The Miracles of Jesus: Free from Moralizing Suffering

We have been making our way through these different major miracles in the book of John, and what we have been seeing is what we say every week, and that is we are more broken than we originally thought, and we're all discovering that on some level, but we're more loved by God than we could ever dare to dream.

And that's what we just keep discovering over and over again.

We've talked about our issues with miracles back in the first sermon because I have a lot of issues with miracles, and you probably have issues with miracles.

And we've also been seeing how Jesus uses these miracles for a distinct purpose.

He's actually using them to validate himself as the Messiah, as God Himself for people to see and for people to know.

And so each story unfolds itself to us to teach us something about our hearts and about God.

So we're going to reread this.

John 9, 1 through 3, as he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.

And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind?

Jesus answered, it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Point number one is this we are free from moralizing our or anybody else's suffering.

It's very good news.

This past Thursday, our dear parishioner Lauren Teague, came home after having two brain bleeds and brain surgery.

She was gone for 110 days from her home and her family.

She was at Emory for the surgery, and then she's been rehabilitating at Shepherd Center, her brain and her body healing and her brain reforming those connections between her nervous system and the functioning of her body.

She's been working relentlessly as her brain heals to regain all this function.

Here's actually a picture of them on Thursday when she got back home with her family.

On Wednesday, I was down there with them, and Josh and I were walking around the Shepherd Center, and it's full of people who have had injuries.

A brain bleed.

One day you're fine, the next day you have a brain bleed.

A woman was walking across a crosswalk in Manhattan and she got ran over by a car.

This week in Marietta, a senior in high school, a boy, suddenly out of nowhere began having seizures.

Last week, a young mother in Marietta lost her fight with cancer.

Who sinned that this man was born blind?

His parents.

One of my steps in accepting this broken world came about 20 years ago.

Kind of a lighthearted story, but it actually helped me in a really strange way.

I was driving my uh green forerunner up the hill at Treblemill Park out in Tekula, Georgia.

I was in seminary at the time, taking all these philosophical classes on the problem of suffering and trying to solve these big issues.

So I'm driving up this hill.

It's a beautiful day.

The sunroof is open.

Dave Matthews' band is blaring.

It's a good day.

Going 30 miles per hour up this hill.

30 miles per hour.

Sunroof open.

And like it was destined for me, bird poop comes out of the sky perfectly through the window and lands on my knee, right in front of me to see.

Destined for me.

One day you're driving down the road, having a fantastic time today, Matthewsman.

And the next day, the next moment, you are pooped on.

Everything changes.

The broken world.

It actually kind of helped me.

It's like, this world is broken, man.

I was having a great time, and then I get pooped on.

Strange, right?

Everything's fine, and then suddenly everything is not fine.

And you didn't do anything.

You're just living your life.

Who sinned?

This man, first parents, that was born blind.

Well, here's the good news.

We don't have to moralize our suffering.

Here's what moralizing suffering looks like.

If I'm good and if I do good, then God will give me good things.

If I'm good and I do good, then God will give me good things.

That's a moralization of suffering.

Just have enough faith.

Just be good enough and God will give me good.

And it seems to work really good for a while because it makes us feel like we have control, which we love.

It's not true, but we love it.

But eventually, this equation, this way of thinking, it will crush you.

Because eventually you're pooped on.

Eventually, life changes.

Something happens.

And life gets messy.

And then suddenly that same equation that you thought was controlling your world crushes you.

Because if it works like do good and be good, and then God will give me good, but then I don't receive good, then that means something's wrong with me.

I must not pray enough.

I must not be good enough.

I must not love enough.

I must have done something wrong.

So God must be punishing me.

This is the exhausting, crushing reality of that lie.

And we don't have to do it.

But the disciples were doing it.

That's why they asked the question who sinned?

This man born blind.

Who sinned?

Somebody had to sin.

This is their belief.

Their belief is, well, if somebody's suffering, somebody sinned, somebody messed up for God to come and zap them like this.

And Jesus says, no.

Nobody sinned.

Not the father, not the mother, not the man.

Point number two is this God chooses an asymmetrical relationship with our suffering.

When I was in the sixth grade, I had about the same amount of muscles I have now, which is not impressive.

There was a rope in the middle of the school gym hanging vertically from the ceiling.

I don't know, maybe you had this rope in your gym.

I'm sure we don't have it anymore.

I'm sure the amount of uh the amount of times being sued stopped this practice of all the strong boys, you'd climb the rope and you had a bell up on the ceiling, 40 feet above the gym floor.

And all the strong guys would go and climb up it.

Timmy could do it, and my friend Kyle could do it.

And man, I, as you can guess, I didn't have a chance.

Not a chance.

I made it about 10 feet, and then I was at the bottom of the rope with my crush, Kristen Looney, looking at me, disappointed.

I didn't have enough.

I didn't have what it took.

The reality of my life there.

You're at the end of your rope.

Remember last week we said that we all want to think we're like the Titanic at first sale.

We looked at this image.

We said we want to look like that.

That's what we want our lives to look like.

And we want our lives to look like that.

I want your life to look like that.

But often our lives feel like the Titanic submerging.

Or at some point it will, maybe not your whole life, but at some point at some season, eventually, some disappointed or something will get to us.

And the amazing truth is that God's office is at the end of our rope, not at the top.

Which is great news if you've ever felt a little more broken than you should be or you want to be.

He is endeared to our weakness and he's with us and he is for us.

See, theologians say that God has an asymmetrical relationship with our suffering, meaning he permits it.

He has compassion for us in it.

And yet he's in control over it, and he will use it.

Now, this does not mean that all of my answers or of all my questions are answered, and it doesn't mean that you're gonna have all your answers, right?

Not even close.

I have my running list waiting.

But I think it means a few things.

Here's just a few kind of observations I had that it might mean for us.

Number one, God loves us.

That is settled.

And he's not waiting to zap us.

And that's good news.

Number two, God may lovingly guide us, Hebrews 12, but he doesn't punish us with suffering.

Number three, you are free from condemning yourself when you suffer.

Or condemning others when they suffer.

Which means you don't have to be judgmental towards somebody else, and you don't have to be judgmental upon yourself.

Which then means you're free to experience love in your suffering, and you're free to love others in their suffering.

And then, if we can come along with all of that, I think it means two points of application.

Number one is we are free to grieve the hurt and even be upset with God.

I think the book of Psalms gives us this.

The book of Psalms has these lamenting psalms, people just emotionally pouring out on God.

We can do that.

And as we grow from resistance to the suffering to acceptance, we can begin to ask, and we can become free to ask the Lord, what do you have for me in this?

Some sort of character building, certainly compassion, probably less pride, more compassion, probably some idol of your heart to topple.

It's us asking the very question that Jesus is teaching that how could God possibly in your life, in your disappointment and hurt and pain and confusion, how could this be for his glory, and how could it be for your good?

The story continues in verse 6.

Jesus spits on the ground, he makes the mud with that saliva, mixes it up, he puts it on the man's eyes.

He tells the man to go and wash in the pool of siloam, go and wash.

The man goes and washes, washes the mud off, and suddenly he can see.

The conversation continues as Jesus is using this man's blindness to teach us something about the blindness of our hearts or the lostness of our hearts, the fact that humanity lives in a confusion and a darkness unless God's grace disrupts us to open the eyes of our heart, to see that we actually need help from outside of ourselves.

The neighbors of the healed man, they bring him to the religious leaders.

These arrogant religious leaders, these Pharisees.

These guys ask what happened.

The man says, Well, you know, this Jesus you put mud on my eyes.

Really weird, putting mud on my eyes, I went washed, I can see.

Well, Pharisees didn't like that, it doesn't fit into their categories, and Sort of doesn't fit into their religious law.

And their mind is made up.

Jesus can't be from God, he doesn't keep the Sabbath, he heals on the Sabbath, and yet at the same time, these religious people couldn't see that Jesus was there to fulfill the law, and he actually is the Sabbath.

He is rest for our souls, for all the ways we want to earn love and earn worth and earn value and heal ourselves and self-justify.

He brings rest for us.

They ask the blind man, who do you think he is?

Who do you think this guy is?

The blind man says, Well, he's a prophet.

Pharisees still don't really believe that the guy was blind to begin with, even though like all these neighbors are testifying that this is true.

They just don't want to believe it.

So they sin for the parents.

Yeah, let's bring the parents in.

Who knows the life of these parents?

Because if the religious thought is that the parents sinned for the man to be blind, just think what these parents have been living through.

Maybe some measure of being banished from community, belittled, judged, right?

We've never seen religious groups behave like this, right?

Never, just never.

Would never happen.

Verse 19, John 9, 19.

Religious people are talking to his parents.

Is this your son?

Who you say was born blind?

How then does he now see?

His parents answered, We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, but how he now sees, we do not know.

Nor do we know who opened his eyes.

Ask him.

He's of age, he'll speak for himself.

I mean, very clear parents are like, we don't want to get involved.

We want to stay out of this.

Y'all have made our lives already very difficult and we don't like being here, is clearly.

His parents said these things because they feared the Jews.

For the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.

Therefore, his parents said, He's of age, ask him.

They just want nothing to do with it.

So a second time they call this healed man in, and then they say to the healed man, Well, we know Jesus is a sinner because he keeps breaking all these rules, their rules.

And then the blind man answers, verse 25, whether he's a sinner, I do not know.

One thing I do know that though I was blind, now I see.

They said to him, What did he do to you?

How did he open your eyes?

He answered them, I have told you already, and you would not listen.

Why do you want to hear it again?

Do you also want to become his disciples?

And they reviled him, saying, You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.

They go on, they throw the healed man out.

And yet we see this other beautiful moment in this story where Jesus pursues that blind man now healed, but he's been thrown out, and Jesus pursues him in that.

And Jesus says to him, Do you know who the Son of Man is?

This is Jesus' way of saying, Do you do you know who God is?

And Jesus answers it.

He says, I am.

And is Jesus saying, if you want to know who God is, it's the point of Jesus, if you want to know who God is, look at Jesus.

This is the gift of Jesus for us.

That we don't have to keep on pondering this and wondering this, that we can look at this Jesus.

And the man says to Jesus, Lord, I believe.

What we've said the past two weeks, I think it fits again with this message, is that the greatest transformation most of us will go through is from I got this to I need help.

Verse 39, Jesus said, For judgment I came into this world that those who do not see may see, and those who see, or they think they see, may become blind.

Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things and said to him, Are we also blind?

Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no guilt.

But now that you say we see, your guilt remains.

Bit of a riddle there, but point number three is this we are all blind.

We are all blind.

And need God's astonishing disruptive grace in our lives.

These religious leaders thought that the law was enough.

Being good enough, a list of rules.

We call that works righteousness.

That was enough.

The way of the law is obey enough and then you will be loved.

If I can only get it all under control and be good enough, then God will accept me and I'll be okay with him, have a relationship with him.

But Jesus is actually teaching the opposite.

Jesus is teaching that God already loves you.

In Christ, the law is fulfilled.

In Christ, all of our sin is put upon him on the cross, and his righteousness is given to us, so we are forever beloved, so you are free.

Christian faith is that you are so lavishly loved and provided for in Jesus.

That you are free and becoming free.

You are already godly and learning how to walk godly.

This is the gift of the cross.

God's grace to us.

God is not waiting at the end of your rope when you're in that disappointment or failure or suffering.

He's not waiting down there to say, climb higher.

Get a little bit better.

Now the rest of the world will say that.

But God's office is at the bottom of your rope.

And there at the bottom, he says, I accept you.

I'm here with you and for you.

Do you see it?

This is the issue of sight.

Do you see that you need help?

Do you see that we all need to be delivered?

God does not condemn you.

He doesn't condemn you in your suffering or disappointment.

He pursues us.

He wonderfully disrupts our lives with grace.

And he gives sight to see what is true about my heart and what's true about your heart.

About our needs.

And his sufficiency for us.

Let's pray together.

Lord, there are some of us here who are blind to our blindness.

We don't even know we're blind.

And I pray through your Holy Spirit that your grace that you would disrupt.

That you would begin to give eyes to see that they are your children.

Perfectly loved.

Perfectly forgiven and righteous in Jesus, and that you love them and you have provided for them in Jesus.

And there's many others of us here who are blind to our worth because we are stuck in a wound or a mistake or a suffering.

And we have allowed it to define us.

Help us to see the wealth of our identity in you, that we are ultimately your beloved, perfectly loved by you.

Not when we get better, but just right now.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.