Northwest Community Evangelical Free Church
(March 22, 2014)
Dave Smith
Sermon manuscript
Sermon series: THIS Jesus
Sight to the Blind Study #4
(John 9)
Introduction: A question that clarifies…
Some time ago I was talking with a friend on a hiking trail. We were on Day Three of a multi-day backpacking trip, and this friend was at something of a crossroads in his spiritual life.
Good talks often happen no the trail and I was listening to him express doubts and wonderings about life and God.
When there was a silence I took the opportunity to ask a question that I hoped would help bring some clarity. We had been talking about what would be a sufficiently grand ideal or idea or value to live for.
So I asked, “What would you be willing to die for?”
That question sent my friend for a loop. Frankly, the question rocks me back on my heels, too. It is a challenging question and I ask it of myself pretty regularly.
A few minutes ago you and I watched a video that highlighted the sufferings of some of our Christian family. We watched as twenty one men sang hymns of praise to God before going to their deaths for their faith in Christ.
After viewing that, we almost can’t help but ask ourselves, “For what would I be willing to die?”
Those men were willing to die for Jesus.
Not the nice Jesus of popular culture, not “gentle Jesus, meek and mild.”
No. They were willing to die for the Jesus who is revealed on the pages of the New Testament. THIS God-in-the-flesh, wonder-working, loving, courageous Jesus. It was THIS Jesus for whom they lived and for whom they died.
Signs aplenty...
During these weeks leading up to Easter, we are viewing signs that Jesus performed, signs recorded in the Gospel of John. All of these signs advertise something about Him and His ways.
We’ve seen signs that include turning water into wine and a couple of healings, multiplying food and walking on water.
The text we are going to explore today shows us Jesus performing another sign.
Today’s sign, like all the signs do, advertises His power. On a strictly physical level, He performs a miracle that defies all medical explanation.
But He is going to follow up that physical miracle with its spiritual counterpart. That He is able to do THAT amazing work assures us that He is worth both living and dying for.
When we catch up with Jesus today, He is in Jerusalem, having just walked through a crowd of people who were poised to stone Him to death.
Of the action that follows, we are given very few details. Aside from the fact that it is in Jerusalem, we don’t know where the incident we are about to see occurs.
Most scholars place this event about six months out from the crucifixion, putting it in the September/October time frame. But we really don’t know for sure exactly when it happened.
As He was walking, Jesus saw something that caught His eye. He saw a man who had never seen anything.
Opens the Eyes of the Blind (9:1-12)
Blindness: The Dead-End of the “Cause” Question (vv. 1-5)
Jesus SAW the blind man (v. 1)
[1] As he passed by, He saw a man blind from birth.
This man’s world was the world of the blind. Hearing, taste, touch, and smell were all intact. But he had never seen the face of his parents or sisters or brothers or friends. He had never seen a sunset, or a nighttime sky. He’d never seen the Temple or a Passover lamb.
The World Health Organization tells us that today, there are over 39 million people who are blind and 285 million who suffer with compromised vision of some sort.
Problems with sight can develop due to all kinds of causes, including cataracts and glaucoma, diabetes, and macular degeneration, to name only a few.
One of the most touching times our team experienced during a 2012 missions trip to Kenya was the time we spent with blind children who had developed problems with sight. Blindness is a huge problem in East African children, due in large part to a simple deficiency of Vitamin A.
My brother-in-law, Don Kerr, suffered a general optical neuropathy over fifteen years ago that the doctor’s still can’t explain.
First sight in one eye went away; then, most of the sight in the other. Don is now virtually blind, in addition to many other ailments that plague him. But before he went blind, he had been able to see.
The man Jesus has just passed by, though, had never seen anything. He had been blind from birth and he would have made his way in the world by begging, which was about the only way blind people in ancient times and in many places today can make ends meet.
Jesus and His disciples passed by this man. The twelve were intrigued by his condition, so they asked Jesus a question.
Theology 101 (vv. 2-3)
The disciples assume sin’s causality (v. 2)
[2] And His disciples asked Him, saying, “‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”[1]
Their question sounds Hindu-ish, because the Hindu says that if you see someone who is suffering, you can know that they lived badly in a previous life.
The idea in Hinduism is that the moral universe is a zero-sum game. One piece of suffering is the result of one bad action by somebody somewhere. It is a convenient and simple explanation of suffering and evil in the world.
Jesus’ disciples (who weren’t at all closet Hindus) reveal by their question how tempting it is to think in terms of moral cause and effect. One sin translates to one suffering.
It’s tempting for us, today, to think that way, too. But it’s wrong-headed thinking.
We don’t wonder, after someone has died on a slick South Texas road, what they or their parents did wrong to require such cosmic payback.
We don’t walk through the cancer ward of Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital and ask what sin this child or her parents committed.
The moral universe is NOT a zero-sum game. There is not a neat one-to-one correspondence between sin and suffering. The Bible doesn’t play the “sin card” every time someone suffers - and Jesus doesn’t play it here, either.
Jesus jumps to God’s great effects (v. 3)
[3] Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
Of course, Jesus would agree that some suffering is the result of personal sin. But the suffering of this blind man was not the direct result of his own sin or of the sin of his parents.
Jesus’ answer moves us away from speculation about causality. He wants His disciples - and us! - to think of suffering in some way other than as a part of a cosmic blame game or as a brain teaser.
He wants us to think of suffering’s redemptive potential and of God’s power to bring personal wholeness out of personal brokenness.
Then Jesus turned from His disciples to the blind man.
Blindness: Jesus Eye-to-Eye with a Blind PERSON (vv. 6-7)
A messy healing (v. 6)
[6] When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes
Imagine the thoughts running through the blind man’s mind as - as SURPRIZE! - Jesus applied spit-moistened clay to his eyes.
“What’s this? No! Someone is rubbing mud in my eyes!”
Maybe he’s been the victim of unsuccessful and messy healing attempts before. Maybe he’s been the victim of bullying and ridicule. It may be that he thinks someone is making fun of him.
Whatever his thoughts, with the mud applied, Jesus gave the blind man marching orders.
Marching orders (v. 7a)
[7a] and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” (which is translated Sent)
And off the man went, stumbling his way to the pool of Siloam, a stone-lined pond somewhere nearby in the old city of Jerusalem.
When he walked away from Jesus he was blind. His walk to the pool was a walk by faith, not sight.
By faith the man walked and by faith the man washed. Then, with the mud gone from his eyes, he opened his eyes. And, for the first time in his life, his eyes work!
Washed and well! (v. 7b)
[7b] So he went away and washed, and came back seeing.
We are not to understand that there was any healing power in the mud or in the pool’s water. The means do not explain the miracle. Jesus’ power - and that alone - explains the miracle.
He could see the pavement he walked on and the trees that shaded him. He could see the faces of friends he had known for years.
I would have loved to have seen him walking back. He’s probably never walked all that steadily, due to his blindness. He may still have the blind man’s cautious, shuffling gait.
But his eyes are feasting on everything he sees as he makes his way back to the place where he had encountered Jesus.
This sign shouts Jesus’ power.
The Lord didn’t miraculously scrape off a cataract or reverse the effects of glaucoma. He connected an optic nerve that had never been connected and trained synapses to fire that had never fired and taught nerves to send signals to the brain of what the eyes now, for the first time ever, saw.
This was a display of God-sized power, poured out on an unsuspecting blind man because Jesus simply takes pleasure in bestowing grace on needy people.
When this formerly blind man returned from the pool of Siloam to his familiar begging spot, I’m sure that he was looking for his Healer.
But that one Voice he would have known above all others was gone. He had not seen Jesus and Jesus has now retreated to the sidelines.
The healed man, though, is thrust right into the spotlight. We listen as John records the responses of a few people to the miracle. And I’ll just warn you. Their responses are kinda odd.
Closed Minds from the Sighted Blind (vv. 8-34)
The Neighbors: “It’s hard to say…” (vv. 8-12)
A case of mistaken identity (vv. 8-9)
[8] Therefore, the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying, “Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?” [9] Others were saying, “This is he,” still others were saying, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the one.”
These friends and neighbors have watched this man beg for years. Now, they are doubting their own senses of sight because he has gained his. For them, simply seeing the man see was NOT believing.
Rather than embrace the obvious miracle, they figured they were looking at the man’s heretofore unknown identical twin brother.
Well, finally, someone who did see that he was the [formerly] blind man, asked the man himself to explain how he had come to see.
A case of a curious healing (vv. 10-12)
[10] So they were saying to him, “How then were your eyes opened?” [11] He answered, “The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went away and washed, and I received sight.”
He likely doesn’t know much about Jesus. But he did know that it was Jesus who had given him his sight.[2] But he wasn’t out to preach a sermon. He didn’t have an axe to grind. He just answered the question.
When they then asked him, [12] “Where is He?” he had to admit, “I do not know.”
So confusion reigns. Nobody is exactly certain what has happened.
And at the height of all this confusion, some genius among the crowd of friends and neighbors suggested that they do what was always a good idea: “Hey, let’s go see the Pharisees!”
The Pharisees: “You and Jesus are sinners…” (vv. 13-34)
The Pharisees’ opinions about Jesus (vv. 13-17)
Polite questioning (vv. 13, 15a)
This meeting between the Pharisees and the formerly blind man began friendly enough.
Pharisees were among the religious heavyweights of ancient Israel and, at first, were polite in their questioning.
[13] They brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind…[15a] Then the Pharisees also were asking him again how he received his sight.”
So here, for the second time, the man recounts the story of how he came to see.
Courteous answering (v. 15b)
[15b] And he said to them, “He applied clay to my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”
It’s a consistent story. He’s telling the truth and all seems well.
But all is not well because of a detail John provides. Because of this detail, there arises a difference of opinion among the Pharisees about the significance of what has happened.
Pharisaic division (vv. 14, 16)
[14] Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.[3]… [16] Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, “This man (meaning Jesus) is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” But others were saying, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And there was a division among them.[4]
Now, here’s what I find to be the most amazing thing about this whole exchange.
Nobody is marveling over the fact that a blind man has received his sight. Nobody is giving glory to God for the miracle of healing.
Instead, they are engaged in a debate about the propriety of healing on a Sabbath.[5] And this conversation about Sabbath theology is taking place with the formerly blind man standing right there.
As far as the Bible tells us nobody even said, “Congratulations! Happy for you!” to the man who can now see for the first time in his life. Talk about world class insensitivity.
Finally, the Pharisees turned to the now-seeing man and asked his opinion of the Man who had opened his eyes.
[17] So they said to the blind man again, “What do you say about Him since He opened your eyes?” And he said, “He is a prophet.” (And what did we expect him to say? Jesus had given him his sight, after all.)
But the Pharisees weren’t satisfied that Jesus was a prophet from God or anything of the sort.
Seeing wasn’t believing for them anymore than it had been for the friends and neighbors and they looked for ways to deny the miracle.
Parenthetical: Meet the Parents (vv. 18-23)
[18] The Jews then did not believe it of him, that he had been born blind and had received sight, until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sight, [19] and questioned them, saying, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?”
The first question was easy and the parents answered, “Yep, this is our son.”
The second question - “How does he now see?” was tougher.
Maybe they really didn’t know how he had received his sight. If so, their response isn’t unreasonable, although it does sound a little odd.
[20] His parents answered them and said, ‘We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; [21] but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself.”
Did you notice how curt, how short, their answers are? It’s not what I would have hoped for from the parents of a blind son who can now see. I’m surprised that they didn’t say, “Yes, he can see! Isn’t it great?”
We keep reading and discover the reason why they were so restrained in their responses.
[22] His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews (meaning the Jewish leadership – Sadducees, Pharisees, chief priests, scribes); for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. [23] For this reason his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
The parents’ reluctance to answer the Pharisees’ questions is due to the Pharisees’ new policy. Anybody who crossed over to Jesus’ side was to be excommunicated.
To be “put out” was serious business.
If you were “put out” of the synagogue, you would be treated like an unclean leper and would be excluded from the community’s social life.
You wouldn’t even be admitted into the temple or the synagogue for worship. You would be talked about as if you were dead. And when you did die, you’d receive a dishonorable funeral.
This is first century persecution for aligning with Jesus. This may be THE first time that people were made to suffer for siding with Jesus. What is happening in our day began in John, chapter 9, while Jesus was still alive.
And with that kind of a threat, the parents weren’t very excited about answering a lot of questions posed by the Pharisees. They just put the ball back in their son’s lap. “Ask him. He is of age.”
This whole scene doesn’t leave us with a warm, fuzzy feeling, does it?
Sadly, though, while one man who was blind can now see, others who can see are as blind as bats to the wonder-working power of God.
And as the drama continues, the next scene gives us front row seats to a Pharisaic interview that has turned into an inquisition.
They have confirmed that this man really had been born blind. There’s no arguing that. But they demand that he revoke his comment about Jesus being a prophet.
The Pharisees’ “put out” the former blind man (vv. 24-34)
Urging the man to condemn Jesus (v. 24)
[24] So a second time they called the man who had been blind, and said to him, “Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner.”
According to their logic, Jesus MUST be a sinner. After all:
Air tight logic (except for the faulty presuppositions), right?
And the man whose healing had sparked all of this controversy replied with a wonderfully dry wit.
I know what I know (v. 25)
[25] He then answered, “Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
Wow! Somebody ought to put those words to music in a song!
This is a great testimony. He describes his own irrefutable, personal experience.
Now bubbling with frustration, the Pharisees attacked the man again, this time with a question.
Condemning Jesus, take two (v. 26)
[26] So they said to him, “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?”
Listen to the man’s hilarious response.
Explanation, take three (v. 27)
[27] He answered them, “I told you already, and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again? You do not want to become His disciples too, do you?”
While we may think that’s pretty funny, the Pharisees weren’t laughing. They had no interest in being Jesus’ disciples, and said so.
We choose Moses (vv. 28-29)
[28] And they reviled him, and said, “You are His disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. [29] “We know that God has spoken to Moses; but as for this Man, we do not know where He is from.”
Moses had the weight of fifteen hundred years of tradition behind him. Moses was a tried and true commodity. They sided with Moses.
And with that, the formerly blind man has had enough. His next words are intended to be inflammatory. And they were.
The healed man preaches! (vv. 30-33)
[30] The man answered and said to them, “Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes. [31] We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing, and does His will He hears him. [32] Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. [33] If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.”
That little speech took guts. For the first time in his life, he is able to look at someone eye to eye. And on this day he looks at the most powerful men of his day and tells them, “Your unbelief is more of a wonder than my sight.”
A lesser man would have buckled under and agreed, “He is certainly a sinner, whatever you say.”
But, this man who had not had sight his entire life had developed backbone in sight’s absence. He doesn’t care all that much about what the Pharisees had to say or about what they thought. And, now that he can see, he is not about to condemn the One who gave him his sight.
He sees the Pharisees and he sees them for what they are. His thinking is clear. His testimony is powerful. His healing is irrefutable.
But the Pharisees aren’t about to be lectured by this guy.
Power, run amuck (v. 34)
[34] They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” So they put him out.
And with that, the man was summarily tossed out of the synagogue, and from the communal life of Israel.
He is among the first people to ever suffer for aligning with Jesus - and he did suffer greatly.
From this man forward we can trace an unbroken line over the last two thousand years of men and women who have willingly lost social status, jobs, family ties, friendships and even life itself for the sake of Jesus.
This man and the Twenty One and others have concluded that Jesus is worth living for, suffering loss for, and dying for. At the end of this day, this man has lost substantially for choosing Jesus.
It’s been quite a day. Have you ever looked back at a day and thought, “Well, that was a big day!”?
This guy has had a big day.
Early in the morning, he had known his place in society. It wasn’t much of a place - He was a blind beggar. But, at least that was his place. He fit.
Now, late on the same day, he has no place in society. Friends haven’t stood by him. Parents have hung him out to dry. Leaders have excommunicated him.
AND, he’s not blind anymore. He can see. What a dramatic change and reversal of fortunes.
And now that the Pharisees have put him out and the commotion has all died down, he is alone. I picture him all alone. While he was all alone, Jesus went looking for him. I love that.
III. Opens the Hearts of the Blind (vv. 35-38)
[35a] Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him…
This Jesus we meet in the Bible is a relentless Pursuer. He searches for the lost and the least and last and the lonely.
When Jesus found him, He asked a question in a voice the man would have instantly recognized.
[35b]…He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
Notice that the first thing Jesus says is not, “I’m sorry that you were excommunicated. I’m sorry you were ‘put out’.”
The biggest thing going on here was not that he can now see flowers and people and a temple. The biggest game in town is not that he had lost something.
Having received his sight, the biggest game in town was what it had always been: “What are you going to do with Jesus?”
That’s always the biggest game in town. It was then and it is now.
No matter what is going on in our lives, the God-question is always the most pressing. Not excommunication. Not health. Not wealth. Not popularity. Not promotion. But this: “Do you believe in Jesus, the Son of Man?”
And for any of us, anything - a scary diagnosis or a surprisingly clean bill of health, a reconciliation with a long-time enemy or a relational earthquake, a financial windfall or a job loss - that forces us to face the question, “What will I do with Jesus?” is a blessing because there is no more important question than this, “Do you believe in Jesus?”
Jesus had asked His question. Now the former blind man, having never before seen Jesus, has his own question.
[36] He answered, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?”
To which Jesus was only too happy to answer, [37]… “You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you.”
And here is the man’s short, sweet response - [38] And he said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped Him.
Conclusion:
Two blindnesses were removed from a man on one day. His physical blindness was the most obvious one. And Jesus dealt with that blindness and proved Himself to be the God-in-the-flesh Light of the World.
But, the second blindness - his spiritual blindness - was a far more serious condition. With this second blindness intact, the man would never have a chance at life with God, no matter how well he could see flowers and trees.
In calling the man to faith in Himself, Jesus removed the scales that blinded his spirit. And, in doing that, He proved Himself to be, not only the Light of the World, but also the Savior of the world.
This man knew and the Egyptian 21 knew and our brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world know today that THIS Jesus, the One powerful enough to open eyes and hearts, to give sight and to give eternal life to those who believe, is worth dying for.
And if He is worth dying for, He is worth living for.
Once we decide what we are willing to die for, it becomes pretty clear, pretty quick, what we are going to live for.
Live for Him at home. Be the loving, faithful, generous, hospitable man or woman you were saved to be. Whether living alone, with roommates, married, with or without children, live for Jesus at home.
In your life outside your home, be it school or work, part-time or full-time, outside or inside, be Jesus’ light to a dark world there.
The Jesus who laid down His life for you and who calls you to be willing to lay down your life for Him, now calls you to take up your life and live for Him.
[1] Some might have said that the man was blind because his mother sinned. The apostasy of a rabbi of Jesus’ day was attributed to his mother’s involvement with idolatry while she was pregnant with him. Or maybe his father sinned, and God was punishing the father by the blindness of his son. In Israel, until age 13, children were thought to be an extension of their father, and so, answering for his sins.
[2] Unlike the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, John 5, who didn’t know who it was who had healed him.
[3] No doubt, the man had not been begging on this day, as it was illegal to beg on the Sabbath. As well, I am certain that Jesus purposefully performed this miracle on the Sabbath - as He did frequently - to expose the hypocrisy and cruel insensitivity of the Pharisees.
[4] Not even this disapproval of Jesus was unanimous. (v. 16) Some Pharisees sided with Jesus because He performed a miracle only a man of God could have done.
[5] Mixing dirt and spittle was seen as work by the Pharisees, although not by God’s Law. This ridiculousness was purely an invention of men. God’s Laws for the Sabbath were designed to free, not enslave.