TranscriptWell, this reading from the Gospel of John is rich in detail and is both at once a sad

story and a very joyful story.

And even though it happened 2,000 years ago, we can kind of relate to what’s happening

here.

I mean, it’s relatable in part because we all know what it’s like to suffer at the hands

of bureaucrats, right?

Some things never change.

The Pharisees, though, they completely miss the point of the man being healed of blindness,

and Jesus, as usual, goes straight to the heart of the matter.

And we see in this story a huge difference between God’s will and human attempts at God’s

will, between God’s mercy and human beliefs about right and wrong.

In this story, the man’s physical blindness in a way represents spiritual blindness.

Every person on this planet is a sinner.

Every person on the planet is imperfect and stands in need of Jesus’ mercy and healing.

And for each one of us, Jesus has come to offer healing.

But before we dig into the story, I wanted to back up and share some of the things that

the Apostle John assumes that we know about the Jewish religious scene.

Through the Gospels, we hear about the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Jews and the high

priests and the scribes and the Sanhedrin, but who were all these people,

and why were they interested in Jesus? So just real briefly, the Sanhedrin, where

they met in Jerusalem, that was a group of 70 judges directly reporting to the

high priest. They were not involved in this particular story. The scribes

started out being people who copied the scriptures by hand. Of course, this was in

the days before the printing press, but over time they got to know God’s law

really well from this work and they became lawyers and teachers. The Jews is

a general term that John uses in his gospel to refer to the leaders of the

nation and he does not mean all Jewish people everywhere. I wanted to be

very clear about that because John sometimes comes off sounding almost

anti-semitic but John himself was Jewish and he loved his people so when he

He speaks of the Jews.

He’s speaking of the hierarchy.

The Pharisees and Sadducees, though,

are the two main parties that we’re looking at today,

the two main parties of priestly teachers

who sparred with each other constantly,

could never get along.

So splits within faith groups is nothing new.

It’s 2,000 years of it, basically, we have.

Anyway, the Sadducees were the progressives of the day.

They rejected the scriptures and prophecies

except for the books of Moses, which

the first five books of the Bible. The Sadducees came from aristocracy. They

were elite. They were well educated. They were usually educated in Greece by

Greek philosophers who looked down on Judaism as being sort of a simple

rustic faith. They were secular in many ways even though they held power in the

temple and they did not believe in resurrection or the afterlife. The

Sadducees, by the way, disappeared after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. They did

not survive the overthrow of the nation of Israel.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, became the foundation for the system of temples and rabbis

that the Jewish people still have today.

The Pharisees were kind of like our modern-day evangelical movement, not in the negative

sense, but along the lines of like Billy Graham or Chuck Swindoll.

They usually came from working-class families.

They were held in high esteem by the people because they were devoted to the faith.

They believed in the oral law, that is the Talmud, not just the written law.

They believed in resurrection.

They believed in the afterlife.

They believed in the coming Messiah.

They believed in prayer.

They believed in regular worship in the synagogue, which, that all sounds pretty good, doesn’t

it?

And some of the Pharisees actually liked Jesus.

I mean, Nicodemus liked him.

Gamaliel, the great teacher we hear in Acts chapter 5, whose star student, Paul, was also

a Pharisee. These Pharisees, like Jesus, looked up to Jesus, listened to Jesus. So the Pharisees

got a lot right. And if they got so much right, why were they always having arguments with

Jesus? There were basically two issues, two sticking points, which then branched out into

other debates and got rather broad. But when you boil it down, basically two issues. Number

One, the Pharisees had an extremely literal and detailed interpretation of the Law of

Moses.

And, secondly, they had an unhealthy need to define and assert authority.

Jesus once commented that the Pharisees strained out gnats and swallowed camels.

That for example, they would tithe 10% of everything they owned right down to the spices

in their kitchens, but they overlooked important things like mercy and compassion.

And on the authority question, the Pharisees once asked Jesus where he got his authority,

and Jesus replied by asking them, “Well, where did John the Baptist get his authority?”

And the Pharisees talked amongst themselves, and they said, “Well, if we say from God,

he’ll say, ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’

But if we say from men, the people will stone us because they believe that John is from

God.”

said to Jesus, “We don’t know,” which of course is a completely bogus answer.

And Jesus said, “I won’t tell you either where I get my authority from.”

Jesus would not play the Pharisees’ games or honor their rules.

In fact, Jesus taught that the faith was about having relationship with God, not memorizing

a rule book.

And the Pharisees couldn’t handle that.

Which brings us to our story for today.

As John begins, we meet a man who was born blind.

We don’t know his name.

I wish we did.

But Jesus and the disciples see this man by the side of the road as they’re walking and

Jesus points out that this man has been blind since birth, which is a miracle in itself.

How did Jesus know that?

So the disciples then ask Jesus, “Whose fault is it that this man was born blind?

It was assumed in ancient Israel that birth defects like blindness were the result of

sin.

But Jesus said no one sinned.

This blindness happened so that God could work through this man and show glory in the

life of this man.

Jesus warns that the disciples and us that we must work while we have the light of day

because there’s a darkness coming when no one will be able to work.

This is both a metaphorical darkness like spiritual darkness and it’s also quite literal

darkness.

We only have so many years on this planet and when those years are gone our work is

over whether we’re done or not.

But Jesus adds, “As long as I’m here, I am the light of the world.”

And then he turns to the blind man and makes mud out of dirt and spit, puts the mixture

on the man’s eyes.

And the Greek word for what Jesus did here, by the way, is epikrisen, which means to christen.

It’s like as in baptism.

Jesus then sends him off to the pool to wash off the mud, kind of like baptism washes the

dirt off of our souls.

And while the blind man is washing, Jesus and the disciples continue on their way.

So the blind man’s friends, they have taken his hands, guided him to the pool, helped

him get in, watched as he washed the mud off of his eyes.

Imagine what it would be like to be this man, having always depended on other people to

guide you to places, to help you find the things that you need every day.

And now he’s standing in the pool, washing his face.

And as he does, he begins to see, first the water in his hands, and then maybe some trees

nearby.

And then he turns and for the first time in his life, he looks into the faces of his friends.

And imagine the joy and the tears and the celebration and guys pounding each other on

the back and crying out to everybody who passes by, “Look at this.”

And they go back to the place where the blind man used to sit, I guess to pick up his things,

You don’t see it, but he had to go back to where he was.

And people start saying, hey, isn’t that the blind man who

used to sit here and beg?

And they start arguing amongst themselves.

Yeah, it’s him.

No, it’s not.

That’s impossible.

And the blind man says to them–

formerly blind man says to them, a man named Jesus made mud,

put it on my eyes, told me to wash, and I washed.

And I received my sight.

And the crowd says, where is this Jesus?

But the man doesn’t know.

And keep in mind as this story moves forward

that this man who was healed has heard Jesus’s voice,

but he has not yet seen him,

doesn’t know what he looks like.

So the crowd takes this man to the Pharisees,

which was not an unusual thing to do.

I mean, the law of Moses said that people

who were cured of certain incurable diseases,

like leprosy, for example,

were to show themselves to the priests

to be declared healed.

And of course, healing someone from blindness

was not something they’d ever heard of before,

but to take them to the priest was sort of the thing to do.

And at this point, it’s at this point in the story

that we discover that this miracle took place on the Sabbath.

The people hadn’t thought anything of it,

but the Pharisees had a problem with it.

First off, this was not the first time

that Jesus had healed someone on the Sabbath.

In fact, he was starting to do it with alarming frequency.

On the previous Sabbath, or a previous Sabbath,

Jesus had confronted some of the Pharisees in the synagogue

about healing on the Sabbath.

And on that day, there had been a man with a withered hand

in the synagogue, and Jesus said to them,

“What is permitted on the Sabbath?

“To do evil or to do good?

“To do harm or to heal?”

And Jesus healed the man right in front of them.

And the Pharisees went out and talked amongst themselves about how to kill Jesus, this conversation

happening on the Sabbath.

One of these days, I keep saying this, one of these days I’m going to do a sermon series

on the Sabbath because it is such an important thing in the life of faith.

The whole point of Sabbath is to rest, to escape the rat race, to get off the treadmill

of life and just enjoy God and God’s creation and our families and friends.

Sabbath is the day we are free to say no to the demands of the world, all of them.

It’s a day that God gave us for our benefit to remind us of what freedom feels like.

But the way the Pharisees practiced it, Sabbath didn’t feel like freedom anymore.

It felt like one more demand from the world that people had to obey.

And Jesus said, “No, Sabbath is made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.”

But the Pharisees missed the point.

They made the day that was supposed to be about freedom the most oppressive day of the

week.

So Jesus taught that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath, and in this particular case,

The only thing Jesus did that might have been called work was to make mud.

This would have been, of course, forbidden in the eyes of the Pharisees.

So they decided to investigate and to make an example of Jesus.

Notice they did not stop to ask themselves, “Is it lawful to hold an investigation on

the Sabbath?”

But I digress.

So the Pharisees are taking this incredibly joyful occasion and making it a day of pain

and fear for the man and his family.

And they gather together like a court of law and they begin to question the man.

And at first the Pharisees are divided.

Some feel that Jesus had broken the Sabbath, but others feel that no one who was a sinner

could do such a miracle.

And they ask this man to repeat his story yet again.

And we notice the story’s gotten shorter this time.

The man says, “He put clay on my eyes and I washed them, I saw.”

version, of course, eliminating the making of the mud

so it no longer sounds like Jesus did any work.

Pharisees still don’t believe it.

So they call in the man’s parents to question them.

Is this your son?

Was he really born blind?

How is it that he can see?

And they answer, yes, yes, and you’ll have to ask him.

They were afraid to answer the questions

because the Pharisees had said that anyone

who believes in Jesus would be thrown out of the synagogue.

And back then that was worse than being tossed out of your church.

It was essentially being banished from your community.

So they bring in again the man who was born blind and they say,

“Give glory to God,” which was the ancient way of saying,

“Put your hand on a stack of Bibles and swear to tell the truth,

the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

And they said, “We know this man is a sinner.”

And the formerly blind man who was now beyond exasperated said,

“I don’t know.

All I know is that I was blind and now I see.”

Side note, a little sidebar over here.

I was blind but now I see.

These words inspired the writing of the hymn Amazing Grace.

This hymn was written because of a different kind

of healing, a spiritual healing.

The man who wrote it, John Newton, was an Englishman

and as a young man he was a captain of a slave ship

that carried human cargo across the Atlantic.

And one day in 1748, he was on board ship

off the coast of Ireland when the ship got caught

in a storm and it was about to sink.

And he prayed for God’s mercy and the storm passed

and he was converted to Christianity

and he became an abolitionist.

He knew John Wesley personally.

He worked with John and with other friends

like William Wilberforce to fight against slavery.

And he lived just long enough to see slavery

made illegal in England.

Amazing Grace was written to tell

the story of a man whose heart was completely

changed by Jesus.

I once was lost, but now I’m found.

Was blind, but now I see.

End of sidebar.

So our formerly blind man, who can now see,

stands before the religious leaders and the Pharisees

and speaks the truth,

and it’s a truth they don’t wanna hear.

And the Pharisees want to condemn Jesus,

and this man says, “He opened my eyes,

“and never since the beginning of the world

“has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes

“of a person born blind.

“If this man was not from God, he could do nothing.”

Which by the way is still true today

with all of our medical advancements in technology,

giving sight to someone who was born blind

is something we still can’t do, but Jesus can.

The Pharisees accused this man of a great sin

and throw him out.

Jesus meanwhile has heard what has happened.

Word must have gotten around quick back in those days.

And he goes and looks for the man and finds him

and he says, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

And the man answers, “Who is he?”

And Jesus says, “The person speaking to you now is the one.”

‘Cause of course he’d never seen Jesus before.

And the man’s next word in the Greek is kyrie,

as in kyrie eleison, which means Lord,

Lord I believe, and he worships.

And Jesus shares with him good news.

He says, “For judgment I have come into the world

“so that those who do not see may see

and those who see may become blind.

And the Pharisees overhear this and they say,

“You talking about us?”

And Jesus says, “If you were blind,

“you would be without sin.

“But since you say that you can see, your sin remains.”

And there the story ends.

Lots of things we could pull out of this story,

but just a few things I wanted to

kind of draw out for us today.

First off, doing God’s will.

is not always as clear cut as we think.

People today still quote scripture

to try to tell others what should and shouldn’t be done,

how people should and shouldn’t live.

And yes, it’s important to know God’s word,

and yes, it’s important to follow it,

but we also need to have God’s heart of compassion

because without kindness, truth is a cold sword.

Secondly, as it was back then,

We still have the progressives and the conservatives

battling things out in public, in politics, in the news,

and both sides missed the mark where Jesus is concerned.

Jesus does not violate the Sabbath law.

Jesus says the Sabbath was made for people,

not people for the Sabbath.

God’s word is given for our benefit, not for our harm,

not to cause difficulty, not to lord over other people,

not to decide who belongs and who doesn’t.

God’s law boils down to this.

We are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind,

and strength, and love others as ourselves.

When we look at the issues, when we go to vote,

are we loving others as we love ourselves?

Are we loving the homeless as we love ourselves?

Are we loving veterans as we love ourselves?

Are we loving refugees as we love ourselves?

God loves everyone, not just the people we feel comfortable with.

Faith in God is not and never has been about keeping the rules.

Faith in God makes us generous and caring and compassionate.

And the Christian faith is about a relationship with the living God through

the Holy Spirit, and with the presence of the Holy Spirit,

we are able to share in the joy of the man born blind.

And if we should find ourselves in a jam, like this young man did at one point,

where his story comforts us with the knowledge that Jesus knows where we are,

and what’s going on in our lives, and Jesus cares, and Jesus will come

looking for us, just like he did for that young man.

And Jesus will bring us to a place of worship, a place

of peace and joy and fulfillment and rest, which is the true

definition of Sabbath.

So today we’re going to be doing something a little bit different in a few minutes. We

still have a hymn and an offering going on, but after that, for anyone who would like

it, we’ll be having this healing service. And in light of today’s teaching about the

blind man, I wanted to point out first off that Jesus can heal. Things like this I think

sometimes get feel a little bit awkward, but come knowing that God knows each one of us

and that God will do what God knows is best for us

because he is the most loving parent in the world.

Jesus frequently healed in scripture.

And so today, 2,000 years later,

when we pray for healing, miracles can still happen.

Sometimes God answers with a yes immediately.

Sometimes the healing takes a little longer.

Just out of my own experience,

I have one friend whose wife was healed.

She was going blind and her eyes were healed.

And that was one of those things where they prayed for her

and nothing happened.

And then she went home and her eyes

got a little better and a little better

and a little better each day until her sight was actually

better than it had been before her eyes got sick.

So you never know how God’s going to move,

is what I’m trying to say.

But when we come forward, when we ask for healing,

But come believing that God loves you.

Come knowing that Jesus gave his life for you.

Come knowing that the Holy Spirit is with you.

And if you’re not sure about the Holy Spirit part, tell me that too and we’ll pray about

that.

But bottom line, come believing that God answers prayers, even yours and mine.

If there’s any doubt about that, I just want to give one other testimony.

The online group that we have prayer for every Saturday night on Facebook, we have a prayer

list of about five typed pages right now. We also have a Thanksgiving list of at least

three typed pages since January of prayers that were answered yes. So prayer is answered

and so come with faith, come in joy. And when that time comes, I’ll talk more about the

logistics in a bit. But for today, may God bless each of us here today with heavenly

sight and with heavenly healing. Amen.