But Who's to Blame?

John 9 Living Bible (TLB) (redacted)

9 As he was walking along, he saw a man blind from birth.

² “Master,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it a result of his own sins or those of his parents?”

³ “Neither,” Jesus answered. “But to demonstrate the power of God.

⁶ Then he spat on the ground and made mud from the spittle and smoothed the mud over the blind man’s eyes, ⁷ and told him, “Go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. So the man went where he was sent and washed and came back seeing!

⁸ His neighbors and others who knew him as a blind beggar asked each other, “Is this the same fellow—that beggar?”

⁹ Some said yes, and some said no. “It can’t be the same man,” they thought, “but he surely looks like him!”

And the beggar said, “I am the same man!”

¹⁰ Then they asked him how in the world he could see. What had happened?

¹¹ And he told them, “A man they call Jesus made mud and smoothed it over my eyes and told me to go to the Pool of Siloam and wash off the mud. I did, and I can see!”

¹² “Where is he now?” they asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

¹³ Then they took the man to the Pharisees. ¹⁴ Now as it happened, this all occurred on a Sabbath.^{[a] 15} Then the Pharisees asked him all about it. So he told them how Jesus had smoothed the mud over his eyes, and when it was washed away, he could see!

¹⁶ Some of them said, “Then this fellow Jesus is not from God because he is working on the Sabbath.”

Others said, “But how could an ordinary sinner do such miracles?” So there was a deep division of opinion among them.

²⁴  For the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him, “Give the glory to God, not to Jesus, for we know Jesus is an evil person.”

²⁵ “I don’t know whether he is good or bad,” the man replied, “but I know this: I was blind, and now I see!”

This is a beautiful story that shows a variety of ways we get distracted from seeing God at work in our lives.  Here is a man who was blind from birth. He was never able to see.  Never.  There was no accident, no injury, just blindness.  And after years of blindness, and begging to survive since he wouldn’t have been able to work, Jesus takes spit and dirt and cures him; he restores his sight.  A miracle took place and this man’s life was transformed.  That’s the point of the story.  The description of the healing is repeated FOUR times!

 What took place is a big deal, but ultimately, the others in the story aren’t focused on that.  They are distracted by other things.  First, we have the disciples.  The disciples are worried about why this man is blind in the first place.  And there is an Old Testament passage that says the consequences of your sins will be passed down from generation to generation.  So, they assume that’s what happened. Someone sinned and he’s suffering the consequences.  Technically, the disciples are asking a legitimate question. It sounds odd to us, but for them it was simple.  And they wanted to know, if he was born blind, was it his sin or his parents’ sin?   And reasonably, if he was born blind, then it must have been his parents’ sin, or maybe his grandparents’.  The disciples know there must be someone to blame; they want to know who.  But Jesus doesn’t answer their question, not like they expected.  He instead says, “Neither”.  The blindness doesn’t come as punishment for sin. Instead, it gives us the opportunity to see God’s power.  We can see God at work. 

But that explanation then begs the question, “So is God making the man suffer with blindness so that God can later be glorified?” 

No, that’s not the point either.  If we get stuck there, then we become stuck just like the disciples, we only keep trying to find someone to blame for the blindness.  But we miss the point of this story of Jesus healing the man if we keep focusing on why the man is blind in the first place and lose sight of the fact that Jesus healed the man with mud and spit.  Jesus healed this man.  Jesus performed a miracle.  Jesus touched him and healed him and changed him forever. 

We finally get the disciples on board and understanding the miracle of what took place, and we have to deal with different dissenters.  The Pharisees got hung up on Jesus healing the man, wondering just who gave him the right to do such a thing. And Jesus didn’t just heal without proper authority, but he did it on the Sabbath.  And we all know you can’t work on the Sabbath.  (well, you know, they couldn’t work on the Sabbath, but we can…)  Jesus was a rule breaker.  The Pharisees were so bothered by Jesus’ supposed disregard of the rules that they couldn’t see the miracle that just took place before them.  Jesus refused to play by the rules.  And since it didn’t happen the *right* way, it was a problem.  Who cares if the man can see? Who cares if he can work? Who cares if he can be a part of the community again?  Jesus was unconventional. He broke the rules. And we all know that rule breakers certainly can’t be doing God’s work.  Except, Jesus didn’t really break the rules.  The Pharisees saw that healed on the Sabbath, and they considered that work.  But they’re too focused on the letter of the law.  From other scriptures where Jesus healed on the Sabbath, we can see a similar issue.  And if we look at the 4^th commandment, we are reminded “to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.”  The Jews defined that as not working.  But here’s the thing, what’s the point of Sabbath?  Is the purpose of Sabbath to prevent us from working?  No.  Not working only goes to serve the purpose of Sabbath.  The purpose of Sabbath is to restore us.  Sabbath is meant to give us a time away from work, a time of rest, SO THAT we might be restored in mind, body, and spirit.  Sabbath is redemptive, not prohibitive.  And if we understand that the purpose of Sabbath is to bring us back to wholeness, then we can see that healing on the Sabbath is really a fulfillment of the law, and not rejection of it. 

So if this story isn’t about God’s punishment, restrictions, and the consequences of our sin, then what is it about?  It’s a story about God’s grace.  Grace is God’s free gift to us. It’s something we cannot earn and something we do not deserve.  And God expects nothing in return. Grace is free.  It’s given free and clear.  No expectations. No strings attached.  God is not a God of wrath against our sinfulness but instead a God of grace and redemption. 

I know it sounds weird, but sin opens the door so that we might come to know God’s grace.  Yes, there are consequences for sin. No we shouldn’t go out and sin just so God has more opportunities to show us grace.  Grace transforms us. It changes the shape of our lives.  It makes us different.  The man in this story was touched by grace, a gift freely offered by God, something he didn’t earn or necessarily deserve, and his first transformation took the form of sight. But having sight literally changed the way he encountered the world.  And he would have been able to work. And he would have been restored to the community.  His whole world changed in a matter of minutes.   The impact of what Jesus did for him changed him forever and the only response he knew to take was to follow Jesus. He wanted more of that life. He wanted more of that grace.  He was made new by grace. 

We have the same opportunity to be touched and affected by grace, not because grace is a reward for sin. Not because God doesn’t care what our sins are. God cares very much because God knows our sins will only serve to destroy us.  God wants us to be people of grace. People who receive grace and people who offer grace.  Grace marks us. And when we receive that gift from God, it comes to define us. 

We have the temptation, like the disciples and the Pharisees, to get hung up on other things.  We can become too focused on the nature of sin, and the just consequence, that we miss the point entirely.  God’s objective in our lives is redemption. We are meant to be restored. We are meant to be renewed. We are meant to be transformed.  But to encounter that, we have to receive the gift of grace.  We have to be willing to let Jesus intervene on our behalf. 

At the beginning of Lent, I preached about miracles.  We looked at our need for God to do a miracle in our own lives.  Some of us prayed for financial stability. Some of us prayed against an addiction. Some of us prayed for restoration of a relationship.  Some of us prayed for courage to share our faith. Some of us prayed for our children.  Some of us prayed for our parents.  Some of us prayed for our spouses.  Some of us prayed for our world.  We all acknowledged our need for God to intervene in our lives and do something that seemed impossible.  Some of us have seen God’s response already. We have witnessed a miracle.  We have received God’s gift of grace and been transformed.  Others of us are still waiting and praying fervently.  Others of us got distracted.  We got hung up on the details. We became too focused on figuring out the why of our circumstances, like the disciples, that we became blind to the possibility of a miracle for ourselves.  And others of us, like the Pharisees, could only see the reasons Jesus shouldn’t do such a thing in our lives.  And we got hung up. We got distracted.  But God is calling us back to the possibilities. God is calling us back to grace. God is calling us back to the miracles.  Why?  Because God is a god of grace and redemption, not one of consequences and restrictions. God wants to bless you. God wants to restore you. God wants to bring wholeness to your life. 

Let us pray.