Fourth Sunday in Lent

Grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, the Christ.

When I was in 3rd grade, I started to develop vision problems. The doctor did some tests, but unfortunately, he diagnosed me with blindness. He told me it was likely to get worse the older I got. He did what he could and sent me on my way.

When I was 20, I took part in a breakthrough medical procedure, and my sight was restored! It was better than it had ever been!

OK, I’m playing a little fast and loose with the details. I wasn’t exactly blind. In full disclosure, I needed glasses starting in 3rd grade. The doctor gave me a prescription, and my mom took me to LensCrafters. But it doesn’t sound as dramatic. When I was 20, I had LASIK surgery, and my vision has been pretty good ever since, but it’s starting to drop a little now that I’m in my 40s.

To be fair, I wasn’t being completely deceptive. Only between 10-20% of people who are designated as legally blind have no vision at all. I had a form of minor blindness called myopia or nearsightedness. There are likely many of you who suffer from this same condition. We see things up close very well but not so much for things further away.

We don’t know the severity of the blindness of the man in our Gospel reading, just that he was born with that condition.

Many Jews at the time believed that physical ailments were the direct result of some specific sin that was committed. Jesus relieves His disciples of this false karmic understanding. He prefaces His healing of the man by stating that this man was born blind so “that the works of God might be displayed in him.” How’s that for an explanation of why God allows evil and suffering to exist! A sermon for another time, perhaps.

As Lutherans, we talk a lot about how God uses means, often physical means, to bring His Word and promises to us. Well, here Jesus uses spit and mud. That’s not one of the means of grace that we have in the catechism, but God can use whatever He likes. He has bound us to His Word, water, bread, and wine, but He isn’t bound in the same way.

I love this story because it highlights the innocence and truth of the man who was formerly blind and it warns us against the “know-it-all” attitude of the Pharisees. Let me explain.

Jesus applies the mud to the man’s eyes and tells him to go wash in the pool. The man does as he is told and he receives his sight. Some people recognize the man, discover he used to be blind and ask him what happened. The guy simply answers, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.”

Apparently that answer wasn’t satisfying enough so they bring in the Pharisees. These guys are supposed to have all of the religious answers to all of the religious questions. They ask what happened. He tells them the same thing. The Pharisees are stumped. Some of them are hung up on the fact that Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath and that sounds to them like work. No work is to be done on the Sabbath. Although, I guess that running a full-fledged investigation of this man’s situation doesn’t count as work for them. Go figure. Other Pharisees are intrigued at the least, since they recognize that regular people aren’t just walking around doing miracles.

Some other Jews dig a little deeper. They have a theory. Maybe this guy wasn’t born blind at all, and he was only pretending to be blind as part of some sort of elaborate ruse to prop Jesus up as a miracle worker. That seems a little far-fetched, but they bring in the man’s parents to investigate further. “If your son was born blind, how does he now see?” They say they don’t know, and he can speak for himself. But John also tells us that they are afraid to say more because they don’t want to be kicked out of the synagogue for making much of Jesus publicly.

The man is called in again, and he doesn’t seem afraid at all. This is the greatest day of his life! Here we begin to see the clear contrast that Jesus is bringing forth between this man and the Jewish leadership. Just listen to this interaction again. As a quick note, the term “sinner” here isn’t referring to anyone who sins but to a particular type of person who is guilty of willfully transgressing the Old Testament Law.

“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 guy will be fun to talk to in heaven! He’s got a little sarcasm in him. He points out the hypocrisy of the leaders who are so quick to judge Jesus without knowing much of anything about Him. They are immediately ready to hold to their interpretation of the Sabbath command and cannot be bothered to be corrected by A MAN WHO CAN LITERALLY DO MIRACLES.

Now the story cuts back to Jesus. We don’t know what he’s been doing this whole time. I picture him sitting under a tree, singing some psalms with His disciples, you know, actually keeping the Sabbath, while the Jews are running around breaking a sweat, trying to figure out how terrible Jesus is for giving a man his sight.

Jesus finds the man, reveals to him that He is the Son of Man, the Messiah, and the man immediately worships Him. And here’s the line that Jesus gives that reveals to us the meaning of this whole encounter. “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”

This man was born blind. He’s only had his sight for less than a day. But He sees Jesus clearly for who He is. And yet, the religious leaders, some of whom had studied the Scriptures so much that they had whole books memorized, are still blind to what is right in front of them!

Some of the Pharisees must’ve been following this man and so they overhear what Jesus says. They basically ask “are you talking about us? Do you think we’re blind?” Jesus’ response should give us pause. “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”

Are you blind or do you see? Do you know the Scriptures but still think you can keep the Law enough to earn God’s favor? Do you love arguing about theology but struggle to love the person you’re arguing with? Do you trust your own interpretation of God’s Word, instead of letting God speak unfiltered?

Let the blind man teach you. Just repeat Jesus’ words and believe they are true.

Don’t understand how God created the world in six days? Just trust that He did.

Can’t make sense of how some words and some water can change someone’s eternal standing with the God of the universe? Just trust what His Word says.

Have trouble reconciling the Bible’s teachings on marriage and sexuality with our culture’s supposedly tolerant and accepting opinion? Trust the One who created and designed your body. Marriage and sex are His ideas in the first place.

Imagine speaking to a blind person, one of the 10-20% who can see absolutely nothing. You are the first person to tell them they are blind. You say, “Look, this is going to sound strange, but you have these eyeballs in the front of your head, and yours are broken. Everybody else can see things, and you can’t. You know how you have to feel your way around; otherwise, you bump into things? Most people don’t have that problem.” They listen patiently to you while you explain all this. Colors, road signs, billboards, TV, the sun, cars, etc. Then they say, “I don’t believe you.” They don’t believe that you can see, and they can’t. They don’t think you’re trying to help them. They can get along just fine on their own.

This is what God says to us. “You are broken. I know it seems like you can do things on your own, but you are covered in bruises from bumping into things and your knees are skinned up from falling down all the time. Let me help you. I can guide you.” How foolish it would be to refuse this type of assistance! The arrogance and disbelief are staggering.

Do you know what God does in the face of this immense nearsightedness? Our childish attempts at independence that claim we an do things all on our own? How does He react to our continuous tendency to focus on ourselves, instead of trusting Him and instead of looking to the legitimate needs of those around us? He breaks into history and walks as one of us! He not only walks with us but He walks the path of the cross for us. He becomes bruised for our sins and bleeds for our transgressions. His eyes are swollen shut by the beatings of the soldiers and the thorny crown, and the blood and the sweat. The eyes that can see into the souls of men are blinded and then closed in death.

But three days later, those eyes opened again with new resurrected life. And now the Father sees you as His beloved child, free from sin, fully forgiven.

It’s okay to admit that you’re blind when you are. That’s all this man does. He has had to rely on other people to help him his whole life. Some have helped him, others have maybe taken advantage of him, but he trusts Christ when he understands what has been done for him.

Now, I’m not saying that there is no place for careful study of God’s Word or for trying to understand how we can clearly confess what is happening in the sacraments. We are called to be ready to give a defense for the reason for the hope that is in us, and there are good rational arguments for the truth of God’s Word. But not everything is going to make complete sense to us. And in those times, we are called to trust God and His Word, not rationalize ourselves into sinful skepticism. As Christians, we aren’t totally blind, but we only see dimly right now.

Paul tells us that God has changed us from darkness to light in the Lord. Therefore, we are to walk as children of light, living in ways that are pleasing to the Lord. So come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith!

Jesus reveals Himself to the blind man, who knows He can only see because of what Christ has done for Him. May we not be afraid to admit our blindness, not be afraid to be led by Jesus, knowing that even if He leads us into hardship, that He has walked that path before us, and it is for His glory and for our good.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.