Do We See or Are We Blind?

Today’s sermon is about blindness. Well, it’s more about those who see but are blind. Let me to tell you a story.

Jesus and his disciples are on the road to the cross. Walking through town walk by a man, let’s call him Eugene, who was born blind, the disciples ask their teacher, “Who sinned? Eugene or his parents?” Jesus tells them, “Neither. Eugene is blind so that God’s work may be revealed in him.”

Jesus spits on the ground and puts mud in the man’s eye, tells him to go wash off in the pool. Eugene does as he is told and washed and came back able to see. Everyone is astonished. The neighbors and passerby ask one another, “Is this not the same Eugene who used to sit and beg?” He kept telling them that it was him but they kept on asking, “How were your eyes open?”

Eugene tells them that a man named Jesus had made some mud, spread it over his eyes, and told him to go wash off and he received his sight. His neighbors, shocked, ask him where Jesus is but he doesn’t know. So they take him to the Pharisees. And we learn that he was healed on the Sabbath. The Pharisees ask Eugene the same questions his neighbors did, so he tells his story once more.

The Pharisees quarrel among themselves about this miracle. Some condemn Jesus because he healed on the Sabbath while others argued he couldn’t perform such signs if he was a sinner. Finally they ask Eugene, “It was your eyes he opened, what have you to say about him?” Eugene tells them he believes Jesus is a prophet but the Pharisees don’t believe him.

The Pharisees call in his parents and ask, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind?  How then does he see?” Eugene’s parents scoff, “Yes, he is our son. Yes, he was born blind. But we do not know how it is that he sees now, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him. He’s a big boy. He can speak for himself.”

So the Pharisees demand Eugene to give glory to God because they know Jesus is a sinner. Eugene responds, “I don’t know if he is a sinner or not. All I know is that I was blind but now I see.” They ask him again, “How then? What did he do?” Eugene looks at them, shakes his head, “I have already told you but you won’t listen to me. Why do you want to hear again? Do you want to be his disciples?”

The Pharisees grew angry, saying, “We are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses. But as for Jesus. We do not know where he comes from.”

Eugene amusingly answers, “Here’s the astonishing thing! You don’t know where comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. Not Moses. Not Elijah. Not David. Not Samuel. If this man was not from God, he could do nothing.”

The Pharisees defiantly stare him down, “You were born entirely in sin, and you are trying to teach us?” And they drove Eugene out.

Word spreads through town and Jesus hears what happened Eugen. When he found him, Jesus asked, “Eugene, do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “Who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking to you is he.” Eugene shouted, “Lord, I believe!” and worshiped him.

Looking around him, Jesus says, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees heard him and said, “Surely we are not blind are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

I recently heard an all too familiar story about a preacher during his first year of seminary. One evening, a church had over several of the students to preach. Well, John Kinney got up to speak and started in. He got all riled up and started preaching, “Coon says this. Wilmore says this. Kierkegaard says this, Schleiermacher says this.” Over and over, he preached for about an hour on everything he ever read. As he preached he noticed the congregation wasn’t responding has they normally would. In fact they were starting to give each other looks.

You know what I’m talking about, right? It was the look that said, “What in the blue heaven is this boy talking about?” At first they give that look to their neighbor. Then they’d give that look to the neighbor behind them. Then they gave that nonverbal signal where they turn half way around in their seat and you see more of their back than their face.

John Kinney finished his sermon and sat down. The pastor got up and thanked the fine students for coming over and invited one of the deacons to close out in prayer. The deacon stood up and began to pray, “This evening, my heavenly father. I thank you that you brought me through another rotation of the earth. I thank you brought me through another day. That I’m able to be in this church tonight and see the western sun. I thank you, Lord. I thank you, Lord that you enable me with a reasonable portion of strength and health that I could gather in this church one more time. I thank you, Lord. I thank you, Lord that you saw beyond my fault and saw my need, picked my feet up from muck and clay and turn me round and planted my feet on solid ground. I thank you, Lord. That your darling son, Jesus came down from forty and two generations of time and hung, bleed, and died on a tree of torture, and got up early, I said, got up early, one morning with all power in his hands. And God, I’m gonna lay down my head for sweet rest tonight, believing the angels will watch over me and rise in the morning, my sheet won’t be the winding cord of a grave cloth and I will feel the blood warmth flow through my veins and my golden moments will roll on a little longer. I thank you, Lord that you lifted me from the pit of sin.”

He kept going on, and the people who had turned their back had turned back around and were saying, “Amen.” “Pray, deacon. Pray. Thank you, Lord”

The deacon got to the point in his pray where he said, “And Lord, tonight with all this stuff we heard, well, Wilmore, I don’t know. Well, Kierkegaard, I don’t know. But there is somebody I know but I haven’t heard his name all night. I think I’ll call him now. Jesus! Jesus! And Lord, when I finish my journey across the sands of time and I stand by the banks of Jordan as the ships go by, and Peter bids me to get on board. Help me to sail across the storm tossed waters of life and walk down the gangplank of salvation. And as soon as my feet strikes on Zion, I will praise you.”

After he finished, John Kinney said to himself, “I’m the one in seminary. I’m the one here to teach you, but when a deacon with nothing more than a 5^th grade education gets up to pray, you get happy? That’s what’s wrong with the church today.” After the service, a lady walked up to him and said, “I can see your pain. But the Lord showed me that there is a fountain bubbling up in you. Young man, I need to tell you something, if you are going to make a difference in this church, and you want folk to drink from that fountain, you best learn to bring my water in a cup I recognize.”

There are things in this world that make us blind even though we think we can see clearly. As I read the gospel story, I was struck by the Pharisees’ response to the man’s testimony. They are unable to see what has happened. They are so concerned about Jesus breaking the law by healing on the Sabbath, that they cannot appreciate the gift they have just witnessed. Here is a man, who has been blind his entire life, he now can see, they should be celebrating! They should be dancing in the streets, firing up the barbeque, and having a good ol’ fashion hootenanny. But they don’t. Instead they question the man over and over again until the man has enough.

He tells the Pharisees, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. Not once since the world began has someone born blind every had their eyes opened. At least none that we have heard. It is obvious he’s not a sinner because God doesn’t listen to sinners. And we know he is from God because if he weren’t he couldn’t open up my eyes!”

The Pharisees become angry because the man dared to teach them. Here is a man with zero education, pointing out to these highly educated religious leaders, these bible believing church folk, something they should know, and what do they do? They throw him out? They drive him away, yelling, “You are nothing more than a blind man, born in sin, and you are trying to teach us?”

They drive him away.

They drive him away because God gave him water from the living fountain in a cup he recognized. The man understood that no one could do such an act without being from God. He knew his history that not once since the world has been made has someone born blind been made to see. He recognizes Jesus as the messiah because he remembered what Isaiah said, “and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.”

The blind man recognized Jesus. The ones who could see the most clearly could not so they drive him away.

We’d do well to remember this story as we journey on the road to Easter. Jesus is not turned away by the blind, the deaf, or the poor. He is not turned away by the lame, the crippled, the orphans, or the widows. He is not turned away by the tax collectors and prostitutes. No, he is turned away by followers of the law. He is turned away by the Church. He is nailed to the cross, not by soul sick sinners, but by healthy bible believing church folk. There’s a lesson there for us. We’d do well to remember.