Seeing is Believing

John 9New International Version (NIV)

Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind

9 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

8 His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some claimed that he was.

Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”

But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”

10 “How then were your eyes opened?” they asked.

11 He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”

12 “Where is this man?” they asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said.

The Pharisees Investigate the Healing

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath.15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”

16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”

But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided.

17 Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”

The man replied, “He is a prophet.”

18 They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. 19 “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”

20 “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. 21 But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.23 That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”

25 He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”

26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

27 He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”

28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”

30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.

Spiritual Blindness

35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.”

37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.”

38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”

⁴¹ Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

This is our third consecutive scripture from the gospel of John and by now you may see a theme developing.  This is the third time Jesus has had an encounter with someone who didn’t fully know him and it’s the third time that said people had a personally transformative experience.  First it was the Pharisee, then it was the Samaritan woman, and now it is a man who has been blind from birth.  All of them came from very different backgrounds and socio-economic classes.  They all came from different cultures and religious backgrounds.  And yet, Jesus’ love and compassion brought them closer to God.  These experiences changed their lives.  A run in with Christ transformed them.  Were there things they still didn’t understand about God and faith after this experience?  Yes.  But those mysteries didn’t matter after their conversations with Jesus.  It is that aspect of the human condition I wish to speak with you about this morning.

One of the most difficult questions that I am asked often is “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  I have tried to answer this question for you before.  However, this scripture and my subsequent study helped me better answer this question.  John 9 starts with the disciples asking Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind.”  This is the 2,000 year old version of the same question that still bogs us down today.  The disciples grew up in a tradition that told them that someone had to sin in order to have a condition such as blindness.  In the history of you and I, the Church has still not done a very good job answering this question so we still believe something similar to what the disciples believed.  I have had this question explained to me as the fall of man, Adam and Eve in the garden, as the reason for all the terrible things in this world.  Seems legit so we take that as our answer.  Jesus answers the disciples by saying, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned...” C.S. Lewis wonderfully describes all bad things deriving from something good.  He says the trouble comes from pursuing things via “the wrong method.”  So many great things can be done with money, power and even greed.  Doesn’t seem logical does it?  But it’s true.  The “badness” of these things are not the things themselves.  It is the pursuance of said things through the wrong method.  Jesus was powerful.  He didn’t have money but he was greedy in the sense that he wanted everyone to see the glory of the Father.  His heart was in the correct place and the way he went about pursuing them was also in the right place.  Instead of taking over the earthly kingdoms, like he was tempted to do in the forty days in the desert, he died on the cross to “take over the world.”  He used his power and greed in a much different way than we see it being used in our world today.  We all fall trap to these things that are intentioned for goodness and use them in our own, and very different, manipulative ways.  We don’t like hearing that but it’s true.   None of us are free from this.  

C. S. Lewis says, “Wickedness, when you examine it, is the pursuit of some good used in the wrong way.  You can be good for the mere sake of goodness but you cannot be bad for the mere sake of badness.  You can do a kind action when you are not feeling kind and when it gives you no pleasure simply because kindness is right.  But no one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty is wrong, only because cruelty was pleasant or useful to them.”  This is so true!  We aren’t cruel by nature.  We are absolutely good by our nature.  Therefore, this goes against the Church’s teaching of badness, wickedness, and cruelty entering the world through The Fall of Humankind.  We aren’t 95% good and 5% bad by nature.  That goes against the very goodness God is about.  Why on earth would God create anything that way?  So now we find ourselves back with the disciples... Whose sin caused this blind man’s condition?  It had to come from somewhere.  The answer the Church likes to fend off is that it had to come from God.  If sin didn’t cause it, then God must have chosen that poor soul to be born that way.  Blindness is the example used in our scripture so it is the one I am focusing on this morning but any condition can be viewed in this light.  Cancer, a child dying in an accident, someone we know and love being taken from us way too early in life.  So much of what we encounter in this life falls into this category.  If it’s not sin that causes these things then God Himself must pick and choose who suffers, right?

Well, that is how Jesus’ answer could possibly be interpreted.  After answering the disciples’ question of who sinned, Jesus continues by saying, “...but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”  We want to paint Jesus with broad strokes.  We have a limited number of quotations from Christ so we want to use them broadly to help us answer the many other questions we have.  We desperately want answers to the many questions that this life throws in our faces so we take bits and pieces of Jesus’ experiences with biblical people and blow them up to answer deeply theological questions we have today.  Whether it is helping the poor, taking in refugees, giving to charity, who we vote for, we create this image and ideology of who Christ is and we run with it.  We use it to push our own agendas.  As I mentioned earlier, we take something good and twist it.  The truth is that Jesus looked at this encounter with blind man, just as he looked at the two other experiences that I shared with you the previous two weeks, as a case by case basis.  Jesus explained to the disciples that this blind man was born blind so that the works of God may be displayed in him.  Jesus did not say, every one who is born blind falls into this category.  Jesus didn’t say that everyone who is diagnosed with cancer or loses a child or loses a loved one has been hand picked by God so that the works of God might be displayed in them.  This would mean that God predestined some for heartbreak only to push His agenda.  I don’t believe that to be true.  The truth of the matter is that Christ didn’t say that.  Christ didn’t mean for the explanation of this one man’s condition to be a catch all.  I firmly believe that.  We so desperately want answers that we use this verse, and many like it, to get an answer.  

So where does this leave us?  Have you ever thought about why God created us so uniquely different from one another?  Identical twins, who share the exact same DNA, grow up to be different from one another.  Why is that?  We are created on a case by case basis which means the love displayed to us by God is a case by case basis.  Why did I grow up in middle class white America and someone else grew up in the inner city of Chicago or in the poorest countries of the entire world that struggle to find clean drinking water?  Does God love me more?  Do I somehow deserve better living conditions than someone else?  No.  When it comes to your situation, I cannot answer why bad things have happened to good people.  When it comes to the people I know and love, I still cannot offer an explanation.  This is the mystery of God.  It is a common belief that humans are reaching the near end of what we can accomplish.  Whether it be athletically or intellectually, many think we are close to topping out and yet we cannot answer a few tough questions.  Part of who and what God is, is a mystery and we do not like it.  We have to have answers.  God will forever be a mystery to humans.  Fewer and fewer people are willing to embrace that mystery because they like having the answers.  When the blind man was healed, his neighbors asked him, “How then were your eyes opened?”  A personal relationship with God opens our eyes on a case by case basis.  Why do bad things happen to good people?  It’s a mystery.  My belief is that a personal relationship with God helps you to embrace that mystery.  It helps to humble you in a way that brings peace and comfort despite all the questions.  It helps us to realize that we simply do not know and that it is perfectly ok to be in that situation.  A personal relationship with God brings you into His presence on a case by case basis.  Trust me, this relationship won’t provide all the answers you are seeking but it helps you embrace the mysteries of God and the human condition. However, it will offer you your own personally transformative experience.    Amen.