It Happened to Them!

Text: John 20:1-18

Focus: The Resurrection

Function: Conversion

Form: Simple devotional

Intro:

The miracle of the resurrection is the keystone of the Christian Faith.

But I submit that there were two miracles that day. The first was the fact of the resurrection, the second was the faith expressed in these people.

Do you ever wonder when and where something good is going to happen to you?

The disciples have seen everything they have worked for the last three years die on a cross.

The hope that they have seems dashed. It seems that all of those warnings by Jesus, that they would crucify Him weren't just parables. Jesus actually meant it.

They had placed all their cookies in one jar, and that jar, the body of Christ had been brutally murdered right before their eyes.

Mary was standing in front of the place where she watched them lay His body.

His body was missing.

She didn't even have a place to come to anymore to grieve.

This Man, this very special man, this Man who never judged her, this Man who forgave her, this Man, who believed in her when everyone else called her names, this Man who listened to her and spoke to her when all the other women in the town despised her was gone.

It felt like all hope was gone.

And to make it worse. It wasn't as if she came from privilege. She wasn't the daughter of some Roman official. She wasn't the daughter of some Priest, or political leader. Her family was poor. And they were under the boot of an oppressive nation that had enslaved them and was taxing them to the place where only the rich could survive.

What is it like to be born in a group of people who are treated as if their lives are worth less compared to others?

I asked a man who operates remote controlled drones in the Middle East if his conscience bothered him when there were civilian casualties from one of our unmanned attack vehicles. He started to respond in one way until he actually heard what he was about to say. He started to say: “Well those people themselves do not have much respect for human life, so....”

And then he caught himself, wait a minute, all life is sacred, all life is important. But remember, at this time in human history, the dominant culture, the Romans traded ten lives for every Roman life lost in conflict.

And this poor woman was raised under this stigma.

And here she is, meeting the Lord of the Universe as He has triumphed over the death itself.

We can believe that on a whole good things can happen on behalf of other people. We believe that as a general principle, good is supposed to triumph over evil.

But what is wonderful about this story is the person Jesus reveals Himself to first. This woman. And her faith is incredible. Because, not only is His resurrection happening on behalf of all humanity, it is happening to her. It happening to her, a prostitute who has been redeemed. It is happening to her, a woman in a society where women were little more than possessions. It was happening to her, a woman, born poor, who lived in a slave nation in some backwater country.

And in that story, happening to her, it happened to us as well.

Jesus didn't just give His life to ransom humanity from the fear of death and the power of sin.

Jesus gave His life to ransom you, every one of you, every one of us.

It happened to us.

Turn to someone and say: “He is risen, He is risen indeed, He is risen for even me!”

Man of Sorrows

Text: John 13:1-17

Focus: Love Feast, Holy Week

Function: To get people to Love Feast Worship

Form: GOK

Intro:

During this Lenten Season, we have been looking at “a day in the life of Jesus.”

We literally saw the events as they unfolded on the day He healed the man who was born blind.

And then we saw the events on a day the week before Holy Week when He raised Lazarus from the dead.

Today is Palm Sunday, the day that celebrates the rejoicing of the people as they accept Him as their leader, just 5 days before He is crucified at the beck and call of many who were in that same crowd.

How did people's emotions and attitudes change so quickly?

I find it one of the great tragedies in the bible.

When I see how fickle people are, I realize how quickly leaders fall in and out of favor. It is all a false reality based on manipulated perceptions. It happens. Sometimes it has very tragic consequences. But God is in control. Satan manipulated this crowd from this huge celebration of Jesus to this huge murderous rage.

And Satan thought he won. But his destructive devices, his use of exaggerating the meaning of petty issues ultimately destroyed him.

In the book of Acts, which we will be looking at after Easter, we see on two different occasions thousands of people who come to Christ.

Could this be the same crowd that on Palm Sunday cried out “Hosanna” and on Friday cried out “Crucify?”

How did that crowd change so quickly? Today we are going to look at the other events from Holy Week: Maundy Thursday and Jesus crucifixion.

Maundy Thursday, the upper room, the agape meal, the feet washing and the institution of the bread and the cup are a celebration of a sad and somber event.

It is odd. But this worship service is a celebration of sorrow. It is odd to celebrate sorrow, Wouldn't you agree?

Every year, on 9/11 we pause in some way or another and commemorate a day of national tragedy. Every year, on December 7, we pause and commemorate “the day of infamy” at Pearl Harbor that brought is into WWII.

We do it as a nation, and we do it personally.

Every year on December 14, I pause and remember my best friend, who was struck by a car and killed walking across the street on the way to my house right before school.

We commemorate sorrow, but celebrating it seems odd.

And yet. That is exactly what we are commanded to do on Maundy Thursday: CELEBRATE SORROW.

We call it Love Feast. We recreate the entire ceremony that Jesus did with His disciples right before He was betrayed.

But celebrating sorrow does not go along with our cultural values. Sometimes, they have gotten so bad that we forget what Christianity is all about. I remember hearing a TV evangelist criticize people for singing “The Old Rugged Cross.” He said: “I ain't clinging to an old piece of wood. I have been made a king and a priest as a Christian. But the Bible says: “God forbid that I should boast in anything but the cross of Christ.” (Gal 6:14)

It is easier for us to celebrate victory.

I know a man whose marriage was breaking up, and in humility, he turned his life over to Christ. He became a changed man and his marriage stayed together.

I know a man who got saved on his death bed and left this earth one of the happiest people I have ever met.

But I have a friend, a young man I taught in Sunday School several years ago who became a missionary to Saudi Arabia. After introducing someone to Jesus, they threw him in prison for a year. His mother and my mother were good friends. And for him and his mother, that “something beautiful” didn't feel that way. His wife left him and moved his two children away into a completely different country.

We dedicated all of our children to the Lord for their protection and establishment in the Christian faith. When our 3^rd child was not quite 2, he was burned on 18% of his body. Kathy and I were dismayed at how God could let this happen. The pastor came over the night before a surgery was scheduled and asked us this question: “When he was a brand new baby and everything was just fine, was it easy for you to dedicate him to the Lord?” We answered yes. Then he said: “Now that his life is in the balance, do you still place him in God's hands?”

And that fear “well what if God decides to take him?” Came to us. And with a sacrificial faith, we got on our knees and rededicated him to God.

Here is the point. In good times, it is easy to praise the Lord. But what about the times of suffering?

Sometimes, Christianity was sold as a commodity, a get out of jail free card, a get out of hell free card, a “do over” card with the idea that if we become believers, everything will be hunky dory and we are promised to be automatically exempt from pain and suffering.

But that isn't at all what the bible teaches.

The promise of something better, something beautiful, something wonderful has indeed brought many people into a relationship with Jesus.

But this ceremony is completely different. It is a celebration of sorrow. It is a celebration of our own sinfulness that brought God to earth, to show us how to live and to purchase our salvation.

How can we accept only the chance for power, the chance for a miracle, the chance for a do-over and not also accept the terror, the sorrow, and the pain of our salvation?

Jesus gave His life for us. And He wants us to acknowledge that fact. He wants us to say thank you by recreating that ceremony. The last verse of our text says “Blessed are you if you do all of these things.” That is why several of our churches only have full communion, with the foot washing, agape meal and then the bread and cup. The text says, as a command to us as Christians: “Do all of these things.”

And it isn't that He has a big ego or low self-esteem.

He is God and He is our Salvation. That is what they were crying out on Palm Sunday, when they cried Hosanna! It means “Lord Save US!”

They just didn't understand that in order to save them, it wasn't going to be pretty. And it isn't.

My theology professor at Bible College was in a friendly, and I emphasize friendly debate with some of the Rabbi's in our local Jewish Community.

They were more conservative and they believe in the OT prophets. Isaiah 53 will be read Thursday night. It starts out with this idea “Man of Sorrows.” That is the prophecy that describes Jesus.

Students of the NT know that the religious leaders and bible scholars of Jesus' day couldn't agree on what role the Messiah would fulfill.

They couldn't agree on which prophecies wee linked to the Messiah because there seemed to be a huge contradiction between them. There is the role describing Him as the King of Kings. There is the Role describing Him as a second Great Prophet would would establish a new Covenant, a new Testament. And there is the role of the suffering servant.

They couldn't reconcile the idea of Him being a suffering servant and a conquering King at the same time.

This man was to come from Egypt, Galilee and Bethlehem. How could one man be from three places? Well, we know Jesus did. He was born in Bethlehem, fled to Egypt and grew up in Galilee.

The early leaders had a hard time worshiping the idea of a suffering servant who saved them. They wanted a big, strapping, successful business man, football player, athlete, soldier and etc.

Thursday night, we will be reading the scripture from Isaiah 53. Let me read some portions of it to you.

A Man of Sorrow...

^2-6The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field.

There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look.

He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away.

We looked down on him, thought he was scum.

But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.

We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures.

But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!

He took the punishment, and that made us whole.

We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.

And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong, on him, on him.

^7-9He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn't say a word.

Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence.

He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people.

¹⁰Still, it's what God had in mind all along, to crush him with pain.

The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life.

Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many "righteous ones," as he himself carries the burden of their sins.

He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

This prophecy when it was originally written was a song. So, someone took the essential part of it and made it into a song. The song is titled: “Man of Sorrows.”

In order to understand it, to put ourselves in the mindset of Holy Week, let us sing that song, it is numbered 258 in the Blue Hymnal.

I like the last part that I read from the prophecy: “He took up the cause of all the black sheep.”

From the best of us, to the worse, in relationship to Him, we would look like black sheep. The idea is that we need a savior. Jesus did that for us on the cross.

Because the image of the cross, its bloodshed, pain and suffering are too much for us to continually bear, Jesus commanded us to celebrate His sorrow with this special service the love feast.

Which we will do Thursday Night. I beg you to clear your calendar and come. It is an important worship service. It brings us not to the celebration of victory, but to the cost of our salvation.

We will start out by washing each other's feet, men on one side, women on the other. Then we will share together the agape meal. It is a simple meal of meat and broth with bread.

And then we will share the bread and cup communion.

It is a somber service. It isn't intended to be fun, exciting, hyped up. It isn't full of positive messages about human potential. It isn't full of joyful music.

It is a time to join Jesus and just like His disciples did, to eat this meal with Him, and one another in community as their love and presence comforted Him before their sorrow.

I ask you to do whatever you can to be here Thursday night. It is fun for us to joyfully parade around the sanctuary on Palm Sunday and enjoy the feeling of joyful celebration. But it is also important for us as Christians to acknowledge the pain, sorrow and suffering that Jesus shared, that some of us share as we dwell together in Christian community.

It is Never Too Late

Text: John 11:1-45

Focus: Faith

Function: To get people to choose Jesus

Form: Story Telling

Intro:

Have you ever wondered why God waits what seems too long to do a miracle?

We humans want security and we want it now.

And sometimes we get impatient waiting.

God promised Abraham that he would be father of many nations and when year after year the promise didn't come true, Abraham had an illegitimate child. He was trying to help God out and it didn't work out for him.

Moses was promised that he would be the leader of Israel. When he was 40 years old, he took matters into his own hands and killed someone thinking the people would follow him.

As a result, he fled to the desert and had to wait another 40 years for the miracle of his leadership to happen.

In both of those situations, God was proving that He is in control and no human problem, no earthly problem can get in the way of God's promise.

Martha, Mary and Lazarus learn the same lesson in this passage.

Jesus taught his apostles, but some of them were pretty unruly.

Jesus was the disciples' pastor, but He was friends with Martha, Mary and Lazarus.

You know the two women. Martha was spiritual by being devoted to serving, a busy woman. She was a great hostess. Mary was by spiritual by listening at the feet of Jesus. (Luke 10:38-42)

When Jesus would visit and begin teaching in their house, Mary would give up her hostess duties and leave the entire burden to Martha.

And many people think that makes Mary more spiritual.

I have a pastoral friend who is working on worship. He says: “The real problem with churches today is that they have lost their sense of worship at the feet of Jesus.”

He cites the difference between Mary and Martha and claims that only Mary has favor with the master.

We know from the text that Mary is the one who broke the Alabaster vial of perfume and anointed Jesus feet. Worship is important. She showed incredible love for Jesus. More than that, the apostles kept missing the clear meaning of Jesus when He said that He must die to purchase salvation for the entire world.

Mary seems to be the only one of all the living people who understood exactly what Jesus meant.

She is indeed a spiritual woman.

But in verse 5 this passage says “Jesus loved Martha, her sister and Lazarus.”

It appears that Martha is the one Jesus is closest to. So, if you are a Martha, you are gifted in hospitality, don't second guess your gift. It seemed to be Jesus' favorite.

And I think it is extremely important that we forgo judging who is the stronger, more faithful Christian. It isn't competition.

It isn't what we know, or what we say we know, it's what we know and act on that demonstrates our spirituality.

Martha had this gift of care. Mary had this thirst for Spiritual knowledge, and both women have a special relationship with Jesus.

And Lazarus is Jesus' dear friend. He gets sick and is dying. The women send for Jesus with a message “come quickly, before it is too late.”

Jesus purposely delays coming to them to prove to everyone that He is indeed Lord and Master of everything, even death.

He uses a play on words about “being asleep,” verses actually “being dead.” Initially the disciples didn't understand. But when you read the epistles later on. The truth of that statement, the truth of the fact of the resurrection comes out.

Whenever someone dies in the rest of the New Testament, they are referred to as having “fallen asleep.”

It is a statement of faith, a statement of hope. Even death couldn't stop Jesus. And if we live by faith in Him, it is not the final victor in our own lives.

Jesus arrives after he has been dead 4 days and is buried.

He comes to Martha first and has the usual conversation.

The usual conversation when someone has died. The comforting conversation about our eternal hope.

Martha is upset with Him: “If you had been there, he wouldn't have died!”

Jesus sees her sorrows and weeps. He loves her so much, even though He knows that once their eyes are opened to His true power and the eternal message of the gospel, that death cannot hold us, even though in a few minutes they will not have any reason to cry, the Bible says: “Jesus wept.”

He continues the usual conversation: “Your brother will rise again.”

This was an important doctrine. It separated the Jewish people. For the most part, the Pharisees, the ones who taught in the synagogues believed in supernatural things like heaven, hell, angels, demons, and life after death.

To make that statement meant that you aligned yourself with a particular camp in Judaism.

The Chief Priests, who managed the Temple were too philosophical to believe in anything supernatural. They taught that eternal life was something like “the great circle of life.” You will have eternal life if you have children and they have children and so on and so forth.

The Jews argued over this. So Martha, aligns herself with Jesus in the more traditional view of scripture and life after death.

And she is quick to agree with Jesus, “yes I know he will rise again in the great resurrection.”

But Jesus changes the focus from this arbitrary promise to something that is specific.

He tells her, that He is the resurrection and the life. He calls her to look only to Himself.

He calls her to look beyond a theory, and to embrace Him as the fulfillment of that doctrine.

He calls her from a mere hope in heaven to a specific hope in Himself.

Verse 26-27: ²⁶and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe...

Jesus is indeed the way to salvation.

When Jesus walked on earth, God Himself was walking among us showing us how to life.

And Jesus calls them to place their trust in Him.

Move to the specific hope. This is the gospel.

Now, Mary and Martha are still very upset that their brother has been allowed to die.

They start in to crying all over again.

The Text says that Jesus was “greatly troubled” when He saw their sorrow.

Don't think that we are cut off from God when we are in the middle of something that has gone completely wrong.

Don't believe for a minute that God does not care.

The word for greatly distressed is the same word used when a horse cries out whinnying in fear. Jesus made a loud noise. He was beyond weeping. He experienced the full force of human emotion Himself.

Jesus takes the time to cry and grieve with them.

That is what Jesus does when we are in sorrow. He does it twice in this passage.

And then, to prove that He is indeed God. He raises Lazarus from the dead.

So often we believe that God didn't show up “on time” and it is too late.

And we wonder how we will survive. We keep thinking “this will take a miracle.”

And if a miracle is what God decides to do, then trust Him, He will.

God cares. It is never too late. Keep trusting in Him.

Did Mary and Martha get this miracle because they were more special than anyone else? Is it indeed a competition between believers to get more power? NO!

There is a deep spiritual principle in this. 3 weeks ago, we read the literal words from the original text describing salvation: “you must be born from above.” (John 3:3-8)

We saw how the King James Translation's words have been used to explain that doctrine. The King James says: Born again.

The words born again caught on because the NT refers to dying to oneself in order to have a new life in Christ.

We die and are reborn.

You cannot have a resurrection without a death.

So, our own lives must consider this problem as we face what it means for us to be doers of God's word instead of people who merely hear it.

What deaths have you experienced?

I have met so many people who tell me that it wasn't until they lost everything “that they placed between themselves and God” that they really started to live with heaven in mind.

Sometimes the resurrection is as glorious as this one, the laws of nature were changed when Lazarus came back to life.

Sometimes, God brings a death, the end of something that we have held, maybe between us and God, in order to give to us a new life.

And sometimes, bad things happen to good people.

Whatever God is doing, be assured of this. It is never to late. If God doesn't give us what we think we need, that doesn't mean He doesn't love us. If we are weeping, He is weeping with us. If we are crying out in loud groans, He is groaning with us. He loves us. He really does.

In our culture, we are used to getting our own way. For the most part, we have the wealth and power to do it. But if we don't get our own way, that does not mean that God doesn't care.

He is never too late, even if it seems that way. He knows what is best for us. He loves us.

And this story tells us to trust Him.

For Judgment I Have Come

Text: John 9

Focus: Faith

Function: To help people see that believing involves sacrificial choices

Form: Story Telling

Intro:

This story isn't a parable. Parables are illustrative stories that Jesus uses to teach a main point. But this is different. One could almost call it “a day in the life of Jesus.”

The story doesn't have a plot and the emphasis seems to change. It demonstrates the incredible confusion that people were experiencing when they encountered Jesus, the lack of understanding that the apostles still have, the deliberate way that some people twisted Jesus' actions and words because Jesus' teachings confronted them and it ends with the simple transformation, the change that actually happens in the life of a person who chooses to believe.

So, there is no plot, but the story is not without a lesson. And the lesson is this: “while faith is a gift from God, it is also a choice. And the choice to believe will definitely change our lives.”

So, let us start with the confusion about who Jesus is. It is actually one of the age old questions that the book of Job addresses:

The disciples, while still trying to figure out God and Jesus ask one of the fundamental questions of faith.

Why did a random bad thing happen to this person? He was born blind, so who sinned? This man or his parents?

Behind that question is a whole lot of concepts: Is God ultimately fair? Why do bad things happen to good people?

This is a question that most people still ask.

The disciples assume that since something bad has happened, then someone must have done something wrong. In this assumption, they leave out the totally random nature of the curse. The Bible says: “The victory in battle doesn't go to the strong, the winning of a race doesn't necessarily go to the quickest, riches don't automatically come to the wise, but time and chance happen to all of them.” Ecclesiastes 9:11.

We wish that it was always true: Do well, and blessings happen. Do wrong and failures happen.

It is true that God promises to bring justice to injustice. He promises to punish acts of wickedness and oppression. He promises to vindicate the victim against the evil doer. He promises.

But that doesn't mean that sometimes random acts of bad luck don't happen to some people.

I came to a church that was bitterly divided from an even that happened 5 years before I came there. It was predominately a “single family church.” And this one person, who had a lot of faith asked a question during joys and concerns. A dear sister, a saint was dying of cancer. And after the prayer request, report on her condition, someone who thought they were doing the right thing stood up and asked just what kind of sin was in her life since Jesus wasn't healing her.

What a painful things happen when we place God in a box and proclaim that He must always work according this set of rules in order for us to believe He is fair.

The book of Job is hard to understand. Job's friends were sure that Job must have sinned because of the coincidence of tragedy that hit him all in one day.

And Jesus' response, from the passage is this: “there was no sin, God is God and God has a plan to demonstrate His glory through this man.” (Verse 3).

Was God wrong to use him in such a way? I mean, what kind of childhood did a blind kid, in a backwater country have? Was he a happy child? Was that fair?

As it turns out, the end of the story demonstrates that through this crisis, the man born blind becomes a believer, is restored to the family of God and finds eternal life. Jesus said the Kingdom of God is indeed worth everything we have.

But here is what I find cool: God proclaims His existence in the lives of individual people.

His story is still being told in the lives of people like you and me.

But let is look some more about the controversy/confusion about God that Jesus is stirring up.

As we read the story, Jesus heals the man. The leaders get involved. The day Jesus does it is on the Sabbath, a day of rest. The fact that a miracle has happened cannot be denied. The leaders are being questioned as to what it means if a man heals the blind. Can this be God at work? And if it is God at work, why are they against Him?

It is so bad that when the Leaders ask the man's parents how he is healed, they are afraid to give the credit to Jesus.

And there is another sort of confusing point about suffering and God's judgment here.

Two weeks ago we looked at John 3:1-15, the introductory verses to John 3:16. Many of you may be familiar with John 3:17 as well: “For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved by Him.”

But here, Jesus, while speaking to the man's whose eyes He has just opened says in verse 38: It is for judgment that I came into the world, that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”

I don't believe that there are any errors in the bible, but at face value, we have two contradictory statements, both attributed to Jesus. In John 3:17 the statement is “God did not send His son into the world to judge the world.”

In Chapter 9, verse 38, He says “for judgment I have come into the world....”

I looked it up, and it is the same root word. In John 9 the word is Krimea. We get the word criminal from this word.

It is God's plan to save and to save the world entire. But how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

So why this difference in meaning? What is happening here?

The fact was, the leaders did not want to believe in Jesus because that belief would cost them too much.

The leaders are faced with a problem that is causing them to lose face and control. The man is healed. An obvious miracle has happened. The fact of this miracle makes them look bad for criticizing Jesus.

So, the leaders resort to human nature. They use an obvious trick to discredit Jesus. It happens in human conflict all the time. Anybody who parents teenagers has experienced this. They make a mountain out of a molehill to change the subject.

In this case, after the formerly blind man says: “This man, Jesus, I believe they call Him made mud with the clay and his spit and put it on my eyes and I see” they say: “Give glory to God... ...because Jesus is a sinner... …we know this because He healed you on the Sabbath.”

According to them, the miracle is tarnished because it didn't follow their understanding of the Bible. Or, it didn't follow their mis-application of the significance of an event.

It happens all the time. Any leader will experience this kind of unfair criticism. And parents of teens are leaders. I remember as a teenager asking my dad why drugs were bad. He said: “they are illegal.”

And quickly, the honest response was “but dad, you typically drive over the speed limit... ...why is okay to break one law and not the other?”

I changed the subject by implying that he was a hypocrite because I wanted an answer that I could live with. If my dad didn't speed, I would have found another excuse to sin.

And here is the thing about arguing with him. My father loved me, he had what was best for me in his mind and he was a godly man. I choose to reject his answer because of my own rebellion.

When someone has made up their mind that they are going to do their own thing, rebel against parents, sin, discredit someone because they have been hurt by someone else in the past, then the normal human condition is to exaggerate the significance of something that they perceive to be wrong and use that to justify their own sin.

You typically see this happen in human conflict, especially in areas of unforgiveness or unwillingness to reconcile. Minor issues in one person are blown out of proportion as if they are huge problems.

The same thing happens to Jesus. Jesus constantly exposes their own selfishness so they make a mountain out of a molehill. And the one who is spiritually mature sees through the pettiness.

It is a human defense mechanism. And when that weapon is wielded, it becomes very powerful and destructive.

So the Pharisees are saying “God did this miracle, but not Jesus...”

And after they badger the parents and get nowhere, they have to make a choice to condemn this man in order to save face.

Jesus has exposed their hypocrisy, and they react like sinners act.

So again, they ask the man who was born blind, “since Jesus is a sinner, how is it that you see?”

They have convinced themselves of their own lie.

And the man gets a little smart with them in his response. He resorts to satire. He says: “Why are you asking, do you want to become His disciple.”

And then, the Pharisees condemn him. They tell him that it is obvious that he was born in sin, that his parents did something wrong and God is judging the man for his parents sins and that he has no place in decent company.

The man persists: “Then how come this great miracle has happened to me?” If Jesus is a sinner, and you guys are the authorities on what is evil, how did this miracle happen?”

Now look: Jesus came to save the world entire. But the leaders refused to lower themselves to the position of faith where they too had to admit that they were sinners and needed a Savior.

Right from the beginning of this story the question is asked about how we can make sure that we are always in God's blessing. It is like we need God to follow a set of rules so that we can be in control.

They can't honestly answer the question, so they just yell louder their own petty point that somehow healing on the sabbath is a sin.

There is no desire in their hearts to love, forgive, be reconciled, heal the brokenness.

It is my experience that the person who refuses to continue the talk, who refuses to go through the process of reconciliation does so because they know they are in the wrong.

And God bless them. The leaders refused and according to Jesus, God will judge them.

But listen. God's judgment is always fair. Whatever His judgment is, it will be in love, because God loves everyone, even evil people.

This formerly blind man is an unwitting participant. It starts out that he is just some beggar at the side of the road who becomes a teaching point from the apostles who have a question they don't understand.

He doesn't ask to be healed, but Jesus heals him anyway.

What a great day for him.

But there is still the question in the back of his mind about the fairness of spending an entire life so far as a blind man with the stigma of being “under the curse of God” and perhaps the pain of all those childhood experiences that he missed out on because of his handicap.

Now if the guy has a positive mental attitude, instead of whining about the loss in the past, he can rejoice in a new prospect for the future.

But remember, the message to him his entire life is that there is something wrong, something evil, perhaps even sinister about him that he has no control over. A child cannot sin in the womb, can he? So, there is the underlying fear that his life is worth less compared to the lives of others. There is the underlying fear that he can never fit in.

And the Pharisees have just told him that.

Wow. What a powerful metaphor for the way that we present the gospel message!

By our actions and words, do we implicate others as being “worth less” just because the circumstances of their lives have lead them to the bondage of sin or economic hardship? Are the poor lazy? Or did they just not have the same good luck as the rich? Do we console ourselves with the words “sinners get what they deserve?”

Too many times people have said to me: “Pastor, as soon as I clean up a few things in my life, I will start coming to church and join all you good folks...”

I cringe when I hear that. I ask myself: “Is there something in the way that I present the gospel that implies that they are worth less to God than me?” “Is it my fault that they have heard the message in the wrong way?”

Listen, we don't clean ourselves up and come to Jesus. We come to Jesus and He works on us in his path, his time and his way. It is his job, not ours.

What a terrible disservice has been done to the gospel message when we imply that riches and health are the obvious signs of God's blessing and poverty and disease are the obvious signs of His curse.

And I know, a good biblical scholar right now can point to the 28^th and 29^th chapters of Deuteronomy when God places the Israelites on two sides of a valley and reads the blessings of obedience and the curse of disobedience to them.

Yes, I do believe that generally, things will go better for the person who loves God enough to love his or her neighbor as much as they love themselves. That is the true biblical standard of holiness.

But these leaders refused to look at the individual. They refused to look at the man and God's potential in this man. They didn't want Jesus to save this man. They didn't want Jesus to forgive this man. For some reason, the price of restoration for someone else was going to cost them to much. They were going to have to admit they were wrong. They were going to have to give up the control they thought they had.

After 9/11, I heard a deaconess say “I don't want God to forgive them -ever!” I worry about her soul.

Listen, brothers and sisters. If we want forgiveness, then we can not place any demands on God about the forgiveness of others. If we want forgiveness, then we have to want forgiveness for everyone else we know. If we want to be pardoned unconditionally, then we need to pardon without conditions. Period. It was too great a price for those leaders to pay. And it cost them the judgment of God Himself.

So, it isn't a contradiction in the bible. Jesus wants to save, even these hypocrites, but listen because this is very important: “The cost of forgiveness for them was a willingness to let Jesus forgive everyone else as well.” And they would not pay that price and that is why Jesus said they would be judged.

So at the end. Jesus finds this man again. And Jesus saves this man. In verse 35 Jesus said to him: “Do you believe in the son of Man?”

The man says, “tell me who He is?”

You see? The man didn't make the request for healing. But He knows that he has been touched by the hand of God almighty.

Jesus indicates that He is the one and the man makes a simple, and yet very powerful statement: “Yes, Lord, I believe.”

I believe.

The man who was blind physically can now see. The man who was blind spiritually, can see as well.

There is a tragedy, the leaders claimed to see and were blind. Jesus points this out.

And the reason they chose to ignore what was an obvious miracle, an act of grace from God, an act of grace perpetrated by someone they considered to be their enemy proves that they were the ones who refused to see.

They weren't willing to accept the consequences of faith. The consequences of faith are to live and love others as much as you do yourself, no matter what it cost. It may cost pride, it may cost bitterness, it may cost unforgiveness, it may cost vindication. And I tell you this, if you let those things go, your salvation will indeed set you free.

Forgiveness has a great price. And that price is repentance. But the repentance wasn't to some set of rules that cost them nothing, that repentance was to become the kind, loving forgiving person that Jesus is.

We will end with song “amazing grace” but before that, look at this video clip from the movie amazing grace. William Wilberforce, the politician who risked everything in order to bring an end to the slave trade in England is talking with John Newton, the author of the words to the song Amazing Grace.

John Newton found grace and it changed his entire life.