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slent405
You
Will Not See Me Overthrown pedo ptch lolita
Text:
John 9:1-41 (Lutheran Service Book Series A)
Date: The Fourth Sunday in Lent 
3/6/05
Saint
John told the story of Nicodemus, a story about the beginnings of
coming to the saving faith. “You must be born again,” Jesus said,
meaning faith is nothing less than the birth of a new you through
water and the Spirit, through the Word of God in the sacrament of
Holy Baptism. John told the story of the Samaritan Woman at the
Well. It, too, is a story about the beginnings of coming to the
saving faith. “I will give you living water” Jesus said, meaning
faith is the gift and working of the Holy Spirit in the heart of
the person who comes to realize and confess their sin and who hears
the words of Jesus. John told the story of the Man Born Blind, another
story about the beginnings of coming to the saving faith. As with
this man, so for us, faith is born, planted, challenged and grows
in stages or steps. Jesus has spoken in metaphors of wind and Spirit
and living water—today of darkness and light, blindness and sight,
signifying the dire, threatening, dreadful distinction between and
results of unbelief or faith.
We
just heard John tell the whole story of the healing of the man born
blind in seven acts, a sort of divine tragic comedy. On the one
hand is the blind man coming to faith. On the other hand are the
neighbors of divided opinion and the Pharisees who became increasingly
blind in their unbelief and rejection of the Messiah. The Pharisees
saw Jesus but could not see that he is the Christ, the Son of God.
The man born blind couldn't see Jesus until the end of the story
when he came to believe and worship him as the Christ.
I
recall someone involved in ministry to the blind asking preachers
not to refer to this miracle as the “healing” of the man born blind
because “healing” implies that blindness is a sickness or disease,
which it is not, though it may be caused by an illness like glaucoma,
cataracts or diabetic retinopathy, or macular degeneration, or through
an accident. This man was born blind.
The
disciples asked why he was born blind—ignorantly implying that God
is somehow the capricious cause of all manner of disability and
malady, and even sin. “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents,
that he was born blind?” They were thinking God is in the business
of retribution for sinful deeds. Though Jesus refused to answer
their question, I'll answer it. The real answer is, not his parents
nor the man himself but Adam.
In
Adam we have all been one,
One
huge rebellious man;
We
all have fled that evening voice
That
sought us as we ran. [LW 292:1]
Certainly
all manner of disability, malady, sickness and death is the result
of sin; not necessarily a particular sin, but the sinful condition
all have inherited from Adam.
Regardless
of the situation, the problem, the crisis, the malady, “the works
of God” are displayed as long as Jesus is in the picture. Jesus
is “the light of the world.” He is the very Creator of Light from
beginning to end. “Light” makes sight possible. Sin makes blind.
Light gives life, sin the darkness of death.
There
was Jesus standing before the Pharisees. But they couldn't see the
light. There was the man born blind now seeing standing before his
neighbors, and they were divided. Some said of the man, “Yes, that's
him.” Others said, “No, he just looks like him.” He—the man born
and once blind now seeing—said, “It's me! It's really me!” When
asked how he could now see he credited “the man called Jesus.” He
heard his name. He related the mud-in-the-eye event, the washing
and the blessed result. “Where is he,” they asked. “I don't know.”
How could he know? He wouldn't know Jesus if he saw him! If he saw
him…. Would you know Jesus if you saw him? Jesus said, “as you did
it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” [Matthew
25:40 (ESV)]!
Then
this man, once blind, now seeing, was dragged before the Pharisees.
Maybe they would know. How could anyone come face-to-face with a
bone fide miracle and not be elated? “It was the Sabbath,” they
said. “He broke the rules! Evidence. We need evidence. How did you
receive your sight?” they asked the man. “Mud-in-the-eye, washed,
sight” he replied. Not good enough. “What do you say about him?”
The man knew his name was Jesus. Now he says, “He is a prophet.”
Closer, but not enough—for them or for him.
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