John 9:1-7, 13-17, 34-39 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Fourth Sunday in Lent Sunday, March 19, 2023 “Jesus Gives Us True Sight”
“I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see” (CW 576:1). Those words come from a muchbeloved hymn. We just sang them minutes ago. John Newton wrote those words, wrote that hymn, “Amazing Grace.” Perhaps you have heard previously about his history as a ship operator for the slave trade. On one occasion, he was caught in a storm and cried out desperately to God. He credited that event at the very least to setting him on a path toward becoming a Christian, a priest, an abolitionist, and a hymnwriter. But John Newton was not blind. I doubt that comes as a surprise to you because you understand that words and figures of speech in English can have meanings other than their literal, straightforward sense. When we sing, “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see,” we understand that we are speaking about these things in a spiritual sense. We’re not talking about being lost in the woods or unable to find our way around Tucson’s roads. We’re not talking about physical blindness or the need for eyeglasses or contact lenses. No, just like Newton, we are saying that there was a time we did not know God or understand his blessings to us, but God rescued us and made us his own. In that sense, we were lost but have been found and were blind but have come to see. In today’s Gospel, we heard about a man who was blind in both senses. This man also came to see in both senses. And his experience is contrasted with the response of the Pharisees who really went the other direction. So let’s consider together a little more about this event and about the lessons we take from it. We see from this account that Jesus gives us true sight. The first blindness, if you will—certainly it was a misunderstanding—that Jesus corrected was that of his own disciples. When they came upon a man who had been blind for his entire life, the disciples assumed that this issue was a punishment for a specific sin. But whose sin? It hardly seemed fair that a man ought to suffer blindness because his parents sinned. But if it was his own sin that caused the blindness, how would he have been born blind? Was he punished for something he would do sometime in his life? In this case, however, the purpose of the man’s blindness was not punishment. The purpose was to bring glory to God through the work of Jesus Christ his Son. Jesus explained that the blindness was not due to either this man’s own sin or his parents. That is certainly not to say that these people were not sinners. They were sinners, just like all people. But Jesus reminds us that his plan is not what the world understands. He’s not talking about karma, where if you do good, you get good, and if you do bad, bad comes back to you. God’s plan is not to punish every sin with an earthly consequence, though for some sins there are natural consequences. God’s plan is to forgive sin and wickedness, to remember these things no more, and to use all things, even and especially the difficult things, to draw people close to him. At times it may be difficult for us to remember God’s plan and his good purposes. How often does a Christian feel like crying out, “Why me, Lord?” When a beloved and active member of our church family is diagnosed with a terminal disease, we may wonder why something that seems so bad would happen to a person who seems so good. And aren’t we tempted to think that if our life is going well, God must be pleased with us and then to worry that if something goes wrong maybe he isn’t? Jesus tells us that this is not how God operates. His blindness was a real burden for this man that we meet alongside Jesus and his disciples in John chapter 9. We wouldn’t want to place such a burden on someone or belittle the struggle. But don’t you suppose, after everything was done as we heard in this lesson that the man would have been thankful for what he went through? Don’t you think he would have found the struggle worth it? First, Jesus dealt with this man’s physical blindness. He made some mud out of the dirt on the ground and his own saliva and placed it on the man’s eyes. He sent the man to wash in a pool that happened to be named for sending. And when the man did as Jesus instructed, he returned with his eyesight. He could see for the first time in his entire life. Jesus showed himself to be true God and all-powerful. He demonstrated his love