Series A - Lent 4 - John 9:1-41

It is hard to imagine what life would be like without sight. Those of us who can see have a tendency to take it for granted. When you open your eyes, they work. When you want to watch television, read the news paper, see a sunset, look into the eyes of someone you love – you just do it. Your eyes do the work that they were designed to do. We don't think about it, don't stop even to appreciate it, our eyes simply accomplish the task that God gave them to accomplish.

If we didn't have our eyes the story would be quite different. In addition to improving the quality of our lives by enabling us to see and appreciate the beauty of God's creation, eyes are also quite useful. Because our eyes work we can drive to work or to church. Because our eyes work we can do our taxes, read a book, shop on the Internet. We can cook dinner, pour a cup of coffee. Change a diaper, write a letter. Something as simple and as everyday as our eyes are a wonderful gift from God and if we did not have them our lives would be changed drastically. Our quality of life would be diminished. And we would miss out on many of the wonderful aspects of God's good creation that he intended for us to enjoy.

These days modern technologies and conveniences have opened up a whole new world for the blind. Braille has made it possible for blind people to read books, order from a menu and ride an elevator. Systems of organization have helped those who are blind get dressed, prepare meals, go to work and hold regular jobs. This was not the case 2000 years ago. There were no such technologies in place. There were no helps, guides, programs to assist anyone who had any sort of handicap. There was only poverty. The man in our text today who was born blind who found himself in the presence of Jesus did the only thing that he could do – he was a beggar. He was dependent solely and completely on the good will and generosity of others.

It was because of his hopeless plight that the disciples were inclined to ask the question of Jesus that they did – “Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind?” It must be one or the other – there must be some sort of punishment at work here, after all, in their minds, (and in ours) everything happens for a reason.

The disciples were enslaved to a very human way of thinking – they were enslaved to seeing everything in the world in terms of its cause. They knew that God was all powerful and that he could do anything. But they assumed that God used that power for good only when we deserved it, only when we had been good enough to earn it. Therefore if something bad happened God caused that bad thing so that he could punish the sinner. This man was blind. He was a beggar. In their minds they had it all figured out. It was the Lord's doing, and he did it to punish this man. The disciples in their casual arrogance asked whose sin the man was being punished for.

The disciples were not alone in their error.

Often we are guilty of the very same wrong headed thinking. Often we are guilty of making those very same assumptions. Often we look for the answers to questions about how God feels about us based upon the quality of our lives. If things are good, God is blessing us. If things are bad, God has cursed us. Jesus tells a different story.

We live in a world that is corrupt and sinful. We live in a world that is plagued with suffering and death. That suffering touches the lives of God's people with an amazing and often an alarming frequency. So often it happens that God's people have to suffer with physical ailments and even death. Our prayer list is constantly filled with the names of people who experience this suffering all the time.

Just like the disciples, we try our hardest to figure out why. Why did this happen? Why did this occur? What did I do that God singled me out to suffer? We think that God works the way that we work. We think that God works by rules, by the law. Tit for Tat. Good on good and bad on bad. Therefore, when we suffer, because of our sin-filled hearts and minds, we assume we have done something wrong. We stepped away from what we were supposed to do and this event is simply a natural consequence for our error. “If only I would have appreciated my mother more while she was alive God would not have taken her away from me at such an early age.” “If only I would have taken better care of my body, God would have kept me from getting cancer.” We make our selves responsible for things that are beyond our control. In so doing, we pretend that we can figure out our suffering. We pretend that we can figure out God.

Ironically, we often do the very same thing when good things happen. Often there are times when some un-anticipated blessing comes along and we are convinced that this is how God works to show his love and his grace. A front row parking spot at the grocery store – it must be God. Green lights on the drive to work. It must be God. An extra discount coupon off our final bill, It must be God.

Why is it that we are so inclined to look for God's punishment in things that are beyond our control? Likewise why is it that we look for grace only in the places where it does us a minimal amount of good?

Jesus turns this cause and effect thinking on its head when the disciples tried to pigeon hole him into it. When the disciples wanted to know who had sinned Jesus responded with the truth. Jesus responded with the truth that sets us free from having to earn God's Love in a chaotic and sin filled world.

Jesus said, “It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

What a relief! Wow! What a refreshing message to hear and believe. Jesus has come to us, has come for us, to make know to us the Word of God. Knowing and understanding this truth totally sets us free!

That man who had been born blind was forced to sit, unable to work, unable to provide for himself some means of making a living. He was totally dependent upon the mercy of others. There was nothing that he could do to provide for himself and to care for himself. There was no hope for him and for his life.

As if his blindness were not enough, this man faced the judgment of the disciples, he faced the judgment of his neighbors. When they looked at him they saw a man who was nothing more than a sinner. He got what he deserved, he must have, after all he was born blind. No one knew what his sin was, but it must have been bad if God would curse him so severely. After the man had been freed from his blindness by Jesus, the townspeople who refused to believe in Jesus condemned this man saying to him “you were born in utter sin.”

People today have made the opposite mistake. We would want to come to his defense. WE are so intent on defending the victims and emancipating the oppressed that we want to make out like no one is a sinner. “It's not fair to condemn this man as a sinner – he's no different from anybody else. There must be a reason. He's just got to believe that God has a purpose for his suffering.” What we don't understand is that every single one of us should suffer what this man has suffered. Every single one of us should suffer blindness, cancer, slavery, death, torture, disease, every “injustice” known to man is exactly what we should receive exactly what we deserve to receive yet is what we have not received only because of God's mercy.

When we see those who suffer, when it seems to us to be unjust, our first response should be a prayer to God thanking him for his unending mercy that has spared us from receiving the same thing.

This mercy of God is no more clearly revealed anywhere in all of creation than in the cross of Christ. If we truly want to see injustice and unfairness, if we truly want to see a victim. Likewise, if we truly want to see suffering that has a reason and a purpose than we can look no place but the cross. There God in the name of Justice committed the worst act of injustice that could have ever been committed. Jesus who had done no wrong who had committed no sin was found to be sin for us. He was punished in our place for sins he did not commit. His cross, his hell was ours. We deserved every ounce of suffering that was heaped upon Jesus. He suffered for us.

And now the suffering of Jesus changes our suffering. We do not suffer because we deserve it. We do not avoid suffering we do not receive some blessing because our righteousness has earned some sort of respite from suffering – it all moves to one point to one purpose, the purpose that Jesus himself identifies in these words.

“It was not that this man sinned or his parent but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

The question of course is what are the works of God. It would be easier for us to assume that the Works of God would be some sort of exercise of power. Jesus would show those Jews who was boss, who had power. Jesus would show them once and for all that he was God – they would have to believe when they saw the miracle that he would perform, right?

Wrong! John made certain to tell us what the work of God is. In chapter 6, where Jesus tells us that he is the bread of life Jesus told us that they work of God is this, “That you believe in Him whom God has sent.” The work of God is faith in Jesus. The work of God is that the disciples, the Jews, the blind man, his parents, Nicodemus, the Pharisees, you and me – that we believe in Him whom God has sent. That we believe that Jesus is the Christ.

What is so ironic is that the Jews saw the miracle. They saw the man who had been born blind. They had seen this man in their market place every day. They looked down on him and felt a arrogant pity for him all the while assuming that he got what he deserved. After he had been healed they refused to believe it was him. There is no way it could be the same man. It must be someone else. They could not believe.

Even this man himself, he had been healed by Jesus and he did not know Jesus. He did not know who Jesus was and why he had come. As he argued with the Jews that he was indeed the man who had been born blind, as he argued that it had been Jesus who healed him, he did not know who Jesus was. It was only when Jesus came to him, talked to him, told him who he was that this man believed. It was only when this man fell at the feet of Jesus and worshiped him that the work of God had been done, that the work of God was complete.

God works with us exactly the same way. Our condition and quality of life takes wide swings back and forth. There are days when our health is good our comfort level is high and we fell good about ourselves. God is with us. There are days when we feel awful, when we are sad, lonely depressed, sick, mournful, aching and in pain. God is with us. God never leaves us. God never sets us aside. God never wanders away.

When you are blessed is it God? Absolutely. What about when you are sad and in pain? What about when to all the world it looks as though you have been cursed and God is angry, when it looks like God has despised you? It that God? Yes! Yes! Especially yes! God is there in your suffering! He is right beside you and he will not leave you. He is pulling you along, picking you up, carrying you all to display in you the work of God. You have been given Faith. Jesus has come to you. HE has cared for you. He will care for you now and for ever.

Amen.

Now may the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Amen.

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