Liturgical week: Lent 4
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel according to John, the ninth chapter:
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. We must work 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.” 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. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “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.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” 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.” The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” (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.) Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” 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. 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. Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
This is a weird time for us. It really is. While the Church has weathered many plagues through her history, it is not often that the Church has not met in its normalcy through them. We have the ability to meet regularly so often, and I believe it is something that we take for granted. But, that we can gather like this is still a blessing, even as we long for the day when we are rejoined with our whole community. We pray that day comes soon.
It’s easy to take things for granted, like your sight. You get so used to seeing the things that are around you that they become commonplace. It isn’t until you see something truly beautiful that you really focus on what you are seeing. For the man born blind, he didn’t know what he was missing. But, then, Jesus came along. And this man, after encountering his Lord, would never take his sight for granted. He had something he had missed his whole life. And it wasn’t without purpose, it was that the works of God might be displayed in him. And they certainly were.
Many people had done miracles. And many people, after losing their sight, had their sight restored. We can probably all think of stories we’ve hear like this. But never had a man, who had been born blind, been given his sight, given something he had never had. But Jesus is greater than the effects of this world. He is greater than the consequences of sin. And the amazing thing in all this is that God had made this man be born blind so that he could be healed by the Son of God.
Just think about that for a moment. This man, had been born blind so he could be healed. He lacked one thing we all take for granted so that he could be a witness to the healing power of God Himself. Now, we don’t know why Jesus made mud in order to heal this man. I think, personally, it hearkens back to God creating Adam out of the clay, but this man was anointed by Jesus, sent to the pool of Sent, and was healed. He came back to where he had been and now everything had changed. He was seeing the buildings, the people, the markets all for the first time. And he came back to where he had last heard his Lord. He didn’t find him there, but so many others found the previously blind man.
He had been looking for Jesus but the Pharisees would do all they could to stop him from ever finding Jesus again. But Jesus is not found by sight. Jesus is found by faith. This man didn’t see Jesus before being taken to the Pharisees, but he believed in Him. He believed before the healing. Remember, he went to the pool before he could see, he went trusting that the Lord’s word would do what He said it would do. And as hard as the Pharisees tested this man, trying to trip him up, trying to get something to convict Jesus, this man kept confessing Christ.
It’s brilliant, really, this man’s responses. All he said was what he knew, Jesus was a prophet, Jesus healed him, he had become a disciple in this great man. And for this, the Pharisees cast him out of the synagogue and the idea is that they shunned him. For believing in Jesus, they took this previously blind man and took him away from his community, his parents, his loved ones. This man gained his sight, but lost his world. It might’ve been better for him if he had stayed blind; at least he could still be a Jew.
But that’s earthly thinking. Yes, the consequences of our confession may look to the world like we’ve lost everything, but, in trusting Jesus, our vindicates us. And when the man was cast away, Jesus came to him to reveal that He was indeed the Messiah they had been waiting for. This man had been given the gift of sight, but he was given a greater gift, the gift of faith in Christ which leads to eternal life. This man’s sins were forgiven.
It’s easy for us to take things for granted. It’s easy to forget that we see, that we hear. It’s easy to forget to love the time we have to gather together. It’s easy to forget the joy that is in seeing the faces of our brothers and sisters. But, when these things are taken away, we find that we can rely on one thing, and one thing alone: our faith in Christ. Without this, without trusting the one who died for you to forgive you your sins, without listening to the one who promises to heal you from al your sicknesses and infirmities, we would have nothing.
By all accounts, this man was left with less than what he had when he was blind. By being cast out of his synagogue, he was ostracized from his community. He was forsaken by his parents out of their fear. He had no income any more, having been a good beggar beforehand. He had nothing. Yet, he gained the whole world in his faith in Christ. He gained more than any other had when his sins were forgiven, when he believed in Jesus.
Have faith during these trials, my friends. Have faith in your Jesus who has sent this plague among us, not to teach us a lesson in punishment, but that the works of God may be displayed. While Jesus does not promise to keep us safe in this life, He promises that all these things will be taken away when He comes again in glory. He promises that this illness will go away. We may have lost a few things for the time being, we may have lost them even forever. But, if you have your Jesus, your faith in Him, you have all that you need, because He has given Himself to you, and there is no greater thing than Him. Take Him not for granted, but grasp onto Him, and, learning from this previously blind man, worship Him who has taken away your guilt, your shame, your sin, even your disease. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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