Note: while following the lectionary, I chose to preach just on the Gospel passage because of its great length.
“Journeying by Sight” (John 9:1-41)
April 3, 2011 Fourth Sunday in Lent)
Rev. John B. Erthein, Euchee Valley Presbyterian Church
I cannot imagine, in fact I would not want to imagine, what it would be like to be blind. I don’t know whether it’s worse to have become blind at some point in one’s life, or to have been born blind. Sight is one of God’s great gifts. One of the things that gives me the greatest pleasure is to gaze upon a beautiful sunset, like the ones you get here, watching the orange and red sky through the branches of the pine trees. That is the sort of occasion that makes me thank God for his gifts.
But not everyone can appreciate the beauty of nature in this way. Not everyone can gaze upon the face of his beloved or on his children, either. It is too hard to imagine, I think. But it is not too hard for us to feel that this is wrong, that this is a bad thing. And that is a natural reaction to misfortune of this sort, where someone is suffering or is disadvantaged in some way. We may look for some kind of explanation for misfortunes such as blindness.
And this accounts for some of the reaction to a man’s blindness in this passage from John’s Gospel. Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who was blind from birth. Almost immediately, the disciples ask him “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” The disciples’ question reflected the assumption, common to the Judaism at the time, that suffering could always be traced to a specific sin. The underlying concern was not to charge God from perpetrating evil upon innocent people. Thus, if something bad happened to you, it must have been directly your fault: cause and effect. Someone sinned, even if it was this man while he was in the womb (after all, he was born blind, so he must have sinned before birth. Some rabbis actually taught this.)
Notice how Jesus responds. “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Thus, the proper response to a person’s misfortune is not to speculate as to the cause of his infirmity. Nor is it to defend God’s honor. It is to manifest the works of God in that person. Sometimes, for reasons that are not always clear to us, God allows affliction to impact people, so that we would respond according to his will, that these unfortunate people might experience God’s mercy, grace and healing. Jesus did so supernaturally, as he could. He made a kind of poultice with his saliva and some mud. Placed over the blind man’s eyes, this mixture gave him sight.
Now, we cannot of course duplicate Jesus’ supernatural acts. But we can commit acts of healing and grace and mercy. I think medical care is something God has given to us, for example, something that can and should be used for healing and not destruction. God also gives his people the desire and capability and the responsibility to care for others. We can follow Jesus’ example in that way.
However, we know that not everyone follows Jesus’ example, either in this age or during his time on earth. And this leads me to consider another way of considering blindness. Blindness is not always physical. It can be spiritual. This miracle is one of several that take place in the physical world while serving as a sign pointing to a deeper, spiritual meaning. And so in this extraordinary chapter of John’s Gospel we witness how one man’s physical and spiritual eyes are opened, but how the spiritual eyes of some others remain tightly shut.
Consider the formerly blind man’s spiritual growth. In verse 11, the first time he is asked about what happened, how he was cured of his blindness, he refers to Jesus as “the man called Jesus.” Now, that is a phrase pretty much the whole world could affirm, because Jesus was an historical figure. Hardly anyone denies that he existed. In verse 17, after being questioned again, this time by the Pharisees, the man calls Jesus a “prophet.” That is a word of honor, showing a special connection between God and Jesus. Fewer people in the world see Jesus this way … Islam is one religion that affirms Jesus as a prophet, albeit not as the Son of the living God. But by verse 38, the man has come to believe that Jesus is truly the “Son of Man” and thus fell down and worshiped him. The title “Son of Man” had a special resonance in first century Judaism. It was a messianic title that referred back to the mysterious, human-divine figure of “one like a son of man” in Daniel 7:13-14, one who will be given rule over all of the nations of the earth forever. So for this formerly blind man to call Jesus by this title shows that his spiritual eyes were indeed finally and completely opened.
One would imagine that the evidence of this miracle would have convinced everyone who had heard of it. The blind man had been well known in his community as a beggar. Jesus healed his sight and thus lifted him from his lowly estate. But not everyone would be so enthusiastic about what Jesus had done. Some of the Pharisees were aggravated. Note that it was not all of the Pharisees … but certainly a significant number objected to what Jesus had done. These said “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath” (Jn 9:16. ESV). Jesus performed his work of healing on the Sabbath. Now, in fairness, the Pharisees might not have objected if Jesus had simply spoken words of healing or waved his hand. But Jesus took clay and kneaded it into mud. The problem was that kneading bread, and thus by extension clay, was one of 39 classes of work forbidden on the Sabbath. In their zeal to keep God’s commandments, including the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy, religious instructors had erected more and more regulations and prohibitions. These extra rules represented fences around the sacred law. But Jesus is showing that some in the religious leadership defended the fences so strongly that they forgot about the true Law of God, which called upon the people to love God and one another. The religious leaders had credentials and authority, and yet they were blinded to the love of God as shown in Jesus Christ. And this made them cling to a very narrow, legalistic and negative kind of religion.
I think that warning is just as important today as it was then. Indeed, it has been important throughout the history of the church. I believe the main reason for the Reformation was that the established church at the time, which was of course the Roman Catholic Church, had become choked by rules and regulations and traditions that served as barriers between people and Jesus Christ. The Bible, the written Word of God, was forbidden to most people. How could people have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ if they did not know who he truly was?
But before any of us are tempted to condemn the Catholic Church for some of its past practices, we should consider our own Presbyterian Church today. In my experience, we care a lot about credentials and formality. Whether a pastor has fulfilled the educational requirements we expect, and whether the right forms have been filled out and the right boxes are checked, seems to matter more than whether the pastor has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and whether the pastor believes and affirms that Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God. Maybe I am wrong about how widespread this is: I hope I am. But it is what I have sensed over these years in seminary and then in ministry.
I think the danger exists in every church to exalt tradition and various rules and procedures over an encounter with Jesus Christ. And whoever falls into the trap is truly walking blind through life. And that is tragic. If a person’s eyes of faith are shut, what beauty is that person missing in life! None of the traditions or procedures or policy manuals can make up for that!
As followers of Christ, we are called upon to reach out to those who lack something in life, who are deprived of something vital. Perhaps a person is disadvantaged materially or bodily. We should ask ourselves how we can be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. Or the person may lack something spiritually. That person may belong to a church or not. It doesn’t really matter if he does not know Jesus Christ. So ask yourself how you can reach that person with the Gospel.
As we journey together, it is my hope that we will strive to seek and serve those who are hurting, those who are bodily deprived and also spiritually deprived. That is, I believe, exactly the work to which Christ calls us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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