John 9

Lent 4, 2023, Year A | March 19, 2023 | John 9 | Evan McClanahan |

Like last week, we have a relatively long and extremely rich narrative typical of John’s Gospel. While the quantity of narratives is smaller than the Matthew, Mark, or Luke, more words are offered for depth and nuance in the story. Last week, we observed the progression of confession, from surprise to repentance for the woman at the well. This week, it is the man born blind which exposes the blindness of those around him.

There are some aspects of this story that jump out. The first is that the question, “Who sinned that this man was born blind?” is an incredibly useful question to us today. The questions are basically, “Why does God allow suffering? Who is responsible? Is imperfection the result of sin?”

Jesus’ answer – that it is not punishment for sin but for opportunity to reveal God’s Kingdom – is needed still today. We are not to look for the ways we can ascribe blame in the event of tragedy, but rather how we can see all things as useful in proclaiming the Gospel. Such thinking is foolish to the unbeliever, but makes all the sense in the world to the Christian. More could be said on that, but I would invite you to simply remember this story when the question of suffering arrises.

Another highlight for me is the combative spirit of the healed young man. As a fellow combatant, I relate to the guy and admire him. He finds himself in a maelstrom with powerful accusers surrounding him. Even his parents are too afraid to defend him! But he is resolute. He defends Jesus and goes toe-to-toe with his accusers, even mocking them for finding evil when Jesus is nothing but good. His story is, in the true sense of the word, pathetic, as the moment that he receives his greatest blessing, he also finds himself “driven out” and alone.

But the man born blind does not count it a loss. He finds Jesus and literally worships him, giving his life to Jesus as Lord and having no regrets. He would never turn his back on Jesus even if everyone else had. And the story then proves its true value in really turning everything upside down. The man born blind is revealed to be the one who could see, while those who accuse him prove to be blind.

The Christian in the 21^st century should possess the absolute confidence that, because they have given their lives to Christ, that they are those who can see, while much of the world remains ensconced in blindness. That doesn’t mean that every person who proclaims to be Christian possesses some kind of supernatural truth detector in their brain or that there are not ethical dilemmas or difficult philosophical questions that become instantly clear. Rather, it means that the person who is truly in Christ can far more easily see the world as it is, whereas, no matter the education or experience of the sinner, they will never be able to understand the same.

In other words, the Christian can see the world as it truly is because they are viewing it through the only lens of reality. They see life through God’s eyes…or at least they are to attempt to do so. After all, we pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done.” Those outside of Christ are deprived vision of the world as it actually exists. They are trying to make sense of it without God. Paul writes of such pagans in Romans 1: “…they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.“

In this very passage, the detractors of Jesus admit that no one has ever been cured of physical blindness. Therefore, this should be the greatest possible evidence of who Jesus was. But they even turned good evidence into an indictment of Jesus because they were blind.

So, as Christians, how do we see the world as it is, and in what ways is the world blind to the truth? And are we any better? Have we so deeply absorbed the lies of the world that we can’t see with clarity anymore? I might suggest that there are at least four ways in which the world is blind, ways that the Christian possesses significant advantages.

 1. First, the world is blind to evil. We are surrounded by evil, but the world doesn’t seem to notice or care. Our leaders lie to us without a second thought. Perversion is peddled in our media. We are growing accustomed to violence as a daily occurrence.

 I hate to pull from the lowest-hanging fruit, but on network television, men and women dressed as literal demons and devils danced to disgusting music on primetime on the Emmy’s a few weeks’ back. If we can’t all agree the actual devil is evil, then we just aren’t seeing things the same way. Suffice to say that Christians, with clear eyes, should withdraw from systems that are not only blind to evil, but are openly embracing it, first perhaps as irony, but now as a pledge of allegiance.

 2. Second, the world is blind to reason. There is a joke that common sense is not so common, anymore. Well, that isn’t an accident. It corresponds to the rate at which we take God and the natural order of His creation out of the picture and attempt to make sense of life on our own. We are told today that men can get pregnant and our White House gave the International Woman of Courage award to a man. We print trillions of dollars and wonder why we have inflation, a possibly political point except for the hardship it causes for the poor. These are all ridiculously blind actions by people who simply cannot see.

 Don’t get me wrong, Christians can fall pray to unreasonable beliefs as well. We have supernatural litmus tests on truth that can prove to be acidic. That doesn’t help our cause. While Christianity doesn’t use reason as a kind of third party to validate our truth claims, we should honor reason enough not to promote silly and blatant falsehoods.

 3. The world is blind to their own sin. Now, you can’t be blamed if this sounds like I have repeated myself. I said we were blind to evil. But, in truth, seeing evil outside of us is pretty easy. Seeing our own sin is more difficult. Even very few Christian churches offer even the rather tepid kind of confession and forgiveness rite that we do before our worship service.

 Being brutally honest with ourselves is hard. The Pharisees seem completely unaware of their sin. Their anger, jealousy, and self-righteousness practically jump off the page to us. But they did not see their own sin. The reality that we are sinning against God and neighbors seems more and more to be a foreign idea.

 A few weeks ago in Houston, a woman was caught shoplifting. When the police tried to arrest her, she ran off, leaving her own child. When identified by the news, she went on Facebook, admitted to the crime, expressed zero remorse, and said she’d be out of jail the next day anyway, so we all just had better get over it. Example like this, of blindness to the hold that sin has on us, can be found very easily today.

 4. The world is blind to truth. Truth is not something that can be massaged. It is, as hey say, what it is. There is not “your truth” and “my truth.” Such statements are contradictions in fact. There is only “the truth.” And while even the Christian’s full appreciation of the truth can be diminished by sin, we at least acknowledge that there is a single truth for all people, and we at least acknowledge that we should be seeking it.

That isn’t how the world sees it…pardon the pun. Truth has basically become an emotional commitment to something. The more strongly we feel about something the “more” true it is. We are teaching our children how to identify logical fallacies, but sometimes I wonder why. Do you really think someone thoroughly committed to relative truth will care if they are caught in a logical fallacy?

 The world, in so many ways, is blind. If I am honest, I am tempted to let them stay that way. But I know how blind I have been, too. And it is so much better to be able to see. It is so much better to be able to see Jesus, to be able to be honest about ourselves, to be loved and known by God, to have nothing to fear. And that is what we want for our neighbor. We want them to see. To see the world as it really it and as it will be when Jesus comes again. To see themselves as sinners who can be redeemed.

 The irony of this story is that the man who could not see could see exactly who Jesus was and the people who could see were blind to their own sin. Let us not be blind to the truth about ourselves, and may those who are blind to God open their eyes, that they might be saved, and find joy in Him. Amen.

First Lutheran, Houston

Pastor Evan McClanahan