3-2-08

The text for today’s meditation is the Gospel Lesson, with special attention to verse 39, which reads, “Jesus said, ‘For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus,

The Fourth Sunday in Lent

John 9:1-41

Blindness and Sight

Grace, Mercy, and Peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus,

What is it like to be blind from birth? I have often wondered that. What is it like to be born in total darkness, not knowing what something looks like, not knowing colors and shapes and patterns? What is it like to be a person who has never seen anything; never seen a sunrise or sunset; never seen the leaves turn colors in Fall; never seen a loved one’s smile?

I have often marveled at people like Helen Keller, the woman who was born not only blind, but also deaf. Just the thought of being in complete darkness and silence, seemingly cut off from the entire world is scary to me. Some of us will become or are becoming blind or deaf because of the affects of age, but we at least have had the experience of having sight and hearing. We at least have the memories of what sight is like. But people like Helen Keller, who were born blind, don’t know what that is like. They live in darkness, never having seen the light. And in most cases like that, there is no cure for their blindness.

Our Gospel text for today, speaks a great deal about blindness and sight. One of the main characters in the story is a man who was born blind. If we look a little before our text to the beginning of chapter nine we see a little more of the story. Jesus and His disciples were walking along on a Sabbath, and they come across this man who was blind from birth. Jesus’ disciples, who were well trained in some of the false beliefs of the time, wondered whether the man was blind because he sinned or his parents sinned. Jesus corrects this false belief, and then He healed the man. “Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. ‘Go,’ He told him, ‘wash in the pool of Siloam.’ So the man went and washed and came home seeing.” So that is how Jesus healed the man who was born blind.

But this is not the end of the story, nor is this blindness of the man and Jesus’ healing of him, truly the blindness and sight that are spoken of in our text. For sure, the man was blind from birth and after he was healed by Jesus, he truly could see, but that really isn’t the main point of our text for today. The kind of blindness and sight that Jesus speaks to in our text is a spiritual blindness and a spiritual sight.

To see this we must look at how the story continues. The man who had been born blind but now could see was brought before the Pharisees. Apparently the Pharisees wanted to find something against Jesus, for it was pointed out that Jesus had healed this man on a Sabbath, the day the Jews were forbidden to work. Jesus was beginning to be a threat to these religious leaders and so they wanted to find some problem or sin that he committed. When they asked the man how he had received sight and the man told them, the Pharisees were divided in their opinions of Jesus: “Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’ But others asked, ‘How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?’ The Pharisees didn’t know what to think of Jesus. “Finally they turned again to the blind man, ‘What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.’ The man replied, ‘He is a prophet.’ ... To this they replied, ‘You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!.’ And they threw him out.” They threw him out. That means they basically excommunicated him from the spiritual community.

Now I ask you: Who sounds more like they are spiritually blind--the Pharisees, or the man who had regained his physical sight? These Jewish leaders thought they had sight. They thought they could see everything clearly. Yet as we see in verses 17-26, they doubted that the man had even been blind in the first place. They went to his parents and asked them if he was the same man who was blind. And when they could no longer hide from the fact that this man had been healed of his physical blindness, they acted rashly and lectured the man about his sinfulness. Like the disciples had thought, they blamed the man’s sinfulness from birth for his blindness. This is probably one of the closest verses that points to original sin, and yet it lacks one thing: inclusiveness. These Pharisees were pointing to the man and saying that he was a sinner from birth, which of course he was. But as they were pointing they didn’t see the fact that three fingers were pointing back at them. They didn’t see that they too were sinful from birth. They were blind to their own sinfulness.

And, of course, they were blind to the fact that the Messiah, the one they had been waiting for so long, was right there with them. Jesus was the Christ. The Messiah was the one who had healed this man. But they were blinded by their own arrogance. They thought that they knew the scriptures better than anyone. They thought that they followed the law better than anyone. They thought that they could see better than anyone. When in reality, they were the ones who were in the darkness, and this man who they labeled as a sinner and as one that was still spiritually blind, was really the only one who could see. The one who was blind from birth was truly the only one in the story who sees Jesus as He truly is. As our text says, “For Judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

That statement of Jesus may seem a little strange or paradoxical to us, but that is how Jesus tends to work. The actions of Jesus are paradoxical: the poor are filled with good things, and the rich are sent empty away; the righteous are declared to be sinners, and sinners are declared righteous. To those who laugh He brings weeping, and He gives laughter to those who weep. The last He puts first, and the first last. The wise He shows to be foolish, and to the foolish He gives wisdom. And in our text for the day, “the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

This strange paradox still occurs today. Jesus came that the seeing may become blind. Many people today think that they can see when they truly do not. Biblical skeptics don’t believe that supernatural events and miracles can exist. They try to prove discrepancies in the Gospel story and try to accuse Jesus of deception. Just in the last few decades, we have seen this happen quite a bit with the so-called Jesus Seminar people who have narrowed down the Bible to a few short sayings and actions of Jesus, leaving the rest of it for the scrap heap.

Agnostics too are spiritually blind. They lack the moral courage to face the facts that are before them. They hide behind the idea that they don’t know what they believe, and therefore think that they see better than most.

But non-Christians are not they only ones who are spiritually blind. Some people within Christendom twist God’s Word, deceiving others and being deceived themselves, and refuse to be instructed by God’s Word. How easy it is for someone who thinks they know what the Bible says, to be like the Pharisees who knew the scriptures, and become spiritually blind in his or her arrogance.

But there is another side to Jesus’ paradox. Jesus also came that the blind may see. We are by nature sinful, and therefore we are born spiritually blind. We cannot on our own discern spiritual things. When we are born, we are born enemies of God. Romans 8 says, “the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s Law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”

But Jesus alone can open our eyes. He works through the Gospel which proclaims Him as Savior. The Gospel is the mud or the salve that He puts on our spiritual eyes of faith, so that we can say, “Lord, I believe,” like the healed man in our text.

But those of us who wear glasses or corrective lenses know that it is one thing to see and another to see clearly. Jesus is the one who gives us the spiritual sight of faith, and then like He did with the man, He sharpens it. The man who was born blind had faith that Jesus was from God, the minute his physical eyes were opened. We know that by the fact that he called Jesus a prophet in front of the Pharisees. But Jesus sharpened the man’s vision by telling him that He is the Messiah, the Christ the one who was the Savior of the World. Jesus does the same with us. He opened our eyes of faith at our baptisms when He made us His children and people of faith. But through His Word and His sacraments, He continues to sharpen our vision and strengthen our faith. He allows us to see Jesus more clearly.

So we all truly do know what it is like to be blind from birth. We know what it is like to be in total darkness away from any light, for we were spiritually blind from birth. Though many of us probably don’t remember it very well, we were all born in sin. But Jesus reached down with His Gospel, and placed it on our spiritual eyes, and then told us to wash away the blindness in our Baptism. And now He keeps our vision clear through His Word and His Sacraments. So now we can say, with Simeon, the words we say or sing often after the service of communion, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace according to your word, FOR MY EYES HAVE SEEN YOUR SALVATION, which you have prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel.” Amen.

Now the peace of God....

e a person who has never seen anything; never seen a sunrise or sunset; never seen the leaves turn colors in Fall; never seen a loved one’s smile?

Now the peace of God....