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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text is the Gospel reading. You may be seated. I hope your ears picked up the theme or the motif of the three readings this morning. The choir, of course, supported that and the hymns as well. But in each of those readings, there are two themes that are very, very prevalent: one, a theme of light and darkness, and one, a theme of blindness and seeing.
So just as all of us physically cannot see a thing, though our eyes may work wonderfully while we are in the womb, we only know darkness in the womb. We have to be born for us to see physically light. In the same way, you and I who are born spiritually blind must be born again in order to see spiritually the light of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ. So in these readings, light is not literal light, and yet it is literal light, and darkness is not literal darkness, and yet it is literal darkness. Seeing is not literally seeing, but seeing spiritually. The most important of all. Because many people claim to see, and as Jesus said, do not.
Now, the text starts off with an interesting question posed by the disciples, which every one of you, including myself, have asked ourselves as well. Our attempt is to try to knit this question, a thread of logic between a symbol of sin and the cause of that symbol of sin. God rarely, if ever, makes the connection for you and me, but boy do we try hard. And that’s what the disciples were asking: “Lord, I’m sure it was whispered, the guy’s blind but his ears work fine, who was born blind, who sinned that this man was born blind? Did his parents sin? Did he sin? Who sinned that this man was born blind?”
Jesus gives the answer. It has nothing to do with the parents. It has nothing to do with the man. It has everything to do with God. God says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this was done so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” So why do you struggle emotionally? That the works of God might be displayed in you. Why do you struggle with physical maladies? So that the works of God might be displayed in you. That’s the only reason God gives for anything that you and I have in our life, which we struggle with regularly, but there is no connection.
And so what does Satan do to you and to me? Oh, the reason that this has come upon you is because of this sin. And what does that cause you and I to fixate upon? Not on forgiveness, but upon our sin. And Christ does not want you to be fixated on your sin. He wants you to be fixated with where your sin resides. And it resides on the shoulders of the one who buried it in the tomb and rose again without it.
But let’s get a little deeper into this. Remember Moses? God pulled Moses out of the Nile to bring him about to be the leader of the people of Israel. But when Moses is finally given the marching orders that he’s supposed to go to Egypt and lead his people, do you remember what Moses’ excuse was? “Lord, I can’t speak very well.” Was that like a revelation to God? “Oh, I didn’t realize, Moses. You’re right, I should never have picked you.” God knew exactly what He was doing in picking a man who did not speak well to be His prophet to the people of Israel.
God knew exactly what He was doing when He picked this man, of all the blind men—and there were many in Israel at that time—He picked this man to be His blind man to bring about physical sight, more importantly, spiritual sight. But when Moses is arguing with God, as it were, “Lord… I don’t speak very well.” Do you know what God says to him? Which is what God says to you. God asks him this question: “Who’s made man’s mouth?” Well, the Sunday school answer would be God. Good answer. God goes on to make sure he gets this. That is Moses. “Who made man mute? Who made man deaf? Who made man seeing? Who made man blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” That’s pretty strong.
Why has God made you the way He has? With all of your struggles, your anxieties, your difficulties, He wishes to do the works of God in you. And you’re not above being used as nothing more than a tool by God. I say that only in a sense of making the point that God is not bound or harmed by using you with all of your issues. And He doesn’t give you those issues for the sake of punishing you for some sin. Because then if He’s punishing you for some sin, then by you having that issue, you yourself are helping to pay for your sin. And if you’re paying for your sin, then He’s not paying for your sin. And that’s also known as blasphemy.
You and I have what we have for the sake of Him using us. He made Moses not speak very well. He’s made other people speak better. He didn’t use other people, did He? He used Moses. There were other blind people in this area. He made lots of blind people, but the only blind person He chose to use was this blind guy. But it wasn’t about blindness and seeing that was the point. It was about spiritual blindness and spiritual seeing and faith. That was the point of this text.
Now you’ve got to think about this. Right before Jesus spits on some mud and takes the mud and anoints the man’s eyes, He says the most absurd statement to a blind man. I hope you got the joke because it’s kind of a joke. A blind man who has no idea about light. Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” That concept has no meaning to him. His life and his reality is nothing but… and I have no idea of what it’s like to be blind. They don’t even understand it in terms of darkness because darkness is only understood because it’s the opposite of light. You see the point?
Jesus is saying a statement to this man that has nothing to do with this man’s intellect or reasoning. He is appealing to this man’s faith, which is what He is engendering and pulling out of this man. “I am the light of the world.” The next thing this man feels is spittle with mud put on his eyes, and he’s told, “Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.” Were there other forms of water that he could have washed closer? Absolutely. Absolutely. But from the moment that Jesus ended that sentence, “Go to the pool of Siloam and wash,” from that moment on, this man can see spiritually.
I don’t know how he got to the pool of Siloam. It wasn’t as if he had the cool white and red cane and there were these beepers on every street corner that he could cross the busy street. Whether he knew that area well and could find it on his own or whether someone took him, I don’t know. But that he believed in the words that Jesus had said to go to this pool was beyond doubt. And this man, with every step that he walked, literally, he was walking by faith, not by sight. The sight didn’t come until much later, did it? Until after he had washed his eyes.
So the secondary miracle, the kind of less important, is his ability to see physically. The most important miracle that occurred at that moment when Jesus said those words was spiritual sight. Now this is some sick stuff, this Pharisees. I mean some sick stuff. And here’s why. When he’s brought to the Pharisees, the Pharisees don’t go, “God be praised. You’ve been given sight. What a wonderful thing.” They were not happy for this man. And if you read the rest of this text, because it’s also in chapter 9, his own parents were not even happy for this man to be able to see. They don’t rejoice with him. They’re just trying to keep themselves out of the line of sight of the Pharisees so that they don’t have to struggle. That’s some sick stuff, guys. He’s been given sight and no one is rejoicing with him.
And the Pharisees are continually, with their words, trying to turn him back to be blind. “Deny this man who gave you this sight. He could not have given you this sight.” And there’s this argument that goes on back and forth. Finally, you know what the question is asked of him? The Pharisees said, “You say it. Who do you say that he is?” Because he made your eyes see. And the man says, “He is a prophet.” Jesus used that confession of faith, and Jesus accepted that confession of faith.
You and I look at that and go, “But he didn’t explain it.” Sometimes we’re so bound by this gray matter between our ears as if everything has to be explained so that it, quote, “makes sense” and that the Holy Spirit sure can’t use it unless it makes sense. Nowhere does it say that. But we know it made sense to them because they got even more angry because they knew this man was pointing to him as a man from God. And they knew all the other stories about him.
This is the question that all the world is asking you because your eyes have been opened. And the world is asking you to explain yourself in the same way. The world is asking you, “What do you say about him? Since he opened your eyes, you and I claim spiritual enlightenment as a Christian. We claim to see that which the world cannot see because we’ve been enlightened by the Holy Spirit. That’s the question that the world is asking you. Who do you say that he is if he’s opened your eyes?”
Now, before you get scared, like, “Wow, I’ve got to do a lot of research, and I’ve got to come up with a real good answer, and I’ve got to give all these point-by-point explanations,” and I don’t think Jesus gave this guy any opportunity to be taught that, did He? He just used him. He used his words, and He used him. That’s the point.
Who’s the star in this story? Not the man. Jesus, who used him, is the star in this story. Who’s the star in your life with the people with whom you interact? You? No. Jesus, who is using you to speak to those people, is the star in the story of your life. And He uses you.
Now, after this man is kicked out and basically, for all intents and purposes, excommunicated by the Pharisees, he’s been given the walking papers, and he leaves. Jesus finds him in his rejection. Every time you and I are rejected, He finds you in your rejection. Right? To comfort you in your rejection by the world or by whomever you have lived out your faith toward. He comforts you in your rejection.
And the second thing He does is what He does to this man. He helps grow and shape his confession of faith, which is what your God does not only here in this building, but He also does it in the building down the way. Sunday school and adult Bible class. That’s where He grows your faith and shapes it even more and refines it, that you may then have even a clearer witness to the faith. Not a clearer explanation, but a clearer witness. There’s a difference.
He finds this man and says, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” And he goes, “Lord, I believe. I just need to know who he is.” Because the man had never physically seen him, but the man knew him because he had spiritually seen him. And Jesus received that worship before the man could see him and after the man could see him. And when he sees him, Jesus makes this great point: “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you now.” In other words, you’ve heard his voice, you’re hearing it again.
In the same way, you and I are like this man. We’ve been spiritually blind since our conception, but we were enlightened and born again by water and the Spirit. And ever since then, we’ve been seeing Jesus by faith, not by sight. Yes, we have beautiful windows and somewhat of icons to remind us, but it is not what your faith is pinned upon. Ah, but then your Lord knows your heart and my heart, how weak and frail it is, and He wants us to see Him. See Him in a way that He has defined to be seen. Not in a vision, not in a dream. He wishes to be seen as He’s revealed Himself to be seen in bread and in wine.
There you see Jesus’ flesh, the same flesh this man saw. There you see Jesus’ blood and eat and drink it just as this man saw by faith. The bread and wine is not what makes your faith strong, but the words attached to them, which is what He is proclaiming here. You have seen him and you have heard him. So what do you see? And the answer is Jesus.
In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
