Isaiah 42:14-21 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Fourth Sunday in Lent 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.