A, Lent 4 - John 9:1-6, 35-41 "Blinded by my Sight"

BLINDED BY MY SIGHT
A sermon on John 9: 1-6, 35-41
THE FORTH SUNDAY IN LENT (Year A) 3/04/11
Pastor Heath Pukallus Katanning-Narrogin Lutheran Parish

Is it possible that human beings are blinded by their sight? I'm reminded of a song written by Bruce Springsteen, which was made a hit in the seventies by a group called Manfred Mann's Earth Band. This song has the title: Blinded by the light. And it is a line that's sung over and over again during the course of the song.

In comparison to the texts we've heard today, being blinded by the light, or by one's own sight, seems to be a contradiction. And it is when we speak of our Lord being the light of the world.

In John nine we hear: As Jesus went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. (John 9:1-6)

This blind man was not blinded by the light, for he was blind from birth. This man was not blinded by anything he did wrong, nor was it as a result of something his parents did wrong either. But Jesus came into this man's life and gave him sight.

However, later on in John nine, after the blind man has received his sight and after being ridiculed by the Pharisees as being a sinner from birth, Jesus asks him, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him." Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you." Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him. (John 9:35-38)

Isn't it interesting that having been given sight by God's own Son, the man who now sees still didn't have the ability to know just who the Son of Man was, who had come to be the light of the word! It's only after Jesus names himself with his spoken word that the fellow falls down and worships him.

Then in the hearing of the man, and the Pharisees, Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind." Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, "What? Are we blind too?" Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. (John 9:39-41)

A couple of things are happening here which we have to be careful not to overlook. The blind man is given physical sight, yet didn't spiritually see and worship until hearing the spoken word from Jesus. Jesus also pointed out that because of his blindness he has no way of missing the mark so he might be guilty of committing sin. Yet at the same time he can't see that Jesus is the Son of Man because of the human sinful nature's inability to see, regardless of him performing a sin or not.

The other thing we must observe is the deeper reality of the Pharisees' jeer at Jesus, "What? Are we blind too?" Earlier they hurled insults about the man who had received his sight, claiming, "We are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from." The man answered, "Now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes." (John 9:28b-30) They were blinded by their sight, and when the light of God came along they were so blind they refused to see the truth.

Like the blind man they too didn't have the power in themselves to see. But in placing faith in themselves, claiming they could see, they rejected he who had the power to give the fulfilling sight of salvation.

What happened here is what still happens today! We are called to see the Son of God, yet we are tempted to place our faith in those things on which the sun in the sky shines. Humanity has been deceived by its own tainted sight, refracted by the darkness of sin, ever since Adam and Eve laid sight on the sun-ripened apple at Eden. And up until Christ's cross and resurrection there was no way we could regain sight of the other tree without the apple, the tree of life. We were completely unable to see the tree of life or find it because we were blinded by the cherubim with the flashing sword guarding any way back into God's paradise of peace and the eternal tree of life in it. (Genesis 3:24)

We are blinded by the light from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and we need Jesus' spit in our eyes to clean out the mortal mud, that always seems to stick to us. We are blinded by our sight, or rather the short-sightedness of human nakedness, reason, and understanding.

St Paul states to the Corinthians …we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. (2 Corinthians 5:6-10)

So while the sun shines on us here we are away from the Son of God, but even so we look to the eternal Son who is not seen by human sight, but rather by the sight of faith given by the Holy Spirit.

Even when we appear to do every humanly good thing under the sun, these are not the good things that will win us favourable judgement under the Son of God. But rather when God sees us faithfully looking toward the unseen Son of Man, by the power of the Spirit, then the Son's salvation truly warms the hearer's heart, and God sees us as his children.

The blind man in this text was rather quiet, Jesus came to he who was silenced in complete darkness and gave him sight. But at other times as Jesus moved around the place during his earthly ministry the blind sung out to him, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us! (Matthew 20: 30) These men knew they were blind, they were not deceived by their sight, or any other ability they thought they had. They were powerless to see. Yet as Jesus approached them they received the warmth of his word in their hearts. God's 'Word Made Flesh' healed them and gave them better sight than they could have ever imagined.

We are called to look to the Son of God for our salvation too. Looking at the sun in the sky, or trusting anything on which the sun might shine, both make us blind. However, the Son of God will not blind us. He will shine in our darkened hearts as we walk in this world blind with darkness. When we look at this Son, the one and only Son of God, we will be boldly led through the darkness, walking with infallible accuracy.

We can all picture the pirate who sails the high seas with a patch over his eye. We Christians are like that pirate. He wears the patch not because he's had an eye gouged out as many think. He wears it so when he goes from darkness to light, from below deck to above and vice versa, he swaps the patch over so his darkened eye sees perfectly in the darkness and the uncovered eye sees without being blinded by the light.

Similarly we Christians are called to trust the patch that God places over us, giving us the ability to see, regardless of being blinded by the light or the darkness. This patch is his word and because of it we can see the Son of God who leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. This eye patch is the patch of faith allowing us to fear no evil whenever it attacks us, day or night. With it on we wear the Son of God with his flashing rod of protection and his staff of salvation. With this patch of faith covering our human short-sightedness, we can see the light of our salvation, and the tree of life. Amen.