Isaiah 42:14-21
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke Sunday, March 15ry 22, 2026
“Watch Carefully, Blind Ones”
What does it mean to be blind? I understand that there is an obvious answer to that question. Someone who is blind cannot see. That’s the simple meaning of the word. There may be a bit of nuance, though. Some people are legally blind and are still able to make out some things like dark and light, but they are not able to accurately see things the way most people do. So I suppose there could be different degrees of blindness, but they all mean that someone struggles to see.
There are also different kinds of blindness. We could call what has already been mentioned physical blindness. Someone’s physical eyes don’t work the way that they are meant to. In today’s Gospel, Jesus met a man who had suffered from this blindness his entire life. What was less obvious was that he also suffered from another sort of blindness, spiritual blindness. We could also call this a metaphorical blindness. Someone who suffers from spiritual blindness cannot see or understand spiritual things. Even after Jesus had healed this man of his physical blindness, he still wasn’t certain whether Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah. He still needed Jesus to explain it to him.
It probably shouldn’t surprise us that the Scriptures often speak of people in terms of spiritual blindness. It shouldn’t surprise us because all of us were born into this world with that condition. We have inherited from our parents before us the guilt of sin, and that means that we also have this struggle. The truths that God wants us to know are completely foreign to us. Things that may even seem obvious once the Holy Spirit has changed our hearts and our lives are impossible for us to recognize or realize before that. And since sin still affects us so deeply, there are still times when our understanding is so limited it seems like blindness.
In our reading from Isaiah 42, God speaks to the Israelites extensively about blindness. He offers both warnings and promises. And though these words were first directed to God’s people many centuries ago, they still give us valuable direction today.
This section begins with words of God’s judgment and action. While he has dealt with his people patiently for a long time, his anger over their sinful rebellion would be unleashed. In fact, somewhat shockingly, God describes himself in terms of a woman giving birth. The time had come for the screaming and gasping and panting. The comparison may be shocking, but it also fits. The time of a woman’s pregnancy leads inevitably to the pain of the actual childbirth. God had restrained his anger, but his carrying out his justice was inevitable. He speaks of his judgment in terms of drying up the mountains and hills and making grass wither. God would strike the land he had promised to his people. His justice would be carried out.
God did indeed carry out his judgment, both on his people Israel and on those who opposed them. God had the Israelites be taken into captivity. He oversaw the destruction of many nations. His words here and his actions should be reminders for us that he will not be patient indefinitely. His patience is grace to sinners, but his justice will also be carried out. He calls us to be constantly prepared for the final judgment on the Last Day so that his justice will not fall on us in wrath.
We dare not mistake God’s patience for approval of our sinfulness, our laziness, or our apathy toward his Word and worship. We dare not mistake God’s patience for approval of our blindness. Instead, this is what God says to the blind: I will lead the blind on a way they do not know. Along paths they do not know I will direct them. Ahead of them I will turn darkness into light and rough places into level ground. These are the things I will accomplish for them. I will not abandon them. God has an answer for our blindness. He has the only answer to the spiritual blindness that affected us from birth and that still hangs over our lives.
God describes this blindness for us as a problem that only he can fix. It is not something that we can take care of on our own. It is a path that we could never have figured out. But God uses this. He takes the darkness of our sin and unbelief—or the darkness of our weaknesses—and brings us through it. He turns it into light. He makes rough paths smooth. All of this only because of his Amazing Grace.
So the Lord takes those who are blind and gives them sight. He is certainly able to do this with physical blindness, but even more importantly he corrects spiritual blindness. But some persist in their blindness in spite of God’s grace and mercy. Some turn away from the light he brings. God describes them like this: They will be turned back and completely disgraced—those who trust in an idol, those who say to molten images, “You are our gods.” This is the height of spiritual blindness. This is idolatry. The blind one is unable to see the true God who created the universe and rules over all things. Instead, in his heart he chooses other gods. He trusts created things that are powerless to help or to care or to assist.
While this sort of persistent blindness would be primarily a description of unbelief, we all must acknowledge that the sinful heart is powerful and persistent in all our lives. The blindness of idolatry remains a threat to our faith. When money or fame or power or knowledge becomes the thing upon which we set our hearts, that thing becomes our idol and we stop seeing God as he truly is. When we fear or love or trust in anything more than God, whatever it is may as well have an altar or a shrine set up in our hearts. And if you don’t think you have a struggle with idolatry, just think what it would be like to have someone else know all your thoughts and words and actions. What would they conclude?
This is what God says to his people: You deaf ones, listen! You blind ones, watch carefully so that you can see! God has called us from darkness to his wonderful light. God has healed our blindness. He sent his Son who not only relieved physical blindness but also dealt decisively with the sin that causes spiritual blindness. Now God warns us earnestly not to fall back into the blindness of idolatry and unbelief. That is exactly what so many Israelites had done for so many centuries. That is what tried the patience of God, what led to their judgment. This is what God says in exasperation: Who is as blind as my servant? Who is as deaf as my messenger whom I sent? Who is as blind as my associate, as blind as the servant of the Lord? You, Israel, see many things, but you do not observe. Israel opens his ears, but he does not hear.
Today’s Gospel shares an example of this as well. The spiritual leaders of Israel in Jesus’ day, the Pharisees, opposed Jesus and clashed with the man whose blindness Jesus had healed. They had miraculous evidence right in front of them as to who Jesus was. The man himself reported “He’s a prophet!” But they insisted Jesus was nothing more than a Sabbath-breaker. They remained blind to what was directly in front of them. They remained blind. They remained lost.
Meanwhile the man who had been born blind was healed both physically and spiritually. He came to see the world around him, and he came to see Jesus as his Lord and Savior. So thanks to Jesus, the blind saw, but the people who should have been able to see, those in a position to see spiritually, remained blind to the works of God.
This is why throughout Scripture God pleads with the blind to look carefully and see, just as he does in our text and in all the readings from our service today. And it is why our text ends with a note of hope. Because of his own righteousness, the Lord was pleased to make his law great and glorious.
God has left his testimony for all of us. He has never stopped loving and leading and guiding his people. He has given us his holy Word to call us from darkness to light, from blindness to sight. Yes, God has given us in Jesus exactly what we need: sight.
The Text: Isaiah 42:14–21 (EHV)
14I have been silent for a long time. I have kept still. I have restrained myself. But now, like a woman giving birth, I will scream. I will gasp and pant.
15I will dry up mountains and hills. I will make all their grass wither. I will turn rivers into islands. I will dry up pools.
16I will lead the blind on a way they do not know. Along paths they do not know I will direct them. Ahead of them I will turn darkness into light and rough places into level ground. These are the things I will accomplish for them. I will not abandon them.
17They will be turned back and completely disgraced— those who trust in an idol, those who say to molten images, “You are our gods.”
18You deaf ones, listen! You blind ones, watch carefully so that you can see!
19Who is as blind as my servant? Who is as deaf as my messenger whom I sent? Who is as blind as my associate, as blind as the servant of the Lord?
20You, Israel, see many things, but you do not observe. Israel opens his ears, but he does not hear.
21Because of his own righteousness, the Lord was pleased to make his law great and glorious.