Sight and Blindness; John 9:1-41

Sight and Blindness

John 9:1-41, Remsen Bible Fellowship, 09/22/2019

Introduction:

As we begin this morning, I want to first address the question of why we’re covering a whole chapter at once. Why not slow down and take this in three or four sermons? There are several reasons, but the main one is this: this chapter contains one story. It’s not quite like chapter 8 where you have multiple conversations on similar themes woven together; instead, while there are several conversations, there is one central narrative around Jesus meeting, healing, and calling to salvation this man born blind. And so while there is certainly material enough in this text for a stack of sermons, I think it will be useful for us to try to look at the story as one cohesive unit. 

Read: John 9:1-7

Here we see the opening scene of this story. Everything that follows in chapter nine centers around this event. As we move through the text, we’ll first examine this paragraph centered on the miracle, and then we’ll move one by one through the following five paragraphs, each of which contains a conversation. 

• As Jesus passed by, he is coming out of the temple, perhaps immediately after chapter 8; certainly between feast of booths in 7-8 and the feast of hanukkah in 10.
• Jesus takes note of the man; it says nothing of the man drawing attention to himself, and obviously he wouldn’t be able to tell who Jesus was. This man was not looking for a miracle.
• The disciples notice Jesus noticing and so they ask what they think is a good question.
• The disciples-just like the friends of Job 2,000 years earlier and like many of us 2,000 years later-assumed that suffering always had a direct link with particular sin. Jesus calls into question this link.
• How are sin and suffering related? 

• Jesus statement in v3 is bittersweet for many of us. There is the relief that comes from knowing suffering is in the world because of sin in a general sense, and not necessarily because I did something wrong. Therefore I need not always be wondering what did I do to deserve this? 
• But the part that might seem bitter to us is that God does have the power to control suffering, and yet still permits it to continue. More than that, he has purposes for suffering. V3b
• Is it fair that God allows this man to be born blind and to suffer his whole life up to this point, just so that God can put God’s works on display? Isn’t that cruel?
• What is meant by that the works of God might be displayed in him? The obvious thing to point to would be the miracle of new eyes, of him seeing (v33). But I think John wants us to remember a definition from earlier in the book. John 6:27-29
• If the primary work of God that must be done is belief, then the time to do that is while the light is still in the world. Jesus is the light of the world (v5) which was directly seen while he walked on earth, but that light is now a mediated light which comes through the church. V4, we must work, cf Matt 5:14
• As Christ’s people we are to do more work than simply believing; but our works are to flow out of our belief in Christ and are to be aimed toward helping others see who Jesus is. And that’s what we see Jesus do in v6-7. 

• Jesus spits into the dirt, makes mud, rubs it in the man’s eyes, and tells him to go to Siloam and wash. Why not speak the word?
• Of the several possible reasons, I’ll give you what I think is the most important: this form of miracle (which remember, the man did not ask for), is one requiring an obedient faith. The man could simply have refused to go wash, or he could have said “I believe you have the power to save me” but not acted. But instead we see him going down and washing in Siloam. And faith and obedience are tightly linked in this gospel. John 3:36
• Note the name of the pool, which means Sent. Jesus, the sent one, will do the real washing in this story. Just as the man received physical sight by washing in the pool named Sent, so Jesus, the one who promises living water, will wash all who by faith obey his call to come to him and worship.

Read: John 9:8-12

• The neighbors, the people around, they are confused. How could this be the same guy? They argue back and forth, is it really him, could it really be, maybe he just looks like that guy. It’s not settled until he is able to interject, I am the man.
• They are obviously curious, how in the world did you, who have been blind your whole life, receive sight? 
• All he can do is recount the facts of what happened. He is very plain and matter of fact. It is easily lost on us how shocking this miracle would be. 
• In his simple recounting, his testimony of healing, I think we see a similarity with how our own spiritual testimony. How are we saved? By the work of a Sovereign God seeing our need, sending his Son to bear away our guilt, and by giving us spiritual eyes to see and trust Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit. Our salvation is the work of God all the way through, beginning, middle, and end. Yet when we relate how this happens, it is, “I heard his word, and I obeyed and was saved.” Obedience to the gospel, faith in Jesus, is how we receive spiritual sight. Faith in and of itself has no power, yet it is the conduit through which God’s saving power flows into our life. Faith is the pipe through which salvation’s waters flow.

• So we see this man born blind giving his simple testimony to Jesus as the one who healed him, though he doesn’t yet know who Jesus is (v11, the man called Jesus). And the neighbors now want to know, where is this guy?

Read: John 9:13-17

• The neighbors bring this man to the Pharisees, which probably is not ill intentioned. The probably just are confused by the whole situation and feel the need to get input from their religious leaders. 
• But we see in v14 the apostle drawing our attention to when this happened. The Sabbath. This is the 7th of Jesus’ Sabbath healings, and it seems (which the working of the mud and the anointing of the man’s eyes) specifically designed to arouse the anger of the Pharisees.
• If that’s Jesus’ intention, it worked. Because there arises not only anger, but division. V16
• The two factions seem to break into those who hold two different baseline assumptions: 1) those who follow God keep our rules. Jesus doesn’t keep our rules, he’s a sinner. 2) those who work miracles like this must be from God. Jesus healed this man, he must be from God.
• However, while there is initially division, that second group either changes their mind or is silenced.
• They ask the man his opinion on Jesus (novel idea!), and he replies, he is a prophet. Note that he still doesn’t fully comprehend who Jesus is, but this is progress from what we saw in v11.

Read: John 9:18-23

• The Pharisees are incredulous as to his testimony, and so they pull his parents in to question them. 
• His parents give a rather feeble answer. They do acknowledge, yes, this is our son and he was blind. But how he can see, we don’t know; he’s a grown man, ask him.
• John explains the reason for their fear in v22. 
• This is a super legit fear. Their son has likely been excluded from the synagogue his whole life as one who suffered a severe physical ailment (remember the disciples mental connection between suffering and sin in v2). Now his healing is presenting his parents with the same prospect of social isolation. We often think of the temple of Jewish religious life in that time, and obviously that’s where sacrifices were made, where the priests ministered, where the presence of God was to meet with his people. And yet for most Jews their most regular experience of religious instruction, community, and where they heard the word read and taught was not the temple, but the synagogue. The synagogue held a central place in forming their identity as God’s people. And if his parents tell the Pharisees that Jesus healed their son, they know that could be construed as calling him Messiah and thus having them cast out. 
• We should be slow to judge this rational fear. They are looking at a real cost if they confess Jesus. 
• But we also aren’t meant to endorse their fear. It stands in stark contrast to what we are about to see from their son in the following verses. 

Read: John 9:24-34

• The Pharisees call the man back to the stand, as it were. But not to get real information. They just want their previous biases confirmed. 
• And so we see what we talked about last week, namely, that belief and unbelief are not first of all mental or rational categories. They are spiritual or heart level categories. 
• These guys are gathering evidence and conducting interviews, but not with any intention of acting upon the facts which they gather. Their intention is to find any way they can to discredit Jesus or accuse him of wrongdoing. 
• But note the boldness of our formerly blind man. V25
• They know Jesus is a sinner. He doesn’t know that, but he does know this: he once was blind. Now he sees. 
• Are you ever afraid to share your testimony of faith because of all the answers you don’t have? If you have trusted in Jesus, you have as much as the man has here, and it is powerful: he opened my eyes. He gave me life. I once was blind, but now I see. 
• The Pharisees want him to repeat the story, but again we have to love his boldness in v27.
• He takes their obvious deafness to his words and throws it back at them: why do you want to hear it over and over? Do you want to follow him? His rebuke cuts them like a knife.
• They claim to be followers of Moses, a claim Jesus already refuted in John 5:46-47. If they trusted Moses, they would trust in Jesus. But what they really trust is in their own goodness and the sufficiency of their religious excellence. They claim to know that Moses was from God and to continue to be in the dark about where Jesus came from (despite the clear teaching of his that he came from the Father, cf 8:58).
• Our friend, the blind man turned apologist, turns this on it’s head as well, v30-33
• His argument is tight, taking their own assumptions (from places like Micah 3:4, Psalm 34:15) about who God listens to, and using those notions to show that Jesus couldn’t be doing something this amazing except by the power of God. Perhaps the only thing as amazing as the miracle itself is their willful blindness to ignore it’s origin.

• They have no way to refute Jesus’ actions or this man’s understanding that those actions only can be done by the power of God. And so they eliminate the problem by removing him from their presence. 
• This isn’t the story ending Christian movies or books or talk shows want to paint. This man isn’t living a victorious Christian life where he stands up for God and all the “bad guys” get put in their place. This man is physically healed by Jesus, only to be re-cast out. He is re-ostracized. His taste of “the good life” is fleeting at best. But his story is not over.

Read: John 9:35-41

• After this man loses it all again by being cast back out by the Pharisees, what happens? Jesus seeks him out. 
• Who does the pursuing and initiating all throughout this narrative? Jesus. 
• Jesus asks, “do you believe in the Son of Man”? The man is eager to believe, though he doesn’t know who that means he needs to believe in. 
• Remember, this man has still never seen Jesus before. 
• Jesus clarifies who he is in v37; you have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you. Note that before this man met the Son of Man, he had never seen anyone.
• The point of the story, the work which Jesus points forward to in v3, come to a climax here in v38. 
• This man has gone from total blindness, physical yes, but also spiritual, in v1. By v11 he is calling Jesus the man who healed him. In v18 he identifies Jesus as a prophet. His stout defense in v30-33 insists that Jesus came from God. But now in v38, he falls down and worships. 
• Jesus stepped into this man’s life and he interrupts his physical blindness with the goal of removing his real problem: spiritual blindness.

• If only the story ended there! But it continues. V39-41
• Jeus came to open the eyes of the spiritually blind; receiving that sight, receiving life, happens through the means of obedient faith. Thus, those who believe that they already see won’t believe, and their sight becomes its own blindness. Cf Mark 2:17
• They say, we see. Can they really see? No. But they claim sight, and their self-reliant self-dependence prevents them from receiving the cure. Their sickness won’t be remedied, their blind eyes won’t be opened, their pride soaked hearts won’t be saved. 

Conclusion: 

Four lessons we draw from this story:

1. Universal blindness. This man is a picture of us all.
2. The danger of obstinate unbelief. The Pharisees stand here for any who refuse to embrace the good news of Jesus. There is a real peril.
3. The only source of sight is Jesus.
4. Faith grows. It is rarely Paul on the road to Damascus; this man’s progression (or even the slower one of Nicodemus) is more normal. So be patient with other believers, especially young ones. 

Jesus is the light of the world. Any who believe in him will have their spiritual eyes healed, and they will receive eternal life. Trust in him, and see.