t happen and let yourself be surprised by what God can do if you just let Him. Just let Him and believe Him. Because God’s chasing you.

Jesus chased down this man in verse 35. He also chased him down back in verse 1. Chapter 8 ends with the Pharisees picking up stones to throw at Jesus. Jesus had to hide himself and leave the temple, but while he was escaping, he stops at where the blind man sits.

God pursues you. Psalm 23 says, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” That word “follow” means “to pursue”. That’s God. That’s what He’s doing, always chasing you, always saying, “Let me show you how much goodness I have. Let me show you how much mercy I can give. Let me surprise you with what I can do, because the only limits I have are the ones you put on me.”

If you’ve been blind too long, if you’re tired of putting a limit on what God can do in your life, if you’re ready to finally see, then I invite you up here as we sing our closing hymn.

Let’s pray:

Father in a world that’s given to sadness and despair, in human hearts that so easily disbelieve, you call us to rejoice and to worship and to blanket the world with faith. Renew our eyes this day, Father. Give us a heart to obey you. Help us to let go of any obstacles that stand in the way of your blessing, any opinion that opposes your truth, and help us to be brace in the face of the world’s rejection, knowing that while some may turn away from us, you never will. Bless our day and our week beyond these doors, and return us safely here for our next time of worship. For it’s in Christ’s name we pray, Amen.