CMLC 2026-03-15 Sermon

Every culture has its remedies. Some of them

make sense. You know, those home remedies that

you've always heard about. But there are some

that make you stop and say, wait, what? Butter

on a burn. Onion syrup for coughs. Potato slices

for headaches. Cabbage leaves for swollen joints.

Peanut butter for bug bites. Mustard plasters

for chest colds. You know, there's times when

you've seen an infomercial, where you were sick

from work and you just had to know whether apple

cider vinegar could fix everything. Whether charcoal

could really detox your system better than your

kidneys and liver. And whether shoe inserts could

improve your circulation through the magic of

magnetism. Maybe you've even tried some of these

remedies before. For the record, ginger and the

little ear patches, those do seem to help out

with motion sickness, I promise. You see, some

things they work, but maybe some of them did

not. Somewhere along the way, someone has tried

these things and maybe became part of the wisdom

that got passed down. And if we're honest, some

of us still remember a parent or grandparent

insisting that one of these remedies would work.

The ancient world had its remedies too. Roman

writers like Pliny the Elder described the healing

power of saliva, especially for eye diseases.

Doesn't that just sound gross, just from the

beginning? But in his work, Natural History,

he records traditions that people believed saliva

could treat certain ailments. And he even mentions

that the saliva of a firstborn son was thought

to have special healing power. A concentrated

life force, if you will. The idea was that certain

people, in particular circumstances, could imbue

their saliva with restorative properties. Jewish

traditions preserved in the Babylonian Talmud

also mention saliva as a possible remedy for

some conditions, including... eye problems. While

the Talmud itself was compiled centuries later,

it preserves discussions that circulated among

Jewish teachers long before, even during the

time of Christ, discussions about the ways life,

breath, and bodily fluids could carry God's healing

energy. There were also debates about using saliva

on the Sabbath, showing that the act was familiar,

but also morally and religiously delicate. So

when Jesus spits on the ground and makes mud

to heal a blind man, the people watching would

not have thought using saliva was completely

strange. It was a known folk remedy, a practice

with precedent in both Jewish and Roman understanding

of healing. They had seen remedies like that

before, sometimes practical and sometimes mysterious.

What they were not prepared for was who was doing

it. and what it meant. Because when Jesus bends

down, spits on the ground, and He forms mud,

something deeper begins to echo through the story.

This is not merely some traveling medicine man

using common medicines or mind games to heal

simple infections, aches, pains. This was the

Word of God. who had been there from the beginning,

restoring what had never been there in this man's

life. Think back to the creation story from the

book of Genesis. God forms humanity from the

dust of the ground. Dust and breath. Earth and

life. And now Jesus is taking earth and moisture,

human and divine elements combined, and placing

it on the eyes of a man who has never seen. It

is not merely healing something that got broken.

It evokes creation itself. Think of a potter

sitting on a wheel. A lump of clay sits there

shapeless. But the potter's hands begin to form

it. Slowly, the clay becomes something new. But

when the potter sees something missing, he reshapes

the clay. Jesus doesn't just repair what is broken.

He creates what was missing. See, this is not

just a remedy. This is creation itself echoing

in a single act. Not merely repairing what was

broken, not simply giving back what had been

lost, but bringing into being something that

had never existed before. That's something God

does. The strange part here was not actually

the mud. The strange part was what the mud meant.

And that meaning sets the stage for the miracle

that we are about to see. It is here that Jesus

reveals a new kind of sight. A sight that does

more than open eyes. It opens hearts. In John

John 9 · chapter mention

chapter 9, Jesus had encountered this man who

had been blind from birth. Not someone who lost

his sight later. Not someone whose eyes might

recover with some normal treatment. This man

had never seen a sunrise. Never seen his parents'

faces. Never seen the streets he walked every

day while begging. And the disciples asked the

kind of question that people often asked in that

time, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents

that he was born blind? They're trying to make

sense of suffering. If something's wrong, then

clearly someone must be responsible. They don't

want to imagine that bad things can happen to

good people. But Jesus refuses that framework.

This happens so that the works of God might be

displayed in Him. In other words, this moment

is not about blame. It's about the revelation

of God. It is about showing who Jesus is and

what He has come to do. Then Jesus performs the

miracle, spits on the ground, He makes the mud

and He places it on the man's eyes. He tells

him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. He sends

him to the pool, that means, sent. In the pool

that pointed them to the living water in the

wilderness, the mission of Jesus to bring life

becomes even clearer for this man. So the man

goes. And the man washes, and the man comes back

seen. For the first time in his life, light floods

into his world. Faces, movement, colors. Everything

that had once been darkness suddenly comes alive.

But here is something fascinating. The miracle

itself only takes a few verses. The rest of the

chapter is not about the miracle itself. It's

about how the people respond to it. Because when

God begins doing something new, it rarely fits

the categories that people already have prepared

for it. That is exactly what happens here. The

miracle happens on the Sabbath. To the religious

leaders, that raises legal questions. spitting

on the ground might disturb the soil, digging

it up, which was seen as work. Mixing mud could

be interpreted as kneading a dough, which was

treated as work. Applying a treatment might count

as performing medicine, which could be seen as

work. So they just kept focusing on, did Jesus

work on the Sabbath? Suddenly, the conversation

shifts away from the miracle and gets to the

rule book. Instead of asking the obvious question,

if He opened the man's eyes, then could Jesus

be the Messiah of God? Instead, they're saying,

did Jesus break our laws? They're staring directly

at a miracle, but they're asking the wrong question.

The Kingdom of God rarely fits the categories

we're prepared for. Not everyone wants to see

what God is doing. In fact, what happens next

is one of the strangest parts, because the miracle

is not celebrated. There are not people yelling

in the streets, Hooray, Jesus! It's investigated.

If you watch, the religious leaders begin investigating

the miracle like a courtroom trial. They question

the neighbors. They question the man. They question

the man's parents. they bring back the man again

for more questioning. But something becomes clear

as the conversation unfolds. They're not actually

searching for the truth of what happened. They

already decided the verdict. They know Jesus

cannot be from God because, in their minds, He

has broken the Sabbath. And when you've already

decided the verdict first, evidence just becomes

inconvenient. I'll give you an example. Some

museums have discovered something interesting

about their visitors. When people walk into a

museum, they often move quickly through the first

room. They just get past it. They assume that

the most important works must be deeper inside

the building. So they hurry past the entrance

gallery without really looking. And in fact,

some curators have even experimented with this.

They made place extremely valuable pieces right

near the entrance, sometimes even masterpieces,

and many visitors walk right past them. Not because

the artwork isn't beautiful, not because it isn't

valuable, but because they already decided the

important things must be somewhere else. So they

never really looked. Something very similar is

happening in John 9. The miracle is obvious.

But the leaders cannot accept the conclusion.

A miracle is standing right in front of them,

a man who could not see in his life can see.

But the religious leaders are so focused on where

they expect God to act, that they walk right

past what God is actually doing. And even when

the healed man stands right in front of them,

even when his parents confirm that he was born

blind, even when the miracle itself is undeniable.

rather than question their assumptions, they

push the evidence away. See, eventually, they

do something even more remarkable. Instead of

reconsidering their conclusions, they simply

throw the man out. The problem is removed. Yay!

The uncomfortable evidence is gone. When truth

becomes uncomfortable, the easiest solution is

to remove the testimony. And I'm sure none of

us have ever done anything like that before.

To be uncomfortable with something and then just

to find a way to ignore it. Psychologists sometimes

talk about confirmation bias where we naturally

notice the information that supports what we

already believe and we filter out the information

that challenges it. It's why two people can watch

the exact same news report and come away with

completely different conclusions. We see what

we're prepared to see. You know how it goes.

Something doesn't fit our expectations, so we

dismiss it. Something challenges the way we've

always thought, so we look for a reason to ignore

it. Sometimes we label the other side as wrong

just so we don't have to wrestle with what's

right in front of us. Sometimes we shout louder

or repeat the same phrases again so we can stop

interacting with the conversation. People loudly

yell about human rights, but then don't seem

to care about the unborn. Others yell loudly

about the unborn, but they don't seem to care

about what happens after birth. People yell loudly

about what's legal, but they don't seem to provide

legal opportunities for others. But others yell

loudly about the opportunities without caring

about personal responsibility. And then there

are some who yell about their own ministries

and fight against anything new. even while others

yell about new opportunities and forget how to

bless what was already happening when they got

there. It turns out that blindness is not only

a problem of the eyes, it can be a problem of

the heart. But while the experts argued, the

man who had been blind kept things surprisingly

simple. They asked him theological questions

he could not answer. Is Jesus a sinner? Where

does he come from? What authority does he have?

And the man finally responds with the most honest

testimony in the chapter, one thing I do know,

though I was blind, now I see. He does not pretend

to know everything. He simply speaks the truth

of what Christ has done for him. And in doing

so, the man who had never seen becomes the one

person in the story who actually sees clearly.

How often do we make our Christian testimony

so difficult to share because we want to get

caught up in arguments and technicalities that

keep us from seeing the people in front of us?

But the story does not end with the man being

thrown out. See, after the leaders cast him out,

something remarkable happens, that Jesus comes

looking for him. Let that sink in. This man has

lost everything familiar. His place in the synagogue,

therefore his place among his religious community.

His standing, that even if it was low on the

totem pole for being blind, he still had a place.

or even the protection of his parents who can't

seem to figure out how to deal with what happened

with their son, so it would be easier just to

disown him. Yet the one who gave him sight seeks

him out. And Jesus asks gently, Do you believe

in the Son of Man? The man's world had been dark

his entire life. Now standing before the light

of the world, he answers with nothing but the

truth of what he knows. I believe. And he worships

Him. The man lost his place in the world he knew,

but he found the one who gives life itself. Think

about what had happened. He found the Son of

God. Sometimes the first step towards seeing

clearly is losing what once made us comfortable.

Following Christ does not always make life easier.

Sometimes it makes life uncomfortable. Sometimes

it forces us to rethink assumptions we carried

for years. Sometimes it means letting go of things

we thought we understood about the world, about

faith, even about God. But in exchange, Christ

gives something greater. A new life. New sight.

A new way of seeing the world. Because the same

Christ who opened that man's eyes would soon

open the way to life through his cross and resurrection.

Christ does not come to make our old life work

better. He comes to give us a new one. At the

end of the story, Jesus says something striking.

For judgment I came into this world that those

who do not see may see and those who see may

become blind. The ultimate tragedy of the story

was not that the man was born blind. The real

tragedy was that some people still chose to remain

that way. The leaders were so certain of their

understanding that they could not recognize the

one standing right in front of them. The man

who had been blind simply trusted the man who

healed him. He did not have every answer. He

did not understand everything. But he knew one

thing. I was blind. Now I see. And that is the

invitation placed before us as well. Christ still

comes to open our eyes. He forgives the blindness

of our hearts. He frees us from the need to cling

to our old assumptions and comfortable ways of

seeing the world. But are you ready to let go

of those old assumptions and to look at what

God is doing right in front of you? And not just

in this congregation, but in your own experiences,

knowing that it might not be something you've

always been comfortable with. Because Jesus is

calling you, even now, into a life fuller than

anything you've ever known. But when He calls

us, the question is not whether everything fits

as is expected. The question is simpler. Will

we trust Him? Will we follow Him? Because the

same Christ who opened that man's eyes has already

done something even greater for us. Through His

cross and resurrection, He has opened the way

from darkness into life. And those who follow

Him discovered the same truth that changed that

man forever. I was blind. But now I see. Thanks

be to God.