Sight to the Blind

Name something you are glad will last through eternity. If you have a brain tumor and God heals you, will your brain then last through eternity? If you have congested heart failure and God heals you, will your heart last through eternity? His Glory!

John 9:1–34 HCSB

As He was passing by, He saw a man blind from birth. His disciples questioned Him: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him. We must do the works of Him who sent Me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” After He said these things He spit on the ground, made some mud from the saliva, and spread the mud on his eyes. “Go,” He told him, “wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he left, washed, and came back seeing. His neighbors and those who formerly had seen him as a beggar said, “Isn’t this the man who sat begging?” Some said, “He’s the one.” “No,” others were saying, “but he looks like him.” He kept saying, “I’m the one!” Therefore they asked him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So when I went and washed I received my sight.” “Where is He?” they asked. “I don’t know,” he said. They brought the man who used to be blind to the Pharisees. The day that Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes was a Sabbath. So again the Pharisees asked him how he received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” he told them. “I washed and I can see.” Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for He doesn’t keep the Sabbath!” But others were saying, “How can a sinful man perform such signs?” And there was a division among them. Again they asked the blind man, “What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?” “He’s a prophet,” he said. The Jews did not believe this about him—that he was blind and received sight—until they summoned the parents of the one who had received his sight. They asked them, “Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” “We know this is our son and that he was born blind,” his parents answered. “But we don’t know how he now sees, and we don’t know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he’s of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said these things because they were afraid of the Jews, since the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him as Messiah, he would be banned from the synagogue. This is why his parents said, “He’s of age; ask him.” So a second time they summoned the man who had been blind and told him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner!” He answered, “Whether or not He’s a sinner, I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I can see!” Then they asked him, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?” “I already told you,” he said, “and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t want to become His disciples too, do you?” They ridiculed him: “You’re that man’s disciple, but we’re Moses’ disciples. We know that God has spoken to Moses. But this man—we don’t know where He’s from!” “This is an amazing thing,” the man told them. “You don’t know where He is from, yet He opened my eyes! We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He listens to him. Throughout history no one has ever heard of someone opening the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, He wouldn’t be able to do anything.” “You were born entirely in sin,” they replied, “and are you trying to teach us?” Then they threw him out.

Have you ever heard a healing take place? There was an audiotape of Duane Miller teaching his Sunday school class from the text of at the First Baptist Church in Brenham, Texas, on January 17, 1993. Duane prematurely retired from pastoring three years earlier because of a virus which penetrated the myelin sheath around the nerves in his vocal cords, reducing his speech to a raspy whisper …

Teaching his class that day with a special microphone resting on his lips, he reaffirmed his belief in divine healing and that miracles had not ended with the Book of Acts. Listening to the tape, at times you can barely understand his weakly spoken wheezy words of faith. The miracle happened at verse 4 when he said, “I have had and you have had in times past pit experiences.”

On the word pit his life changed—the word was as clear as a bell, in contrast to the imperfect enunciation of the preceding word past. He paused, startled; began again and stopped. He said a few more words—all in a normal clear tone—and stopped again. The class erupted with shouts of joy, astonishment, and sounds of weeping. God completely healed him as he was declaring the truth in this psalm. (You can read the full account in Miller’s book Out of the Silence, Nelson Publishers.)

What we see about Jesus

Larson, C. B. (2002). 750 engaging illustrations for preachers, teachers & writers (p. 233). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

What do we see about Jesus?

The blind man was sent to the same pool as used in the Feast of Tabernacles where, it was said, they drew up the Holy Ghost!

Psalm 27:1–4 HCSB

1 The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom should I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life— of whom should I be afraid? 2 When evildoers came against me to devour my flesh, my foes and my enemies stumbled and fell. 3 Though an army deploys against me, my heart is not afraid; though a war breaks out against me, still I am confident. 4 I have asked one thing from the Lord; it is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, gazing on the beauty of the Lord and seeking Him in His temple.

Psalm 27

Jesus healed the blind several times in the Gospel accounts. There is NO recorded healing of the blind in the OT. The only other NT blindness healing account is when the scales fell from the eyes of Saul of Tarsus in .

Ever wonder why Jesus chose this particular healing so often? Picture of salvation? Where there had only been darkness, light shone in? Maybe Jesus was experiencing a kind of blindness so the compassion toward blind people was overwhelming to Him. Bear with me. He saw all in heaven. He only did what He saw the Father doing on earth.

So, in this text, we see Jesus full of compassion. When He healed aonther blind man, Bartemeaus, Mark wrote that Jesus ‘looked on Him with compassion’.

In this text we see Jesus longing to teach His disciples the truth of how the Father sees His children. How the Father LOVES His children.

In this text, we see Jesus in all His humanity, full of the power of God to meet the needs of mankind.

But what we see about ourselves?

Only God knows why babies are born with disabilities and only God can turn those difficulties into something that will bring good to people and Glory to His Name! Too often, we ask the same questions the disciples did. We see the injustices in life and ask why. Why are children born with disabilities? Why do parents have to bury children? Why does our health fail? Ella

No matter when I was saved, I walked in blindness for a long time. When my eyes are opened, there is much now to see!

In front of the Pharisees, the healed man was irritated with their questions (or sensed their trap) but boldly answered their questions.

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! Wouldnt the Spirit that now lives within me prompt me to see all the new!? Wouldnt there be a desire burning in me to explore the depth of God? Yet so often… night sky/telescope… Mantle

Too often, what we see about ourselves is a willingness to settle for far too little of God. He wants us to have Him in fulness. We were never meant to just scrape by.

What is God asking of us?

To avoid being distracted by the manner of His healing, John helps us focus on the message of His healing.

See WHO instead of HOW. He is asking us to look deeper than the surface and experience the depth of the riches of God.

This is where we have to be before we can move forward. God has to be at the center of what we do. We are looking at ourselves and our facilities to see how we can be welcoming. But if we do that without Him as our foundation, our guidance and our grace, we are only drawing people to ourselves. We can only do this if we are pointing people to a God we know, and know well.