True Sight (John 9:1-41)

 Sermon for Milledgeville and Whitestown UMC

True Sight (John 9:1-41)

 

A blind man enters a bar and asks the guy next to him, "Wanna hear a joke about blondes?" Suddenly, the bar is as silent as a grave. A guy next to the blind man leans over and whispers

 

"Dude, be careful. The bartender is blonde and an ex-soldier. The bouncer is also blonde and the reigning boxing champion of the city. And then there’s, Joe, just released from prison after he broke a dude's jaw and his arm. He is blonde too. Are you sure you wanna tell that blonde joke?"

 

The blind man says, "OK, FINE... I won't tell the joke... I don't want to explain it three times."

 

The man Jesus encounters in Jerusalem was born blind. According to the University of California San Francisco, 2-3 American babies, out of every 100,000, are born blind. It’s a rare congenital defect.

 

We live in a new age of scientific breakthroughs. Neuralink has gained approval from the FDA for a brain implant called Blindsight. The device is designed to restore vision to the sight impaired and those born blind. As long as they have a healthy visual cortex, the Blindsight devise will restore sight through cameras transmitting wirelessly into the brain.

 

But we’re not talking about scientific intervention in our scripture reading from John. We’re talking about the relationship between God and humanity. This story serves to illustrate a larger story that goes beyond a blind beggar on the streets of Jerusalem.

 

It speaks to the relationship between God and human beings. It’s broken.

 

 

 

The garden story of Adam and Eve illustrates that fallen relationship. Humans were made in God’s image. Women and men share something of the divine. It is marked by our innate desire to seek something greater than ourselves. We seek to fulfill that desire through achievement, the pursuit of fame, or wealth, or other goals, like loving a family. Another response is negative. There are those who despair success in the face of opposition. They disconnect through various diversions and dependencies.

 

When Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, their eyes were opened, and they became ashamed of their nakedness. In their innocent relationship with God, they had no shame before their creator. And that is what we are meant for. But they chose to listen to the serpent’s lies, rather than obey God’s voice. They hid from God, and lost paradise. And we have also lost paradise. We’re born into a human world that is lost. We want to come back home, but look in all the wrong places.

 

We all sin. We miss the mark. We fall short. And as a result, our relationship with God is broken. Like Adam and Eve, we try to hide our shame. And yet, our hearts hunger. In our estranged state, we do not easily recognize our hunger can only be satisfied by a restored relationship with God. We are blind to the truth.

 

When the disciples saw the blind beggar, they asked Jesus whose sin was the cause. Was the man born blind because of his parents or his own sin? We don’t often think of babies as being sinful. Yet David wrote in Psalm 51, a prayer of confession,

 

I know my transgressions,
    and my sin is ever before me.

Indeed, I was born guilty,
    a sinner when my mother conceived me. (Psa 51:3, 5)

 

There it is. All humans are born into a state of spiritual blindness. We are meant for a life-giving, completely satisfactory relationship with our creator. But we stumble about blindly looking for a way to answer our heart’s deepest need. Sin separates us from God. Who will save us from this blind stumbling through life? Thanks be to God who gave us His only Son, Jesus Christ!

 

When Jesus healed people, he often connected their infirmity to sin. When Jesus healed the paralytic in John 5, he told him,

 

“See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.” (Jn 5:14)

 

When the woman caught in adultery was brought to him by his religious opponents, he didn’t condemn her. He told the mob, “The one who has no sin may cast the first stone.” One by one they walked away, aware of their own sinfulness. Jesus told her,

 

“Go, and sin no more.” (Jn 8:11)

 

Sin separates us from God and the life we are meant for. And none of us have the power to do anything about it. Until we come to faith in the Savior, we keep stumbling in the dark.

 

The disciples’ question about whose sin is to blame has some biblical merit. In Ten Commandments, God told Moses,

 

I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:5b-6)

 

But later in the prophets the Lord promises a new covenant.

 

A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be their own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be their own. (Ezekiel 18:19-20)

 

Jesus said that the man’s blindness was not the fault of his or his parents’ sin, but rather the opportunity to reveal God’s glory. The way the wording works, it sounds like God made the man to be born blind so that Jesus could reveal His divine authority as the Messiah. I cannot embrace that interpretation. I find it unconscionable that God would make a baby to be blind and forced into a life of begging, just so that God could later heal them for God’s own glory. We live in a broken world. Disease is part of it. It’s not the man’s fault, nor his parents, nor did God will for him to be born blind. It was the result of being born into a sin-corrupted world.

 

Jesus healed the blind man by rubbing mud on his eyes. The hands of the Creator, who formed Adam from the earth, are at work healing the blind man.

 

Jesus sends the man to the Pool of Siloam to wash. The Pool of Siloam was used by pilgrims to ceremonially cleanse themselves before entering the temple. Here, too, is another reference to sin. Ceremonial cleansing was a symbolic way to present oneself before God with a fresh start.

 

The blind man washed the mud off his eyes and could see! But the story continues with controversy. His neighbors can’t believe that it’s the same guy that was born blind and sat begging. They took him to the Pharisees. As soon as they heard the man’s testimony, they were offended because Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath.

 

“This man is not from God, because he does not observe the Sabbath.” (John 9:16) But others wondered how anyone could perform such a sign, if God was not with them! So they refused to believe the man was born blind. They judged the whole thing to be a stunt generated by charlatans.

They even dragged in his parents. They confirmed the man was their son, and was indeed born blind. The Pharisees demanded to know how he could now see. The parents shrugged and said, “He’s old enough to answer for himself, ask him.” And the Pharisees asked the man again how he came to see.

 

Notice how they persist in not believing that Jesus healed the blind man? They willfully keep their eyes closed to the truth, because it challenges the way they are trained to view matters.

 

The man teases, “How can you not know where Jesus comes from? No one has ever heard of a man born blind having his eyes opened. If he weren’t from God, he could do nothing.”

 

Insulted, they threw him out of the synagogue. “You were born completely in sinfulness, and yet you presume to teach us?” (Jn 9:34)

 

Were not the Pharisees born into sinfulness, too? There’s the irony of this story. They claim to see. They claim to know God through their knowledge of the scriptures. Yet they cannot see that Jesus is God’s messiah. He has divine authority to forgive sin and restore health.

 

The man Jesus healed met Jesus again. Jesus asked if he believed in the Son of Man, a traditional title for the messiah. Grateful for his new sight and fully aware that it is Jesus he has to thank, the man was eager to please Jesus. “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” And Jesus told the man, “You’re speaking with him.” The man exclaimed, “Lord, I believe!” and worshipped Jesus. For John, the author of this gospel, belief in Jesus is true sight.

 

Jesus said, “For judgement I came into the world, so that those who can’t see may see, and those who claim to see are blinded.” The Pharisees, though they claim to see, to know God, are blinded by their own rigidity, their certainty that their version of faith is the only true path.

 

Certainty in faith can be a gift, but when it becomes a weapon to use against those who choose to follow a different path, it is a curse on the world. Islamic militants are certain. They kill and steal and terrorize in the name of God. Social justice warriors are certain. They criticize those who don’t join them in their various causes. “If you remain silent, you’re part of the problem!” they accuse. Right-wing militias are certain, willing to take up arms against those who choose a different kind of society.

 

Yes, those who claim to see, remain blinded under the judgment of Christ who came to reveal the truth of God’s unconditional love and mercy. Today’s message is a warning. Remain humble before God and your fellow humans. Admit what the apostle admitted.

 

For now, we see only a reflection, as in a dim mirror, but then (When Christ comes at the completion of all things) we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I am fully known. (1Co 13:12)

 

True sight is to trust in Jesus Christ and God’s promise that all shall, one day, be well. Every manner of things shall be well.