3rd Sunday in Lent
February 27, 2005
John 9:1-41

What Do you See?

  After hearing the Gospel lesson, what or whom do you see? I refer to Jesus. Who do you think he is? The blind man who received his sight saw Jesus as the Son of Man, the heavenly being “like a son of man” of whom the prophet Daniel spoke. The blind man saw a man who had come from heaven, the one called Messiah. So he worshiped him.

  Some Pharisees on the other hand saw someone quite different. They saw a false prophet. In fact, maybe he was a sorcerer because, although he worked miracles, he did not keep their law. Specifically Jesus violated their tradition by healing this blind man on the Sabbath. Blindness was hardly a life and death issue making it necessary for Jesus to work on the Sabbath. He could have waited until the next day. And because people like this blind man saw Jesus as the Messiah and a prophet, the Pharisees officially declared that Jesus was not the Messiah and that anyone who said he was would be excommunicated, put out of the synagogue.

  Like the blind man, some today see Jesus as the light of the world and they conform or structure their life around that truth. Others, like these Pharisees, reject Jesus’ claim to be the light of the world and consequently do not structure their life around him. The question that matters today is what do you see? Do you see the light of the world or some sort of false prophet?

  When Jesus says that he is the light of the world, he is obviously speaking in figurative language. As a light, he reveals something to us; he makes us understand something. In that sense he is like a teacher and our experience is, as we say, that of having the light go on. Oh, now I see!

  So what has he revealed? You’re all familiar with the first words of John’s Gospel. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . All things came into being through him. . . . What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. . . . There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. . . . He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. (John 1:1-9). A little later in the Gospel, but before our reading, Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life. . . . I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going (John 8:12,14).

  This light is not what we might call natural. It’s not something from or of the world we experience with our five senses. It’s a light that comes from outside our time and space dimensions. Jesus reveals things that we cannot learn or know from our own experience. And some of those things have very important implications.

  For example, this light claims to be the Creator of the world and the source of life itself. Since we all want to live, that is an important matter! If Jesus is the creating, life-giving light of the world, then a relationship with him would seem to imply access to that life. Jesus could do something about our inevitable death. In fact he said that he will raise us up on the last day (John 6:40).

  In his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus said that he came into the world to save the world from God’s judgement on sin, from death. He came to give eternal life. Nicodemus found that hard to understand and accept. Jesus told the Jews that they would die in their sins if they did not believe that he was who he claimed to be (John 8:24). Again many found that hard to understand and accept. But one thing is clear. If Jesus is the light of the world, and if one can escape judgment and death only by coming to that light, then it matters a great deal what we see in Jesus.

  Such truths have great every-day implications. The apostle Paul got to the point in the Epistle reading. If Jesus is the light of the world then he is our guiding light and our whole conduct will be determined by what is pleasing to him. For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light—for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them (John 5:8-11).

  Those are serious issues! So Jesus performed ‘signs’ to back up his claims. In today’s reading, he healed a man born blind. To my knowledge, our best medicine and surgery cannot heal congenital blindness, certainly not by making mud out of spit and dirt and putting it on a blind person’s eyes! Yet Jesus did it with no effort and in a way that reminds us of the creation of man from the dust of the earth. That act demands that we consider the truth of his claim to be the light of the world.

  A person might challenge the validity of the miracle and claim that it never happened. One might explain it away with some ‘natural’ explanation. The problem is that we cannot now go back and do a CSI type investigation to verify for ourselves that the miracle really took place; on the other hand, neither can we disprove it. Therefore, the Gospel of John remains a witness that Jesus healed this man born blind. It remains equally a witness that Jesus is the light of the world. So maybe we had better pay closer attention to what he says!

  We live in an age in which people like choices. No we demand choices! We want to be in control of our life. We reject fate and destiny unless it happens to be what we want. But our demand for choices and control of our life is a bit naïve. There are things we can choose even change from time to time: new carpet, new paint, new car, new clothes, new hairstyle, new husband or wife, whatever. But there are other things, in fact most things, that we cannot choose. We cannot choose the laws of nature; we cannot choose to be born; we cannot choose to be male or female; we cannot choose not to die. And I think it’s obvious that these things we cannot choose are infinitely more important that the things we can choose.

  When Jesus says that he is the light of the world, that healing the blind man was the work of God, and especially that I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind, he presents to us truths about which we have very little choice. The truth of those claims do not depend on whether or not we want them to be true. Either he is the Son of God who will return to judge the living and the dead or he is not. Time will tell.

  So we can either believe the Gospel and worship Jesus like the blind man, or like the Pharisees reject his claims as nonsense and treat him as a deceiver. That is our choice if we want to call it that.

  The only reasonable response is to do as the blind man did and worship Jesus. We must simply acknowledge that he was sent from God to save us from our spiritual blindness and turn to him for truth and restoration.

  You know, the Pharisees in this account understood Jesus. They understood his signs; they understood his words. They just didn’t want it to be that way. So they opposed him. That’s why Jesus says to them, If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We see,” your sin remains.

  That’s also why the blind man said to them, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” Their reaction of course was to insult the poor man. “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out. He was put out of the synagogue, excommunicated. They could not refute his words so they got rid of him, just as they will later try to get rid of Jesus.

  That is how the world and even our own minds work. We face tremendous social and legal pressures to be open-minded and tolerant of all beliefs. We are compelled to accept the notion that all religious truth claims are mere opinions, that Jesus might be a guiding light for some people, but not for the whole world. So the world is ready to put us out of its ‘synagogue’ if we proclaim that Jesus is the light of the world. It will put us out of political office; it will put us out of business, out of the club, out of school or whatever.

  Is that worth the risk? Only if you want to see! I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind. Jesus came and will return to do for us something greater than what he did for the man born blind. He came to give us life in the fullest possible sense. He came that we might see God.

  We all know instinctively that God is. What angers us is that he hides himself or seems to have abandoned us. We see suffering and death and imagine that God must enjoy seeing it too, because he does nothing about it. All the while, he really has done something about it, but we’re too blind to see it! For we can only see it when we see Jesus.

  Jesus is the light that lets us see God, not as we imagine or want him to be but as he really is. The Creator of the world himself grieves over the suffering and death of his creatures. He does not sit back unconcerned. He sent his son. In Jesus, God took on our existence, came into our world to suffer what we suffer and die as we die so that we can be forgiven. He did signs like the healing of this blind man and especially his resurrection so that we would see that it was he, so that we would see that he was doing something about our condition.

  The Gospel of Jesus Christ opens our eyes so that we see all that and much more. It gives us hope and peace in place of anger and despair. Yes, we often grow weary of waiting for the day when God will make a new heaven and a new earth. But in the meantime, we have a light that shines in the darkness and that will not go out. Jesus! His words and works shine like a bright light in a black cave revealing what we otherwise cannot see: God, salvation, eternal life!

  I am the light of the world, he says. I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see. The blind man saw. Do you?