From Darkness to Light: The Blind Man Who Saw Jesus

Gracious God, your word is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword.

Today, when we hear your voice, deliver us from hardness of heart.

Help us to put away everything that keeps us from persevering in your way.

For the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

How is your vision?

2020?

The other day I had my eyes tested.

They wanted to know if I could see.

And they showed me a series of images asking which was clearer and which was blurry.

And some of the images were really blurry.

I could not make out what they were showing me.

And some of them were as clear as day.

The result for me was that I could see most of what was there and I don't need glasses yet.

They emphasized the yet.

When it comes to Jesus, for lots of people, Jesus is blurry.

He's out of focus.

They don't see him as he really is.

Some people think that he was a good teacher, others think him a prophet.

While on the other side of the coin, there are the likes of Richard Dawkins who, against the evidence,

doesn't think that Jesus existed at all.

Blurry pictures of Jesus, misunderstood pictures of Jesus.

Views of Jesus that are not quite 2020 vision.

And maybe this morning it's possible that we have a blurry vision of Jesus.

That we don't see him clearly.

So as we look at John chapter 9, hopefully we can bring Jesus into a sharp focus.

John 9 · chapter mention

And we'll see how seeing Jesus clearly will change our life.

So it would be good to have John chapter 9 either open in your Bibles or read along in the pew sheet.

John 9 · chapter mention

Now as we read chapter 9, we need to know that it sits in the Gospel of John.

And the Gospel of John is written in chapter 20 verse 31,

So that we would believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and have eternal life.

So that we would see him clearly.

We also need to know that before chapter 9 comes chapter 8.

And in chapter 8, Jesus has some very tense interactions with the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day.

Jesus made the claim in chapter 8 verse 12, that he is the light of the world.

At the end of the chapter, Jesus uses God's name of himself in verse 58.

The Pharisees were not happy.

And so as we come to John chapter 9, Jesus is showing us that he is in fact the light of the world.

John 9 · chapter mention

And we're going to look at the passage by asking three questions.

How can you see? How can you know? And will you believe?

So first, how can you see?

Jesus saw a man who was blind from birth.

And his disciples, echoing the worldview of the day, ask in verse 2,

Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

It's a worldview where they believe that suffering is linked to a person's sin.

That the measure of a person's suffering is connected with God's anger against them.

It's a little bit like the reward system in my daughter's classroom.

You get a blotch next to your name if you do the wrong thing.

And if you've got blotches next to your name, you miss out on the good rewards.

Lots of people think life works like that.

Karma, which many people today ascribe to, you do good, good will happen to you.

You do evil and evil will eventually catch up with you.

The man born blind, he or his family must have sinned. That's the logic.

But Jesus says this is wrong. And he corrects his disciples.

In verse 3, he says, neither this man nor his parents sinned, said Jesus.

But it happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Who sinned? Was it the man? Was it the parents?

It's neither, says Jesus.

See, the reality is that good things happen to people that we consider evil.

And bad things happen to people we consider good.

Job in the Old Testament is described by God as righteous.

Yet his suffering is immense.

The psalmist laments that the wicked appear to prevail over the righteous.

Jesus Christ, the perfect son of God, was crucified as a criminal.

And we know this to be true in life as well.

There isn't a direct correlation between a person's suffering and the way they live.

This last week, share market crashed, petrol prices have gone up.

That's going to affect people's lives.

But it didn't happen because you had an evil thought or told a lie

or helped the old lady across the street.

We live in a world of sin where there is evil, where we are sinful, where bad things happen.

But we can't say that because this bad thing happened

that God is more angry with us than someone for a good thing which has happened.

If you have a rubbish week, who's had a rubbish week at some point in time?

Yeah, we've all had rubbish weeks.

It doesn't mean that God loves you any less.

Or if you have one of those weeks where all your ducks are just lined up in a row and it's just fantastic,

it doesn't mean that God loves you anymore.

There's no strong relationship between our suffering or our blessing.

God shows us his love in Christ.

And this includes the man's blindness.

Man is blind not because of his individual sin, but because he lives in a world of sin.

And Jesus actually says that this man was born blind to show the works of God in verse 5.

To show Jesus' glory.

And so Jesus does the work of God in verse 6.

He spits on the ground, he makes some mud with saliva, puts it on the man's eyes,

and then Jesus gives the command, washing the pool of Siloam.

And so the man went and washed and he came home seeing.

And he came home seeing. Imagine that.

A few weekends ago we went to the Capricorn Caves and we were in the Cathedral Cave.

Maybe you've experienced it.

They turn off all of the lights and it is so dark.

You can put your hand up in front of you and you can't see a thing.

Then they turn the lights back on and you can see.

Imagine having that happen for the first time.

What a miracle.

And his neighbors, they knew it was a miracle.

They were amazed. They were asking, is this the same man?

Some of them were sure it was. Some of them said, no, it's a doppelganger.

It just looks like him.

And so the man goes, no, no, no, I'm him. I'm the guy.

And then the neighbors asked the obvious question.

The question you ask when you've seen something extraordinary.

Verse 11, how were your eyes opened?

And the man knew it was Jesus who had opened them.

And so he answers, Jesus.

And that's the answer to our first question, how can you see?

The answer is Jesus.

So we come now to the second question, which is how can we know?

How can we know that Jesus is legitimate?

Now the scene changes.

The man is brought before the hostile Pharisees,

the Pharisees who have decided in their hearts that Jesus is not from God,

that he is not the light of the world.

And what angered the Pharisees even more

was that Jesus healed this man born blind on the Sabbath,

the Jewish day of rest.

And that was a clear no-no for the Pharisees

and the nail in the coffin for Jesus.

And so they asked the man the question how he's been healed in verse 15.

The man answers, Jesus.

And the Pharisees draw the conclusion, well, if Jesus healed on the Sabbath,

well, surely he can't be from God.

But the conclusion doesn't reflect the evidence.

It's super blurry vision.

It's like when someone owns a nice house, an expensive sports car.

You look at that and you draw an assumption, right?

You assume that that person is doing okay.

They've got enough money to buy a nice sports car.

You don't make the assumption that that poor person is on hard street.

Well, that's kind of the conclusion the Pharisees are making about Jesus.

They've got all this evidence before them, but they're really just ignoring it.

And the people see that the Pharisees are drawing the wrong conclusion.

In verse 16, some ask, how can a sinner perform such signs?

They asked the man born blind.

He doesn't yet see Jesus with 20-20 vision.

And he says that Jesus is a prophet.

Now a prophet by definition comes from God.

But the Pharisees, they're still not convinced.

And in their unbelief, they drag the man's parents in

to confirm that this was the man who was born blind.

And that in fact, he can now see again.

Now once they've confirmed that, they drag the man back in again.

They're trying to confirm that Jesus is a sinner.

And I love the man's answer, verse 25.

Whether he's a sinner or not, I don't know.

One thing I do know, I was blind, but now I see.

He sees, the miracle speaks for itself.

And then the third time the Pharisees ask, how can he see?

They cannot believe it.

They will not believe it, no matter how much evidence they have.

And the reason they won't believe it is because they do not want to recognize

that Jesus is from God.

And the man, I take it, is one of those people who speaks their mind

in response to the Pharisees in verse 30.

He answers,

What a rebuke.

The Pharisees here have an opportunity to see, but they stay in darkness.

And the Pharisees are now angry at him.

And so they replied,

They're still believing that because this man was born blind,

that it was because of his sin, not to show the glory of God.

But in all this, for us, the conclusion is very clear.

Jesus is from God.

He's someone to listen to, to take seriously.

And like the man born blind, we ought not to shy away from the evidence

that we have of Jesus.

He's not only a human, but he's a human sent from God.

We ought to take the fact that he is divine seriously.

He's the light of the world.

C.S. Lewis famously wrote in his book, Mere Christianity,

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said

would not be a great moral teacher.

He would either be a lunatic on the level with the man

who says he is a poached egg, or he would be the devil of hell.

You must make your choice.

Either this man was and is the son of God,

or else a madman or something worse.

Someone not from God could not do this miracle,

could not make us see.

And we need to know this morning that belief in Jesus is not blind faith,

but it's faith in the fact of who Jesus says he was,

demonstrated to us by his life, his miracles, his death,

and ultimately in his resurrection.

And so we come to our third question.

How can we believe?

After the man was thrown out of the synagogue, Jesus comes and finds him.

And the man sees Jesus for the first time.

And Jesus asks him in verse 35,

Do you believe in the Son of Man?

Our Son of Man was a term Jesus used of himself

that picks up themes from the Old Testament of the divine king.

If you want to look that up later, have a look at Daniel chapter 7.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

And the man wants to believe.

He says in verse 36,

Who is he, the Son of Man?

Tell me so that I may believe in him.

And then Jesus reveals himself so the man can see.

Verse 37, Jesus said, You have now seen him.

In fact, he's the one speaking with you.

The man can see. That's a miracle.

The greater miracle is that the man can now see Jesus clearly.

He's spiritually seeing.

He has 20-20 spiritual vision.

He sees that Jesus is not just a prophet,

but the Son of Man worthy of worship.

And have a look at verse 38.

Then the man said, Lord, I believe and he worshipped him.

True seeing, spiritual seeing comes when we know that

we need to believe in Jesus and worship him.

The religious leaders, the Pharisees, they couldn't see it.

They are blind.

But the man born blind from birth, he sees and he believes.

And as the Gospel of John testifies, he has eternal life.

So how can we believe?

Jesus' words are what we need to see.

We need his testimony about himself recorded for us in the Gospels

so that we will believe.

Jesus needs to open our spiritual eyes.

And that's a miracle when that happens.

It's a work of God.

If we want eternal life, we have to come to Jesus, the light of the world.

And we can do this because Jesus overcame darkness.

What is God doing with the problem of evil in the world?

Well, we need to look to the cross where in the darkest moment,

humanity crucified the Son of God.

When it happened, the sky went pitch black because it was so dark.

But then three days later, what happened?

Jesus rose from the grave, shining his light.

So that when we believe in him, not only do we benefit from his light,

but he shines his light into our hearts by his Holy Spirit.

He forgives the darkness that is within us and transforms it

so that we are people of light.

And if we have this light, like the blind man,

we will want to worship Jesus.

We'll bow down and give him praise.

We need to today.

It's very easy for us to get caught up in the busyness of life,

to be distracted, to treat Jesus like we do maybe coals or Woolworths.

They sell items that we need to live,

but we only ever go there when we want something.

That's not how we are to treat Jesus.

Jesus gives us what we need to live eternally,

and he asks us to worship him because he is the son of God,

the light of the world.

So that's what we need to do.

We need to worship the son of God, Jesus.

And yet, in those moments where we do lose focus,

where we do start to see Jesus less clearly, what do we do then?

Well, we need to come back to Jesus.

We need to read his word in the Gospels.

Coming to church and hearing of Jesus is a great thing to do

to help us to see Jesus more clearly.

Joining a Bible study through the week is a great way

to meet with other Christians, think about God's word

so that we can see Jesus more clearly.

And we need to pray and ask that Jesus would reveal himself

to us more clearly, and he will.

Do you see Jesus clearly?

Do you believe in him for eternal life?

If you do believe in him, you have a sharp, clear picture of Jesus.

He is the light of the world, the one that we worship.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, please help us to see Jesus more clearly,

to worship him, knowing that he is the light of the world.

And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.