Are You Blind?
Pastor Mathew Magera – 3/29/17 – Sermon 221
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Are you blind? Have you ever
asked that of someone? Maybe at a sporting event when player or referee misses
a play? Maybe merging into traffic on a highway somewhere when someone cuts you
off or nearly hits you? Are you blind? We shout this in frustration upon being
in a situation where something is clearly visible to us and yet someone else is
not focused on the same thing and miss it completely? Are you blind? Something
that seems so obvious to us but not to someone else. Actual blindness is
another story. Just the thought of being blind terrifies me. I don't even like
being in a room so dark I can't see my hand in front of my own face. Sometimes
I'm driving around a night, maybe heading home from Greenville and Lakeview and
I'm driving down the country roads and it is so dark outside I wonder just how
dark it would be if I stopped the car and turned off every single light. But,
one thing I have noticed living in the darkened world of Western Michigan is
that with the absence of light, on a clear night at least, allows me to see the
amazing beauty of the stars in the sky. But, they are only visible when we have
become blind to everything else, otherwise, while they are there, they just are
not visible.
Now here we have Jesus
healing a man who was born blind. I have little doubt that we are talking about
a physical blindness but knowing John, there is likely something deeper that he
is trying to convey and we’ll soon discover what that is. If you thought being
healed by Jesus would rid you of all your problems, you would be wrong. After
being healed, he has to deal with others who may not believe. He has to deal
with others who don't agree. After our reading stops, John includes us in a
fact that is important to the story. Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath. This
was a big no no and the drama immediately starts to heat up. The Pharisees
would accuse Jesus of not being a man of God, they would not believe the man
was born blind to begin with. They question this man and they question him and
they question him. The Pharisees eventually get fed up with him and they toss
him away. Jesus hears about this and decides to get involved again. Reading from
John 9 verse 35:
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 speaking with 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.”
Now, I want you to forget
about being physically blind for a moment. John is telling this story about
Jesus healing a blind man so that he can drive home the point about a spiritual
blindness. Jesus confirms that we have been blind to what matters and claim to
have sight on that which does not. Jesus came so that those who think they can
see would become blind.
I don't think Jesus is
wishing that our physical sight would turn to blindness but I think he is
making the point that our physical sight becomes a stumbling block for our
faith, not the sight specifically, but perhaps what sight does for us. The more
we see with our eyes, the less we use our faith lenses. Think back to looking
at the stars. During the day you can’t see them. During the night, with enough
lights on to show your way, you still can’t see them. Only when we become blind
in our way can we see their cosmic display. Transfer that image to what Jesus
is talking about now. The more we trust with our physical eyes, the less we
rely on faith to see it correctly. Jesus is saying that he is here to help
those who struggle to find hope and meaning with their sight find hope and
meaning in the Gospel. But, he is also saying that he is here to bring struggle
and confusion to those who claim they can see with their own eyes when they
realize that what they've been looking at all along is nothing but a sham. He's
come to turn those lights off. Jesus does this for the purpose of also raising
them out of that struggle and confusion so that they may find hope and meaning
in the Gospel as well. With the lights off, he can point us up to see those
stars, the Gospel, that we would not have otherwise been able to see. He's in
it for all of us. Essentially, only when you are blind, when you are without
that which matters most to you in this world, can you begin to see using the
power of faith. Thus, he must bring faith to the blind, hope to the hopeless,
but he must also bring blindness to those who have a false sense of hope and
security in order that this true hope might be clearly visible.
We rely so much on our eyes
nowadays, it's amazing. Technology has put the world at our fingertips. We have
access to news, entertainment, music, education, and much more whenever we want
it. We have to know everything and we have to know it now. We have to see
everything and we have to see it now. You can go onto the Internet and find
just about anything. Our extent of our entire human knowledge is available to
us. Some people can’t even imagine living 20 years ago without cellphones. Some
people can’t imagine life without the Internet.
Do you remember being
absolutely fine at that time? You could get around without a GPS. You didn't
have your eyes glued to a phone. The kids came home at the end of the night
without needing to text them. Now, if you've gotten on the technology train,
you know it's much harder to go back than to just keep going forward. This is
what Jesus is talking about. The blind see by faith created within them, and
those who say they have sight are blind because they are using their sight as
their faith. Seeing is believing, right? That's what the blind say. But they
can’t see what matters. We're so focused on looking for the power light on our
technology that we are missing out on the power of the Light of the world.
That's why Jesus came. Jesus didn't just give this man his sight just because.
He gave him sight for the purpose of creating and cultivating faith. He came to
give sight to the blind, ears to the deaf, legs for the lane, hope for the
hopeless, with the purpose of creating faith. Christ has come for you. You
belong to him. He is going to go with you all the way into the grave and then
he is going to wake you up and said, "come, my blessed servant, and
inherit the kingdom God has prepared for you." He's come to make you see
once again.
So, if there is anything to
take from this interaction with Jesus, it is this: Are you blind? Keep an eye
on your faith. The more you think you see, the more blind you might be. But,
have no fear. Jesus has come for you and if he has to make you blind by turning
you away from an earthly hope, he'll do it, but never forget that he is
ultimately here to help you truly see. That's the promise. He won't leave you
blind and in the dark just like the man born blind. He promises sight, vision,
hope. He comes to create faith within you, founded in the promise that he has
made to you. After he was given his sight, the man said, "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." To God be the glory,
now and always. Amen.