Fourth Sunday in
Lent (A)
March 26, 2017
Text: John 9:1-41
Blind
from birth. The disciples thought it was
because of some sin his parents committed, or perhaps that he himself sinned in utero or God had foreseen some
grievous sin he would commit in the future.
The Pharisees thought this, too.
“You were born in utter sin, and
would you teach us?” (John 9:34; ESV).
Typical Jewish thinking. Typical human thinking. If something goes wrong, if a person suffers,
God must be out to get them. They must have it coming, they must deserve it in some way. And this, of course, leads to all manner of
self-righteous judgment and thanksgiving that I am not like other men, not like
this sinner. Until it happens to
me. And then there is despair. God must be out to get me. There must be some sin in me for which I am required to
pay. As though Jesus’ blood and death
are not sufficient to cover your sins.
Beloved in the Lord, repent. “It is not that this man sinned, or his
parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (v. 3). God has His own purposes in our suffering,
and He does not owe us an explanation.
This is a fallen world and bad things happen. The devil has his hand in every pot. The mystery is not that bad things happen,
but that anything good happens. That is
God’s pure mercy. And then the Promise. He has His plan. He will work it for the good of those who
love Him and are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28). That is to say, He will work it for your
salvation and for the salvation of others.
His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). You may never understand why God does what He
does in this life, and that’s okay. He
is God. You are not God. Like a child, you simply have to trust that
your Father in heaven knows what He is doing.
It is enough that He says so.
Blind
from birth. That is our spiritual
condition prior to Baptism and faith.
David sings it in the Psalm: “Behold,
I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps.
51:5). We are born infected with
original sin, the deep corruption and mortal disease inherited form Adam and
passed on from generation to generation.
This is to say, faith in Jesus Christ does not come naturally to
us. Quite the contrary. We are born in opposition to God, opposed to
His will, opposed to His salvation. St.
Paul says, “The natural person does not
accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is
not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). The unconverted person, as he is born, thinks
the things of God are utterly foolish.
So he rejects them. He cannot be
reasoned into the faith. Faith is
opposed to natural human reason. He
cannot be emotionally moved into the faith.
Faith is opposed to the natural human will. For a person to come to faith in Jesus, the
Holy Spirit must act, and He does, through His Word preached and His Word
joined with water in the font. A miracle
must occur. The blind must be given
sight. A blind man cannot make a
decision to see. A blind man cannot give
his heart to seeing. For a blind man to
see, healing must come from outside of him.
“I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus
Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the
Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true
faith.”[1] He does it all.
And
Jesus teaches us this in the case of the man born blind. Jesus Christ is the Light of the world. He comes into the darkness with His Word and
Spirit and turns on the lights. He gives
you new eyes and a new heart and a new mind to receive the things of God by
faith. He does not work as you might
expect. Look at how He heals the man in
our text. He spits. He spits in the dirt and makes mud with His
saliva. And He rubs it in the man’s
eyes. It’s gross. And frankly, it’s offensive. He could have simply said a Word, or given a
nicer, gentler, healing touch. We’ve
seen him do it before. But that’s not
what He does here. And even after all
this, He makes the man go find the Pool of Siloam and wash. The whole thing smacks a little of Naaman the
Leper when Elisha told him to go wash in the dirty, stinky water of the Jordan
River seven times, with the promise that in that washing he would be
clean. Why does God always have to work
this way?
The
mud takes us back to Genesis and the forming of Adam from the dust of the
earth. Jesus is teaching the man, and
us, something profound in the working of this miracle. It is a new creation. Jesus comes to undo all that has gone wrong
since the fall, all those things for which we want an explanation from God, the
sin, the suffering, the sorrow. He
doesn’t tell us why we must suffer it, but He does do something about it. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
brings about a new creation. “Behold, I am making all things new”
(Rev. 21:5).
And
then there is the water. Jesus still
works this way with us. Water and the
Promise. Wash and your eyes will be
opened. In Baptism, Jesus opens our
spiritual eyes. The Spirit gives us new
eyes of faith to see Jesus as our only Redeemer from sin and death. He gives us faith to believe in Him. Nothing surprising about the water. Naaman’s washing in the Jordan and this man’s
washing in the Pool both point us to our washing at the font. There God performs the healing. “How
can water do such great things?
Certainly not just water, but the word of God in and with the water does
these things, along with the faith which trusts this word of God in the
water. For without God’s word the water
is plain water and no Baptism. But with
the word of God it is a Baptism, that is, a life-giving water, rich in grace,
and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit.” Baptism is where God brings about a whole new
creation of you, so that the old sinful flesh in you, which cannot believe in
Christ and is bound to sin and death, is drowned and killed, and a new man is
raised up in Christ, free from sin and death, clean, healed, whole, possessed
by the Holy Spirit, united to Christ by faith, reconciled to the Father. It’s a scandal. It’s gross.
A little water and a few words from the Bible. It’s all so ordinary. But that is how God works.
Now,
there is a cost to it all. There is a
cost to Baptism and faith in Christ, to having your eyes opened by God. Salvation is absolutely free to you in Jesus,
but there is a cost to be borne, here and now, in this life. The man born blind, who now sees, is
rejected. By the Pharisees and the
members of his synagogue. That would be
like your congregation excommunicating you because you believe what is taught
in the very Scriptures we read. And then
his parents… They throw him under the bus.
They don’t want to be excommunicated, too. Sorry, the boy is on his own. Ask him.
He is of age. He can take his own
chances with Jesus. Those who think they
see are really blind, and they resent those who know they are blind, but have
come to see. And so, if your eyes have
been opened by Jesus, you will bear rejection, and it will hurt.
How
does this happen among us? Surely you
know by now that Christianity is not the favored religion it once was in
America. Surely you’ve seen how many in
government want their say in what we believe and how we practice what we
believe. What happens when you’re
threatened with the loss of your business or your life savings for being
faithful to Jesus? Do you compromise
with the world? Or do you take the
loss? What about when you’re called to
be faithful in a congregation or a church body that is teaching false doctrine
or practicing sin? Do you go along to
get along, or do you confess the truth come what may, even if it means you have
to leave? What about when your friends
and your own family members are opposed to Jesus and His teaching? Do you keep your faith inside and pretend
there is nothing wrong, just so you can keep the peace? Or do you speak the truth in love, with all
gentleness and respect, but faithfully, because as much as you love your
friends and family, you love Jesus more, and your love for your friends and
family is too deep to sweep the question of their eternal salvation under the
rug? It’s hard. You realize, don’t you, that there are many
places in the world where to be baptized is to put a target on your back, to
mark you for death? It is a capital
crime to believe in Jesus. So what do
you do when you face rejection and punishment and suffering for the faith? You do as the man does in our text. You confess faithfully. You invite your persecutors also to
believe. And then you take whatever they
have to dish out. What’s the worst they
can do? Kill you? Well, a lot worse could happen to you than
that if you deny Jesus. So you go to
heaven… Is that really punishment?
Beloved, we confess the resurrection of the body and the life of the
world to come. When Dietrich Bonhoeffer
was called upon to die for his confession of Christ and his opposition to the
Nazis, he said to his friend: “This is the end… For me it is the
beginning.”
They
reject you because they reject Christ.
But, beloved, Jesus will never reject you. He found the man after he was cast out of the
synagogue, and He opened his spiritual eyes.
“Lord, I believe” (John
9:38). He finds you and daily returns
you to your Baptism in repentance, killing the old you and raising the new you
to life in Himself. And remember this:
He bore your rejection all the way to the cross. He was rejected unto death. So that you will always be accepted by
God. You will always have a place at His
Table. You will always be precious in
His sight. His Name is on you. You belong to Him. It is true, we are born spiritually blind and
separated from God. In Baptism and
preaching, Jesus gives us to see and believe in Him. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son
(+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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