Lent 4 – 26 March 2017 – Year A

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is written in the 9^th Chapter of the Gospel according to St John: Verses 1 – 41:

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. ² And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” ³ Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. ⁴ We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵ As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶ Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud ⁷ and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

⁸ The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹ Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” ¹⁰ So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” ¹¹ He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” ¹² They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

¹³ They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. ¹⁴ Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. ¹⁵ So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” ¹⁶ Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. ¹⁷ So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”

¹⁸ The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight ¹⁹ and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” ²⁰ His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. ²¹ But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” ²² (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus² to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) ²³ Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

²⁴ So for the 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.” ²⁵ He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” ²⁶ They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” ²⁷ He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” ²⁸ And they reviled him, saying, “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 comes from.” ³⁰ The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. ³¹ We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. ³² Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. ³³ If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” ³⁴ They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.

³⁵ Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ³⁶ He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” ³⁷ Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” ³⁸ He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. ³⁹ Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” ⁴⁰ Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” ⁴¹ Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.

Today’s Gospel not only teaches us about the miracle of giving sight to the blind, but it also gives us tremendous insight into the fallen state of the human condition.  We see pride, cruelty, and fear on many levels in this reading.

You would think that giving sight to a blind man would be a cause for celebration.  You would think that the man’s family would declare a feast.  You would think that the entire community would give thanks to God for His many blessings.  That is what you would think.  But that is not what happened.

Instead of celebration, this healing led to great controversy and division in the community.  His neighbours refused to believe that he had been healed.  The Pharisees launched an investigation.  The healing caused suspicion and fear.  In the end, we learn that blindness of the heart is a lot more dangerous than blindness of the eyes.

It all starts out with the disciples’ question, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  This question reflects a form of superstitious thinking that is still with us today.  I would like to think that in the year 2017 there would be almost total acceptance of and opportunity for those with disabilities, but, according to the World Health Organisation, the survival of persons with disability is even today threatened by attitudes, prejudices and beliefs, common among non-disabled people. Unfortunately, there are still a number of ‘modern day Pharisees’ in our communities that have delusions of self-righteousness and believe that disability is inherited from the sins of the parents.

In regard to this modern day bigotry, consider the horrible condition of the blind man.  I am not just talking about his inability to see, but also about the judgment he felt from the culture.  Not only must he rely on the charity of others in order to exist, but he must also listen to rabbis speculate on the horrible sin that he or his parents must have committed in order for him to be blind.  So the man is not only blind, he is also burdened with an intense sense of guilt.  Furthermore, the culture has no need to show pity to this man because, after all, he is only getting what he deserves.  The disability, in and of itself, is not the worst problem this man has.

Now think about the freedom that Jesus gave to this man when He answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.  Here was a rabbi who taught that this man was no better or worse than anyone else.  There was no specific sin that caused the blindness.

This man is freed from the specific guilt of his blindness, freed from the condemnation of the culture. This is a revelation that overrules bigotry and legalistic judgement forever.  Here we learn that the fact that we are not blind or deaf or lame has absolutely nothing to do with us or our parents before us.  There is nothing within us that prevents us from suffering any calamity that there is.  Whenever we observe anyone with any kind of mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical disability, our only response can be, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” – or simply “that could have been me!”.

Of course, this teaching is not the end of this account.  Jesus had already given the man spiritual insight into his blindness.  Jesus continued to teach by giving physical sight to the man as well.

Jesus returned the man’s sight in a most sacramental way.  According to our definition of the word sacrament there must be three parts.  There must be a command from God.  There must be the forgiveness of sins.  There must be visible elements.  This healing almost qualifies.  Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva.  Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent).  Here we have the command of Jesus.  We have visible elements, spit and dirt.  About the only thing that makes this not a sacrament is that the gift was the gift of sight and not the gift of forgiveness.  The forgiveness will come later.

Of course, the man went and washed and came back seeing.  This is terrific.  This is wonderful.  This is a cause to rejoice.  Then the account has to go and spoil it all with an extra bit of information.  Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.  That act of grace was all the ammunition the bigoted Pharisees needed.

You see God’s law forbade work on the Sabbath and the Pharisees had a lot of traditions about what constituted work on the Sabbath.  The problem was that most of these traditions were based on human opinions and not on the Word of God.  According to the man-made tradition of the elders, Jesus had just violated the Sabbath; but this caused a severe contradiction.  There were some among them who claimed that if Jesus violated the Sabbath, then God would not give Him the authority to give sight to the blind.  There it was, according to their traditions, Jesus had worked on the Sabbath, but God had given sight to the blind anyway.  The Pharisees had no choice.  They had to mount an investigation into the incident.

At first, they tried to prove that there was no miracle, but, all the witnesses agreed there was.  His parents testified that until recently, he had been blind from birth.  The community at large agreed.  The man himself insisted that he had been blind.  The clear and unassailable testimony proved that there had been a miracle.  The man who had once been blind could now see.

Then the Pharisees tried to come up with a way for Jesus to give sight to the blind and still be a sinner.  As you read the account, you can almost see the Holy Spirit at work in the man who had been born blind.  He began to perceive that the Pharisees were afraid.  He began to realise that the miracle Jesus had done threatened them.  He began to see that the Pharisees were clueless.

Notice the progress of the interrogation.  At first, the blind man answered their questions with respect.  Over time, He began to poke fun at them.  By the time they came to the end of the interrogation, the blind man was preaching to them.  The blind man did not even have a full understanding of who Jesus was and, yet, what little he knew, he confessed.  I once was blind, but now I see.  Eventually, the Pharisees had a temper tantrum and threw the blind man out of the synagogue, but, by then, the blind man didn’t care.  He knew that the man who healed him was more important than the Pharisees or the synagogue.

Jesus then found this man.  That is the way it always is.  Jesus finds us.  We do not find Him.  Jesus revealed His true identity to this man and the man worshipped Jesus.  The man who was saddled with physical blindness and the guilt of his sin was now free.  He was free to see.  He was free of the Pharisees.  He was free of the Synagogue.  Most of all, he was free of sin.  The Holy Spirit had given him faith in the one, true saviour, Jesus Christ.

You see, although Jesus had little respect for the man-made traditions of the elders, He had the utmost respect for the Word of God.  He kept the Word of God in every detail.  He knew the full impact of sin’s curse including blindness and every other disability.  He offered up the perfection of His life in order to take the eternal impact of sin onto Himself.  With His sacrificial death on the cross, He earned the forgiveness of sin for all mankind.

All people who insist they have no sin are spiritually blind … just like the Pharisees in today’s Gospel.  They are doomed to eternal suffering.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, those who believe in Jesus Christ are free.  Even if they are physically blind, their spiritual sight is 20 /20.  Like the man who received his sight in today’s Gospel, they have spiritual sight and will live with their saviour forever.  Amen

The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen