I want you to try to imagine what your life would be like if you had been born without the ability to see. Let’s think about that for a few minutes. If you were blind:
- You could experience the warmth of sunlight on your face, but not the full beauty of a sunrise—or a sunset—or a full harvest moon. Those sites can only be experienced with one’s eyes.
- You could inhale the aromas of a spring garden, but the words, “red,” “yellow,”“purple,” and “green” — words like that would be meaningless to you.
- You could hear the crashing surf and even taste the salty air in places like Ocean City—but the overlapping of briny, blue-green ocean waves and the gleaming white sand—all that would be beauty you could never know.
- You could touch your children’s faces but you would never fully comprehend the joy of seeing their unique facial expressions.
The sad fact is life’s richest experiences are lost or severely diminished without the ability to see.
And, whereas those of us who are blessed with physical sight can only IMAGINE what it would be like to be blind…there is a form of sightlessness that we DO experience every single day. I’m referring to that form of myopia that makes us blind to God’s truth. You see, one of the side-effects of our fallen nature is that our sin clouds our vision when it comes to the ability to see and fully comprehend spiritual things. That’s one of the reasons God gave us the Bible. By reading its inspired words, our eyes are opened to principles we would miss otherwise. As it says in Psalm 119:105, “Thy Word is a LAMP to my feet and a LIGHT to my path.”
I’d like us to approach this morning’s text with this principle in mind—asking God to use His Word to open our eyes to things we need to see in order to grow as Christ followers. Our text is a great passage for us to apply this principle because it tells us of a time when Jesus healed a man who was born blind.
By the way, this healing was itself further proof of the fact that He was the Messiah because, as Isaiah 42:7 says, it had been long prophesied that the Christ would, “…open eyes that are blind, free captives from prison, and release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.” In any case, the ironic truth is that studying this account of a man who was given PHYSICAL sight—can improve our SPIRITUAL eyesight.
Our story takes place shortly after the Feast of the Tabernacles in the early fall of 29A.D. Jesus and His followers were entering the temple area when they saw this man who had been blind from birth. He was outside the temple entrance doing the only thing blind people could do for a living back then: begging. Follow along now as I read the ninth chapter of John’s Gospel. Pay attention and I’m sure you’ll agree that whereas this man could not see—his mind worked perfectly. He was an amazingly intelligent individual…who had obviously been listening to the teaching that went on in God’s house.
1 – As [Jesus] went along, He saw a man blind from birth.
2 – His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 – “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.
4 – As long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent Me. Night is coming, when no one can work.
5 – While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 – Having said this, He spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.
7 – “Go,” He told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
8 – His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?”
9 – Some claimed that he was. Others said, “No, he only looks like him.” But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”
10 – “How then were your eyes opened?” They demanded.
11 – He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed and then I could see.”
12 – “Where is this Man?” they asked him. “I don’t know,” he said.
13 – They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. [This was required under Jewish law as a way of certifying the healing.]
14 – Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath.
15 – Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight, “He put mud on my eyes, “ the man replied, “and I washed and now I see.”
16 – 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?” So they were divided.
17 – 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.”
[No doubt he said this because the Old Testament records the fact that God enabled His prophets were empowered to heal and do miracles.]
18 – The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents.
19 – “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that he can see?”
20 -“We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind.
21 – But how can he see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.”
22 – His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.
23 -That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
24 – A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God,” they said. “We know this Man is a sinner.”
25 – He replied, “Whether He is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
26 – Then they asked him, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?”
27 – He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become His disciples too?”
28 – Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses!
29 – We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where He comes from.”
30 – The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where He comes from, yet He opened my eyes.
31 – We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does His will.
32 – Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind.
33 – If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing.”
34 – To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.
35 – Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when He found him, He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
36 – “Who is He sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in Him.”
37 – Jesus said, “You have now seen Him; in fact, He is the one Who is speaking to you.”
38 – Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped Him.
39 – Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
40 – Some Pharisees who were with Him heard Him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
41 – Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”
What does this story of a blind man who was healed—what kingdom principles does it help us to see?
(1) First, it reminds us that there are INVISIBLE people all around us.
I say this because that’s what this blind man was to his community. He was INVISIBLE. Day after day….month after month…year after year…he had sat in this same place begging as people walked by—most of whom were too busy to even turn in his direction. And—the Pharisees themselves are a prime example. They passed him by on the way to the temple every single day—but when he was brought to them, they didn’t recognize him…because they’d never seen him before….they’d never looked his way.
So, in a very real sense he was “invisible” to everyone….much like the “invisible” panhandlers we encounter every day in D.C. And this guy was used to this invisibility. He EXPECTED people to overlook him because he had spent his entire life being ignored. He was blind—and people found that depressing. He was a beggar—and people would find that demanding. He was in their minds, a product of sin—which meant they would find him disgusting. No doubt mothers would walk by with their children and say things like: “Don’t look at him; don’t listen to him; don’t pay any attention to him. He is sinful. He wants something, and he doesn’t deserve it.” So it really was out of the ordinary for Jesus to stop and look at this poor man whom everyone else ignored. And when He looked, our Lord SAW more than a blind beggar.
- He SAW the hurt and disappointment of a lonely man who lived in dependence and anonymity.
- Jesus SAW the hopelessness of a life lived in endless night that would never know dawn.
No one else SAW this….but Jesus did. In fact throughout His ministry, He always noticed things and people that others missed.
- Once He looked up in a sycamore tree and SAW a short tax collector who needed to be set free from his bondage to greed.
- Another time as He walked through a bustling crowd, He FELT IT when a single woman, desperate for healing, touched the hem of His robe.
- He SAW a widow, whom no one else would have given a second glance, and observed that she gave everything she had to God.
- He SAW unimportant little children one day that adults in the crowd were trying to make disappear.
- He SAW the disciples’ doubt and fear on a stormy boat ride.
- He NOTICED when His friends argued about who was to be the greatest disciple.
When you think about it, I would bet that sometimes Jesus’ disciples wished He didn’t SEE so much. But as He was walking along on this particular day, Jesus SAW this blind man. The King of Kings noticed him and gave him His attention. He stooped down in front of the man, spat on the ground, made a “poultice” of sorts out of the dirt and placed it on the man’s eyes and told him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. The man did as instructed and instantly he could see!
I don’t know why Jesus used dirt and spittle. Theories abound but no one knows why He did it this way. He could have healed him with only a word—but as Ortberg suggests in his book, Love Beyond Reason, (I am indebted to Ortberg for much of the insights in this message) perhaps He took this extra time to do it this way to give this man something he had never had before—undivided attention. And you know ATTENTION is a precious thing. We all crave it and will do almost anything to get it. It is an essential vitamin in our daily relational diets. Along with food and water, every baby is born needing the attentive gaze of another human face.
I remember when my children were babies my favorite part of the day was when I would lean over their crib in the morning and their eyes would meet mine and they would break out into that smile of recognition. They looked forward to my face each morning. All of us are born this way. We need the attention of others. We all have this need to know that others turn their faces our way and see—NOTICE—what we are going through.
For example, wives need their husbands to really SEE them. They need their undivided attention. I think most husbands and wives have had times that they sat in front of the TV and one spouse (usually the husband) was immersed in the news or a sports game while the wife wanted to talk about something that was important to her. Frustrated, she finally complains, “You’re not listening to me.” And, he gives the standard response: “I can repeat every word you said,” and then he proceeds to demonstrate. Well, would this satisfy you wives out there this morning? No, of course not! You don’t want your husband to be able to replay your words. Any voice recorder could do that. You don’t want an instant replay. You want him to be fully present. You want him to turn off the TV and look you in the eye and PAY ATTENTION to you with the same zeal he did when you were dating. Attention is a precious thing not just to children and wives but to all of us—husbands included. No wonder we say that we don’t just “give” our attention. We “pay” it—as if it were currency of some sort. It is a valuable thing to know that someone notices—really SEES—what we are going though in life. It hurts to be “invisible” like this blind man. Is there an invisible person in your life? Is there someone God is calling you to SEE…a child or spouse you’ve been too busy for? A friend you’ve taken for granted? You know, I think this story in John 9 opens our eyes and helps us to see that one of the greatest miracles of life is that God pays attention to us. Nothing we go through is hidden from His omniscient gaze. When the Psalmist exclaimed, “O Lord, You have searched me and KNOWN me…” he was rejoicing in the knowledge that even the smallest detail of our lives is of immense interest to God. This realization is why the writers of Scripture speak so often of God’s FACE.
Numbers 6 records that familiar priestly blessing that God Himself taught the Hebrew people. Remember how it goes?“The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His FACE to shine upon you…the Lord turn His FACE toward you and give you peace….” To “turn your face” toward someone is to give that person your whole-hearted, undivided attention. It is not the casual listening of someone whose thoughts are elsewhere. No—it’s the same thing as saying: “I have nothing else to do, nowhere I’d rather be. I am fully devoted to being with you.” Well—this is the kind of attention God LAVISHES on us. And…notice in the blessing that God not only turns His face toward us. When He does, His face “SHINES.” This word, “SHINES” conveys an image of delight. It is the face of a proud parent beaming while his child learns a flip in gymnastics…or runs in a track meet…or plays in her first basketball game…or graduates from college. This is how our loving Heavenly Father looks at us!
Well, can you imagine how wonderful that “invisible” blind man felt that day as the SON of God stopped, noticed him, and PAID HIM ATTENTION?!!! I think being healed was secondary.
(2) This lead’s me to mention a second principle this story helps us see: It is possible to have 20/20 vision and still be BLIND.
I say this because there are several sighted people in this story who were oblivious to what was going on. The first were Jesus’ own disciples. In this text John records that when Jesus noticed this man, it forced His disciples to stop and see him as well. When they did, they asked Jesus a question: “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Now this is a strange question. I mean, yes, some sicknesses are caused by willful sin and even today babies are born deformed due their parent’s sin of drug or alcohol abuse. But how could this man have caused his own blindness if he were born that way? The disciples made this odd inquiry because, as I inferred a moment ago, in those days there was a belief that it was possible to be born guilty of a specific sin. For example if the mother-to-be worshiped in a heathen temple, the unborn child was judged to be guilty of idolatry as well. There was this school of thought that held that it was possible for a fetus to sin.
Plus—back then people believed in a cause-and-effect relationship between suffering and sin which also led them to believe that wherever there was suffering, there was also sin. Somehow it made people feel better if they could think that a suffering person deserved his suffering. And we tend to be like this even today. When we judge people of being guilty of their sin and deserving of their fate, we feel less of an obligation to suffer with them and have compassion for them…and help them. We cease to PAY ATTENTION to them. It’s easier for us to close our eyes to their needs if we think they did some evil thing that caused their problem in the first place.
So, understand—these disciples saw this man—but they did not see what Jesus SAW. They saw not a blind man—but instead the object of an interesting theological discussion. And let’s stop for a moment to make sure we understand Jesus’ answer to their question. Look at verse 3. Jesus said, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” Reading this makes it sound like God arbitrarily caused this man to endure years of blindness so that one day Jesus would heal him and bring glory to His Father. But in his commentary on this passage Herschel Hobbs points out that this interpretation comes from the flawed way we have punctuated this verse. In the original Greek there was no punctuation as we know it. So, in his opinion, this verse should read, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned but this [just] happened. [Period] [New sentence] So that the work of God should be displayed in His life I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day.”
Jesus was not saying that God caused this man’s blindness. He was simply saying that healing him would display the power of God for all to see. In any case, the disciples could see. Their eyes functioned at peak efficiency but their attempt to justify the way they ignored this man blinded them to what Jesus saw. And they were not the only sighted—but blind people—that day.
The Pharisees were blind as well. They were blinded by their own sense of self-righteousness. Think about it. God did a miracle that day! A man who had been born blind was given his sight! But, as we’ve seen repeatedly in their verbal battles with Jesus, all these religious leaders could see was that someone had broken their precious Sabbath laws. Now in Exodus, God had commanded that man should not work on the Sabbath and Jesus never broke this 4th commandment—or any other commandment for that matter! But over the years the religious leaders had expanded on God’s command by devising 39 separate “works” that they forbade and most of these had additional sub-categories. For example: On the Sabbath, children were forbidden to drag a stick on the ground because this would be “plowing.” Well, that day Jesus broke their man-made Sabbath laws in two ways: First of all, He made clay. It was forbidden by the Pharisees to do any mixing or kneading on the Sabbath. And then secondly He healed on the Sabbath—a “no-no” that had already gotten Jesus in trouble with these people. The rule was, you could receive medical attention on the Sabbath only if your life was in actual danger and even then it could only be for the purpose of keeping you from dying—not for improving your condition. That had to wait until AFTER the Sabbath.
The underlying philosophy of all these man-made rules was that by paying close attention to the law and providing all the right sacrifices it was possible to be a sinless person. So, their religion actually encouraged self-righteousness. God did give the law but as I said a couple weeks back, He gave it to show us our sin—our need of Him. And the Pharisees had devised a complex religious system where it was possible to be above God’s law—and really not need Him anymore. The Sabbath was supposed to bless mankind. It was supposed to bring man closer to God but with their burdensome rules it actually pushed them away from Him.
In his book, Hustling God, M. Craig Barnes tells the story of a wedding that started as a disaster, but took a nice turn about halfway through. The day the blessed event was to occur dawned stormy, with wind and rain pounding against the church windows. The rain was so bad that some of the main streets had to be closed due to flooding…which meant that some of the out-of-town guests were hopelessly lost on side streets and never made it to the ceremony. Also, for some strange reason, about half the candles on the candelabras would not light. The flowers didn’t arrive so the church’s wedding hostess put together something from the previous week’s sanctuary flowers—which had a lovely brown tint around the edges. Then the real flowers showed up15 minutes into the ceremony but undaunted the florist marched down the center aisle and arranged them right in front of the bride, groom, and soggy guests. The couple had worked so hard to get this ceremony just right but in spite of all their efforts their unforgettable day had become—well unforgettable. Of course, there are usually a few tears at weddings but at this particular wedding they weren’t tears of happiness. Barnes writes,
“I made a few adjustments to my homily and talked about how fitting it was to have an imperfect wedding for what was always going to be an imperfect marriage, just like every marriage. I pointed out that all of the resolve to get unimportant things just right was about to mess up the important thing, namely, weaving two lives into one flesh. I gave it my best shot, but still I couldn’t talk the couple into seeing what was really important. I could still see the anger and hurt in their eyes. But the moment they turned and faced each other, to say their vows, everything changed for them. The groom’s eyes watered up with tears of joy as, for the first time on that day of mishap after mishap, he really SAW his beautiful bride. All of his frustration melted away, as he finally beheld the joy of his life. That got her crying, which made me cry as well.”
This couple almost missed the blessing of their marriage because they were so concerned with getting the ceremony right. And these Pharisees had missed the blessing of a weekly Sabbath-union with God because they were so pre-occupied with getting the letter of the law right. They had forgotten that the Sabbath was made to bless man….not the other way around. So these Pharisees looked at this formerly blind man, but they did not see a reason to rejoice. They saw only a threat to a religious system that propped up their own sense of spiritual superiority. They were too busy attending to their own status to pay attention to God Himself, Who was at work in their midst. They could see…but they were BLIND.
And so, by the way, were this poor man’s parents! They were summoned to testify that this was their son and that he had indeed been born blind. But they were so afraid of losing their position in the religious establishment that they too seemed blind to the blessing that their boy had received.
But, we need to be careful in our haste to criticize all these blind people…for we too can be blind.
- We can become so blinded by our self-righteousness that we don’t SEE our own sin and need for God’s forgiving presence.
- Or—in our haste to point out the sins of others, we forget our need to regularly confess our own shortcomings.
- We become blind to the fact that even though people sin and suffer because of it, they still need our compassion. This is what it means to be grace-driven.
- And sadly enough, sometimes church activity encourages and fosters this self-righteousness. If we’re not careful we get so involved in religion that we neglect our personal relationship with God and when that happens, we begin to forget how to listen for His still, small voice.
I mean, just because you are a follower of God doesn’t mean you can’t suffer from spiritual blindness. Listen to Isaiah 42:18-20:“Hear, you deaf; look, you blind and see! Who is blind—but My servant—and deaf like the messenger I sent? Who is blind like the one committed to Me?” Due to our sinful nature, we have to work at seeing the way God sees. We have to discipline ourselves to study His Word and hear His voice. William Barry once wrote,“….God communicates with us continuously whether we know it or not….But we cannot hear Him because we do not know how to listen.” We need to learn to pay attention to God for…all of us are susceptible to what Ortberg refers to as “Spiritual Attention Deficit Disorder.” We need to heed God’s instruction through the Psalmist and, “be still” and know that God is God.
I remember a time years ago when Sue and I were on a bike hike with some dear friends and we came upon a “pond” of sorts that had been the result of some beaver damming a small stream. Well, we wanted to see these beavers so in an attempt to get them up and about we all threw stones into this perfectly still “pond.” If you have ever done that then you know that when you throw a stone into a pond, the stone will create ripples that reach all the way around, but this will only happen if the pond is still. When the pond is quiet and still, the arrival of the stone can be read over the entire surface. But when the pond is not still, when the surface of the water is already ruffled and tossed, the arrival of the stone will go undetected. When a storm is going on there is so much commotion that no one will notice a few waves more or less. Well, you and I are like a pond in that we can’t hear God until we learn to be still. We are too busy…get too little sleep, too much stimulation, do too much talking. All of these things interfere with the stillness and keep us from being able to discern the pebble, the “still small voice,” that is the signal that God wants to speak. James wrote, “Let everyone be quick to listen and slow to speak.” And we should heed this teaching for as this conversation shows us….if you don’t, you run the risk of spiritual blindness. Here’s one final principle John’s record of this healing helps us see.
(3) SPIRITUAL sight is more precious than PHYSICAL sight.
The true miracle of this story is that this man not only had his physical eyes opened. His spiritual eyes were opened as well. He saw the most important thing in life. He saw Who Jesus was. After his clever discussion with the Pharisees—in which he came out on top, they did what his parents feared they would do to them. They cast him out of the temple. But I like how Chrysostom puts it. He says, “The Jews cast him out of the temple, and the Lord of the temple found him.” When Jesus heard he had been cast out He found him and when this man met His healer He saw the most precious “sight” in life. He saw—realized—that He was the Christ of God. In fact, if you look closely at this passage you can actually see the miracle of the healing of his SPIRITUAL sight happen. Look in your Bibles: Verse 11 says that at first all the blind man knew was that his healer was THE MAN called Jesus. Later in verse 17, he confessed to the Pharisees that this Jesus was a PROPHET. Can you see his eyes opening? By verse 33 he had become a defender of Jesus and said that what Jesus has done showed that He was from God. And then, in his final encounter with Jesus after Jesus had heard of all the fuss his healing had caused and had gone to the trouble to find the man….after this—this formerly sightless man sees Jesus as the SON OF MAN and he bows down and says, “Lord, I believe.”
So….a man who had been blind from birth can miraculously see and he realizes that the sight he will prize his whole life…the most beautiful thing he will ever lay his eyes on…is the One Who healed Him. He saw that his Healer was the Christ of God. He put his faith in our Lord. And this is the greatest healing of the two because the light that poured into the man’s new eyes was nothing compared to the light that dawned in his soul. The more he looked at Jesus, the more obvious it became to him that Jesus was more than a man. Napoleon was once discussing Jesus with several men who were skeptics of His divinity. They were saying that Jesus was a clever man and no more. But Napoleon interrupted and said, “Gentlemen, I know men, and Jesus Christ was more than a man.” The tremendous thing about Jesus is that the more you look at Him, the greater He becomes. This is not the way it is with normal human beings because usually the better we know a person, the more clearly we see their weaknesses, their faults, their failings.
But the more we look at Jesus the more we know that He is not just a man or even a prophet. He is Lord. The real healing available to everyone who asks, is healing from spiritual blindness. This is the healing that lasts, long after our physical eyes close in death.
We come now to the time when we allow God to use all that has happened in this hour of worship as a light to open our eyes and help us to really look at ourselves. This is the time when we say, “God show me how my relationship with You needs to change. Open my eyes to the light of Your truth so that I can clearly see where I am and where I need to be.” This morning as you look, what do you see? Maybe you see your need to see people as Jesus sees them…asking Him to open your eyes to all the “invisible” people in your life. Perhaps you see your need to go to our spouse and commit to really listen to him or her when they speak. You may see that you suffer from spiritual A.D.D. and need to commit to slowing down the pace of your life so you can learn to recognize and heed God’s still, small voice. Or, God may have used worship this morning to help you see that Jesus is more than a man and to awaken your desire to make Him Lord of your life. Perhaps God has helped you to see today that you need to join this church. Let us all ask God to make our needed decisions as plain as the light of day and when He does, let us respond accordingly.