Sermon Tone Analysis

Spiritual Blindness

 

November 9, 2008

John 9:1-41

For the first time in our study of the book of John, we come across a complete chapter devoted to a single subject – spiritual blindness.

Please have your Bibles open at John, chapter 9 and follow along as I read the first seven verses:/ “Later, as Jesus walked along he saw a man who had been blind from birth.

‘Master, whose sin caused this man’s blindness?’

asked the disciples, ‘his own or his parents’?’

‘He was not born blind because of his own sin or that of his parents,’ returned Jesus, ‘but to show the power of God at work in him.

We must carry on the work of him who sent me while the daylight lasts.

Night is coming, when no one can work.

I’m the world’s light as long as I am in it.’

Having said this, he spat on the ground and made a sort of clay with the saliva.

This he applied to the man’s eyes and said, ‘Go and wash in the pool of Siloam.’

(Siloam means ‘one who has been sent.’)

So the man went off and washed and came back with his sight restored.”/

First I want you to notice this man.

Although we never know his name, he apparently was known to the people in Jerusalem.

Another thing to note, he didn’t approach Jesus.

Nobody brought him to Jesus.

He didn’t ask to be healed.

All of his life he had lived in darkness.

He was blind from birth, and he had no idea what it meant to see.

His physical condition was every bit as hopeless as if he had no eyes at all.

Because of his infirmity, he was a beggar.

Likely he would have been led to the city gate each morning by a parent, then left there to beg.

Another striking fact you will come to see is that the man was intelligent.

He was a logical thinker, and, as we shall see, a skilled communicator.

Let me give you a little background to this chapter.

Just prior to this event, the Lord had been involved in a major, confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders.

Jesus had made bold claims about himself and about his relationship with his Father in Heaven.

He had claimed to be one with the Father.

He had claimed to be greater than Abraham.

He had said that these religious leaders were sons of the Devil.

And he had just made his boldest claim to divinity.

The Pharisees had begun pick up stones so they could stone Him for blasphemy, and he had escaped by miraculously slipping away through the crowd.

So Jesus may not have been relaxed at that particular moment.

But apparently he was ready to jump on the teachable moment using this blind fellow, who customarily sat by the temple gate, as His object lesson.

Jesus approached the man.

He didn’t engage him in prolonged discussion.

He did not ask him questions.

He did not tell the man to follow him and become his disciple.

He did not discuss the man’s past or his sins.

He didn’t tell him that he had to be born again.

All of this came later.

Let’s go back to our Scripture passage.

Look again with me at verse 2 now: /And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" / Why did the disciples ask the question?

A common belief in Jewish culture was that calamity or suffering was a result of sin.

But Christ used this man’s infirmity to teach about faith, and about glorifying God.

So the disciples asked, “Why him, Lord?” and Jesus, ever the teacher, answered /"Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.

/We all love to see the power of God visibly  displayed in miraculous healing don’t we?

But sometimes, in our eagerness to see the spectacular, we miss the “silent” miracles.

How many times has God spared us from harm and we’ve missed it?

We live in a corrupt, fallen world surrounded by evil and disease.

Yet we are silently spared.

And do we miss it?

We are sometimes so focused on the suffering, we fail to be thankful for the lack of suffering – the grace of Jehovah Jirah – our provider; Jehovah Shalom – our peace; Jehovah Rapha – our healer; Jehovah Nissi – our banner – our protector.

Here, in today’s  Scripture, we see Jehovah – in the flesh – showing as His provision, peace, healing, and protection.

He who knew no sin walking and talking with a group of 12 sinners.

I often wonder why Jesus didn’t answer their question another way.

Jesus could have said that only heaven is perfect..

 

Or he could have explained that yes, there are some situations in which the sin of the parent brings pain or grief or sickness on a child.

We certainly see this in the case of children of alcoholics, or parents infected with a venereal disease.

Jesus could have gone into that.

He could have explained that all suffering is not alike.

He could have said, “Suffering has a place in God’s plan—in the lives of certain people and certain situations; it can affect all the people around us.” Do you think, like me, that Jesus missed an opportunity.

He could have preached an unbelievably good sermon that would have gone down in history as the most penetrating analysis of the problem of suffering ever given.

He was the Son of God.

He knew all the answers to all the questions.

So much of our own inner bewilderment about suffering could have been once and for all settled if Jesus had just preached that sermon that day.

Why did my father die as a young man?

Why did these two young men die so cruelly in a fiery automobile accident?

Why that disaster?

Why that little boy born without any arms?

Why Auschwitz?

Why Afghanistan?

Why AIDS?

He could have explained all of, but he didn’t.

He chose not too.

And as a result we still have only an imperfect, incomplete understanding of the answers to the problem of suffering.

We are often spiritually blind.

Often we still find ourselves perplexed and grief-stricken in the midst of tragedies that befall all people everywhere.

What did Jesus do in this situation?

He said in essence, /“The only thing I’m going to tell you right now is that this situation is an opportunity for God to be glorified, to show what God can do.”/

This is an important point: When you face tragedy, whether it’s sickness or natural disaster or whatever, you might be able to discern reasons why this is happening, and you may be able to lay the blame on someone or something.

You may even be able somehow to see the hand of God in it.

You may not, and it may seem God is not answering you when you pray.

Why?

It just may be the only answer you will get is this: “This has happened; don’t dwell on why.

Rather, you now have an opportunity to see God at work.”

That really is a much better answer.

And if you don’t see God at work in this suffering, then say as Job did, /“Shall we accept good from God and not adversity?”

//(Job 2:10)/

 

All Jesus said was, /“Here’s an opportunity to see what God can do.”/

I thought about that this week, and here’s what I thought: sickness and people who are suffering around us provide us with an opportunity to show the love and compassion of God by caring for them and praying for them and working for their healing.

It may be that God is calling you to show love and compassion — giving you opportunity to demonstrate the love of God to people who are suffering.

This will be especially true if God has taken you through the same ordeal Then He – God may call you to comfort with the comfort you have been comforted with.

Many people, like this blind man in John 9, are so overcome by their suffering that they may be open to giving their lives to Christ, when they are loved and cared for, when they sense the compassion of Christ through our deeds of mercy, they may, like this blind man, eventually come to Christ and find spiritual healing as well as physical healing.

George Shearing, the British-American jazz pianist, was born blind.

He once stood on a New York City street corner during rush hour.

With his dark glasses and white cane, he could always count on someone, sooner or later, to offer to assist him across the street.