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 28th and 29th 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.
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