Deo Gloria
Sermon for March 15, 2020
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: John 9:1-7,13-17,34-39
Theme: Jesus is the Light of the World!
- He restores physical sight.
- He imparts spiritual sight.
I don’t know about you, but I can hardly imagine a physical ailment worse than blindness. I’m sure it wouldn’t be much fun being crippled and confined to a wheelchair. I’m sure there would be all kinds of challenges and difficulties you would have to deal with on a daily basis; but at least you could still read and write, at least you could still see. You could still see the flowers and the trees and the birds in the sky. You could still see the spectacular sunsets and the colors of the rainbow. Most of all, you could still see your family and your friends.
Can you imagine what it would be like not being able to see any of those things? Not being able to see the glowing smile on your son or daughter’s face? Not being able to see a sunrise or sunset? Not being able to see your hand in front of your face? Can you imagine how difficult it would be just to get dressed in the morning? Try it sometime. Try getting up in the morning and without opening your eyes or peaking even just a little bit, try taking a shower and getting dressed. Keep track of how many times you trip on something or knock something over, how many times you stub your toe. Blindness is a very debilitating handicap. And my heart goes out to those who have to live with that affliction.
And yet, as terrible as physical blindness is, did you know there is another kind of blindness that is even worse? It’s called spiritual blindness. Physical blindness may prevent a person from doing a lot things in life. It may lead to a fair amount of frustration and unhappiness. Spiritual blindness, however, will prevent a person from enjoying eternal life in heaven. Spiritual blindness will lead to an eternity of frustration, an eternity of unhappiness, an eternity of darkness and death.
Our Savior Jesus came to deal with both of these afflictions. We see that in the story we have before us this morning. As Jesus states in v. 5, he is the light of the world. As the light of the world, Jesus restores physical sight, and he also imparts spiritual sight.
Our story begins with a question. One day, as Jesus and his disciples were leaving the temple, they came across a blind man, a man who had been born blind. The encounter raised a question in the minds of the disciples. “Rabbi,” they asked, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”(v. 2) Their question betrays a bit of spiritual blindness on their part, or at least a bit of misunderstanding.
But before we become too critical of the disciples, we better take a good, hard look at ourselves. Don’t we often do the same thing? When something bad happens to someone we know, don’t we often jump to the very same conclusion? “Man, he must have really done something bad for something like that to happen!” Or when something bad happens to us, when we suddenly end up on our backs in the hospital, doesn’t the same thought cross our minds? “God must be punishing me, paying me back for something I did.”
Jesus clears up his disciples’ misconception, and ours, with his answer. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus said, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life”(v. 3). Now don’t get me wrong, and don’t get Jesus wrong either. Sometimes there may be a direct correlation between sin and sickness. A person who is struggling with AIDS may very well feel (and rightly so) that he is experiencing the consequences of his sinful lifestyle. Likewise, a young mother who abused drugs and alcohol throughout her pregnancy may have good reason to feel guilty and awful when she discovers that her baby has some serious birth defect. But that tends to be the exception rather than the rule. When it comes to disease and physical ailments, like blindness, unless we know that there is a direction connection with some sort of sin, we need to be very careful about jumping to such a conclusion, because often there is no connection. Rather, as Jesus said, their disease or affliction may simply be an opportunity for God to display his power and his work in their lives.
Have you ever looked at illness or hardship in that light, not as punishment from God but as an opportunity for God to display his power and work in your life; an opportunity for God to strengthen your trust in him as your helper, as your healer; an opportunity for God to refine your faith and rearrange the priorities in your life; an opportunity for you to share your love and trust in God with others? Ironically, I think this situation with the coronavirus provides us with just such an opportunity—an opportunity for God to strengthen our trust in him as our helper, as our healer; an opportunity for us to share our love and trust in God with others.
Having cleared up that misunderstanding, Jesus proceeded to restore the blind man’s sight. He spit on the ground, made some mud and put it on the man’s eyes. Then he told him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. The man did and his sight was restored. He could see.
There was nothing special about the way Jesus healed the man’s eyesight. Spit and dirt, mixed into mud, applied to the eyes and washed off with water was not a homemade remedy for blindness. What Jesus did was a miracle, an extraordinary miracle. It wasn’t like this man had recently lost his eyesight due to glaucoma or cataracts. He had never been able to see! His optic nerve had never worked. His retina had never captured the visual images it was supposed to and transmitted those images to the brain. This man had never been able to see–until now.
Through this miracle Jesus once again demonstrated who he really was. Yes, eye doctors today can do some pretty incredible things when it comes to correcting people’s eyesight. They can do laser surgery to correct astigmatism. They can remove cataracts. They can do cornea transplants; but they still cannot cure blindness, especially congenital blindness. Yes, they are doing research, research that involves implanting tiny computer chips in a person’s retina which hopefully will help that person to see a little bit. But that’s a far cry from what Jesus did. Without the benefit of computer chips and modern technology, with a little spit and a little mud Jesus restored the sight of a man who had never been able to see, restored his sight to perfect, 20/20 vision. Here was another powerful miracle. Here was another powerful statement concerning the true identity of Jesus. Yes, Jesus is the Son of God. He is the Light of the world. He has the ability to restore physical sight.
Spiritual sight is a bit different, however. Spiritual sight involves our faith. It involves our understanding of God and our belief in God. As the story continues, we see how Jesus not only healed this man’s physical eyesight but cleared up his spiritual eyesight as well.
Through this miracle the man who had been born blind came to understand something important about Jesus. He came to the conclusion that Jesus was a prophet. He confessed as much before the Pharisees. When they asked him what he thought of Jesus, he replied, “The man’s a prophet”(v. 17). Indeed, to him it seemed rather obvious; and he found it rather hard to believe that the Pharisees couldn’t see it. “Hey guys, listen. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could not do anything”(vv. 31-33).
Obvious or not, the Pharisees were not about to be lectured by someone they considered to be “steeped in sin.” So they threw him out of the synagogue. They excommunicated him from the church, which may have caused this man to have some second thoughts about Jesus. “Am I right about this guy named Jesus? Is he really a prophet or isn’t he?” Imagine how you would feel if you got thrown out of church for thinking that Jesus was a prophet.
Jesus did not want this man to wonder, though, to wonder about who he really was. In fact, Jesus wanted him to see his true identity, that he was a prophet, yes, and yet so much more than a prophet. So he went looking for him. When he caught up with him, Jesus didn’t waste any time getting to the point. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” he asked. The “Son of Man” was a phrase Jesus often used to refer to himself. It was a phrase that had been used in the Old Testament Scriptures, a phrase that referred to the Messiah who was to come.(see Daniel 7:13)
This is where this man needed some help. This is where he needed his spiritual eyesight sharpened and clarified. Though he may have been looking forward to the Savior who was to come, he didn’t realize that Jesus was that Savior. “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me, so that I may believe in him.”
“You have now seen him,” Jesus replied. “In fact, he is the one speaking with you.”
And notice the man’s response. “Lord,” he said, “I believe,” and he worshipped him. (v. 38). Now this blind man could truly see, not only physically but spiritually as well. Now he understood who Jesus really was and he believed in him as his Lord and Savior.
Jesus has done the same for you and me. We too were once blind, spiritually blind. We were born that way. We didn’t have a clear understanding of God and his will. We didn’t know who Jesus was, nor did we believe and trust in him as our Savior. Through baptism, however, Jesus opened our eyes of faith. He dispelled our spiritual darkness and created faith in our hearts. Through his Word Jesus then sharpened and clarified our faith as we grew older. As we listened to and studied the Holy Scriptures, Jesus led us to see and understand who he really is, that he is more than just a prophet like Moses or Daniel, that he really is the Son of God. And in doing so, Jesus strengthened our trust in him as our Savior. He continues to do the same today. Each week as gather together in his house to listen to his Word and to receive his sacrament, Jesus continues to sharpen our spiritual vision. He leads us to a better understanding of himself, of his love, of his will. Likewise he leads us to trust in him more and more, to rely on him and his love and his promises. Yes, Jesus has displayed his power and work in our lives as well. He has removed our spiritual blindness and given us clear, spiritual vision. With the blind man in our text we can say, “Lord, I believe.”
Unfortunately, that isn’t the case with everyone. Not everyone enjoys clear, spiritual vision. Many people are pretty foggy on Jesus and his identity. Some see him simply as a prophet, a teacher or a good moral leader. Sad to say, there are even some Lutheran churches that aren’t too clear about Jesus and his identity anymore. Others reject Jesus all together. They see him as nothing but a hypocrite, a fake or a fraud, sort of like the Pharisees in our text.
They could see the evidence. It was standing right in front of them. And try as they might they could not deny or discredit the amazing miracle Jesus had performed. And yet they refused to see it. They refused to accept what was so obviously true: that Jesus was a prophet, a legitimate prophet from God. If they accepted that, then they would also have to accept everything Jesus had said, including his criticism of them and their rigid rules and their pretentious piety. No, they weren’t about to let the light of God’s Word shine so brightly on their sins, so they closed their eyes to the truth and turned their backs on the Light of the world. As a result they remained in spiritual darkness. Oh, yes, they claimed to have spiritual wisdom and spiritual insight. But in essence, they were as blind as bats, because they couldn’t see the most basic, spiritual truth of all: that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus is their Lord and Savior. And Satan would take advantage of their blindness and lead them into eternal darkness in hell.
There’s a warning here, isn’t there, a very clear warning about the dangers of spiritual blindness? Spiritual blindness manifests itself in any and every attempt to undermine the truth about Jesus, to sell our Savior short, to pass him off as nothing more than a prophet, nothing more than a teacher, nothing more than a spiritual leader. Likewise spiritual blindness manifests itself in any and every rejection of the truth of God’s Word, whether it’s the story of creation, the story of Jonah and the great fish or the story of one of Jesus’ miracles. Either it’s all true or none of its true. So don’t be deceived. Don’t let anyone cloud your vision of Christ or obscure the light of his Word. Don’t allow others to mislead you and eventually rob you of your spiritual eyesight. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Listen carefully to what he has to tell you in his Word, and follow him faithfully throughout your life. Those who do will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
Are you familiar with the story of John Newton? John Newton is the author of the well-known hymn “Amazing Grace,” the hymn we’re using as our closing hymn this morning. For many years John Newton suffered with blindness, spiritual blindness. He could have cared less about Jesus Christ. He lived a godless and wicked life as captain of a slave trading ship. But then one night, one dark and stormy night, a night he was certain that he and everyone else on board his ship would perish, John Newton saw the light. He repented of his sinful past and put his faith in Christ as his Savior. Some time later John gave up the slave trading business and studied for the ministry instead. And for the rest of his life he made it his goal to proclaim the amazing love of his Lord and Savior, the one who had rescued him from spiritual blindness.
Amazing grace–how sweet the sound–that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.
Like John Newton, like the blind man in this morning’s text, you and I have been rescued from the terrible affliction of blindness, spiritual blindness. In order to keep your vision clear and prevent any possibility of a relapse, keep your eyes of faith firmly focused on Jesus. He is the light of the world. Amen.