"When the Light Breaks In!" (Hitchings) | John 9:1-23

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If you feel need to give towards the Ministry of Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church, we welcome you to do so at lmbr.org at the Please stand for a reading from John chapter 9, verses 1 through 23.

John 9:1–23

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

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

Night is coming when no one can work.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva.

Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which means scent.

So he went and washed and came back seeing.

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?

Some said, It is he.

Others said, No, but he is like him.

He kept saying, I am the man.

So they said to him, Then how were your eyes opened?

He answered, The man called Jesus made mud, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash.

So I went and washed and received my sight.

They said to him, Where is he?

He said, I do not know.

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight.

And he said to them, He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.

Some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.

But others said, How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?

And there was a division among them.

So they said again to the blind man, What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?

He said, He is a prophet.

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, 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 is of age, he will speak for himself.

His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be the Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.

Therefore his parents said, He is of age.

Ask him.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Well, I'll add my welcome to that of Josh's.

My name is Frank Hitchings.

I'm one of the pastors on staff.

And I do want to welcome you all here on this rainy Sunday morning.

We're glad that we can all be together and worship the Lord.

And if you're visiting with us, we hope you'll uh enjoy your time and feel uh welcome to come back.

I want to uh before I pray, I want to just remind you every week, um Jennifer Thompson, who is my assistant, she's also the staff writer, she puts these questions together.

It's called Beyond the Pulpit, Resources for Continued Study.

She goes into the same passage that we're just going to spend 25 minutes on, and she gets to take us kind of all through the scriptures.

And it's a great way if you want to go deeper every week with the passage.

Whether it's an individual wanting to study at home or whether it's a small group or a family study, I want to encourage you to consider using those.

They are of great help.

With that being said, let's pray and then we'll jump in.

Father, uh, your word says that the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.

In fact, your son said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

And we, Lord, we know these things are true, that your word has stood the test of time for generations and generations, and you still use it today the way you used it generations ago, to call people to faith in repentance and to grow people in grace.

And we ask that you would use it for those purposes this morning.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Rukhan, Norway.

You maybe have never heard of that little town.

It's a small Norwegian town.

It has only 3,000 residents.

It sits in a very deep valley with steep, high mountains surrounding it.

In 1934, a hydrogen plant was built there that produced heavy water as a byproduct.

And at the time it was believed that heavy water was necessary to build an atomic bomb.

Well, when Norway came under German occupation during World War II, destroying that factory, that facility became a priority for the Allies.

About a month ago, I watched a film, a 1965 British film.

If you like old movies, this was a great one.

It's called The Heroes of Telemark, and it stars Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris.

It's about the Allies' effort to destroy the plant.

It's a great movie.

I watched it about a month ago, and then this week I actually read something, a fascinating fact about this little town of Rukon.

From September to March, the mountains block the sunlight constantly.

Now, you know, we have two days of no sunlight on the mountain, and we're all going a little stir crazy.

From September to March, the town is completely cut off from any direct sunlight.

Half the year.

Can you imagine what that would be like?

We go a little crazy in February if we have a couple of weeks of clouds.

Six months, no direct sunlight.

Back in 2013, the town installed three huge computer-controlled mirrors high up on the mountainside.

And they track the sun and reflect its light into the town square for two hours a day.

That's all they can do.

So a 6,000 square foot section of the town center is illuminated with sun twice, or excuse me, for two hours a day for six months a year.

That's all they have.

The residents gather every day throughout the winter to avoid that constant darkness.

Can you imagine living without light?

Without direct sunlight?

It's a powerful picture of how light has to break in from outside.

Because darkness just simply cannot produce it.

John's been telling us since chapter one that Jesus is the light of the world.

Jesus has broken into our world.

This is how he said it.

If you remember when we started John back in January, John writes this in chapter one.

Listen to how many times he talks about light here.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.

And the Word was God.

He's talking about Jesus.

He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made.

Without him nothing was made that has been made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

There came a man who was sent from God.

His name was John.

He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe.

He himself was not the light, he only came as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

That's how John introduces Jesus to us.

Seven times in nine verses, he says he's the light of the world.

Well, we come to John chapter 9 this morning, and once again we find Jesus declaring that he is the light of the world.

John 9 · chapter mention

He is the eternal word of God whose divine life breaks into human darkness as the true light that no darkness can overcome.

And in this passage, we get a glimpse of what happens when the light of Jesus breaks into our lives.

We get a glimpse of that as we see it show up in the life of this blind man and of his family and of the Pharisees and the people.

So let's jump into it together.

If you look in your outline in your bulletin, you'll see this.

When Jesus, the light of the world, breaks in, he does this first.

He reveals our misguided assumptions.

Look at the first five verses.

As Jesus 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?

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

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

Night is coming when no one can work.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Now, before we get into the main point of these verses, please don't miss the compassion of Jesus.

John says, as Jesus passed by, so here's this blind man, this beggar, as Jesus passed by, he saw the man who had been blind since evidently Jesus somehow fixed his gaze upon this man in such a way, this poor blind man, in such a way that the disciples noticed it.

Just stop there for a second.

It makes me wonder.

Do we really see those around us in need?

Do we notice them?

As we go through the book of John, we'll see the compassion of Jesus noticing these people all through the book of John.

It's on full display.

But look, as Jesus shows some compassion on him and notices him, and they, the disciples, see this happening.

Look at the question they asked.

Who sinned?

This man or his parents?

Who sinned that this man was born blind?

Their assumption is so misguided.

See, the Jews in Jesus' day believed that every temporal misfortune or every suffering in life was God's punishment for specific sin.

So, as in this case, when a child was born who was blind at birth, they believed that this was the result of one of two possibilities.

Either the child committed some sin in the womb or the parents have committed some sin.

Either way, somebody sinned, and this was God's punishment.

This was the result, the punishment of God.

And here, Jesus is dispelling their errant theology, their harmful theology of pain and suffering as he says, it's not because of this man's sin, it's not because of his parents.

He says, this, this happens so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.

He's saying their assumptions of why something or why suffering happens, their assumptions are wrong.

Their understanding of why suffering happens, their understanding is incorrect.

It's important to note, though, what Jesus is not saying here.

Here's what he's not saying.

He's not saying that certain trials or afflictions or suffering, he's not saying that they're not God-ordained consequences for specific sin.

He's not saying that can't be.

If you think about it, look at King David's life after he committed adultery and then murder to cover it up.

Look at the suffering and the consequences of that.

Read Proverbs 5 through 7.

So Jesus is not saying that's not a possibility.

Nor is he dismissing the doctrine of original sin that basically says that we're all sinners, and all suffering is basically a consequence of the fall.

What he is saying is this the disciples have posed a false dilemma.

Only two options are given.

Either this man sinned or his parents sinned.

And Jesus says, there's a third option here.

This happens so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.

This is what the Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible says in their study notes on this.

It says some of our sufferings, like those of Job, are intended to display the glory of God either through patient endurance or through spectacular healing, as in the present case.

God in his providence uses suffering for a redemptive purpose.

That purpose is not always known to us, but we have God's assurance that his objective in our affliction is always for our good.

So what Jesus is saying here is what he's saying is this it's not only wrong for anyone to judge anyone else's hardships or afflictions or suffering, it's not only wrong for anyone to judge those, is that specific punishment for sin.

It's unwise.

It's uncharitable.

And I and I you can't help but notice who asks the question.

It's not the Pharisees here, it's his own disciples.

I think that's significant too, because oftentimes inside the kingdom of God, inside the church, it's those that are inside the church who are positing theories like that about suffering, not those who are outside the kingdom.

And Jesus says, this is not about somebody's sin.

It's about the works of God that are about to be on full display as I, the light of the world, bring light to this man's physical darkness.

It's a fact that all of us experience suffering in this life.

No one of us, not one of us, is exempt.

It's a fact also that suffering has a purpose.

And so, if that's true, then certainly we're not out of line as individuals when we're suffering.

We're not out of line to ask God, help me understand why.

He may answer that.

He might not.

In this case, it's that the glory of God might be revealed in this man.

James Boyce has a sentence in his commentary that it strikes me as true but a bit disturbing at the same time.

He said this: this means that God allowed this man to be born blind, so that at this particular moment in his earthly life, Jesus might come upon him and cure him, and that as a result, God might receive the glory.

It's a little scary, but that's exactly what the text is saying.

Let me shift for a minute and just talk more generally about some categories to consider.

If you're taking notes, write down Hebrews 12, 5 and 6.

The writer says this, My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.

Now we read that and we go, well, what good parent wouldn't discipline an errant child?

So we're not talking about this man, this blind man here.

We're moving on to a general talking about discipline and suffering.

And if you carefully look at scripture, if you examine scripture, you'll find some categories.

Sometimes suffering is corrective discipline.

So that God can get us back on the path that He wants us to be on, that He's revealed that we should be on.

Sometimes it's corrective.

Other times it might be constructive.

Constructive discipline, that our character might be built, that we might learn patience and compassion and persistence.

I was thinking about it this week.

How many of y'all sleep under a weighted blanket?

Okay?

I love sleeping under blankets.

Even in the summer, I like having covers.

And about 15 years ago, Jane Verlinden, a name that some of y'all will remember.

Jane was a cousin of my grandmother's, cousin Jane.

She's in heaven now.

She gave me a weighted blanket.

And it was the greatest gift I think I ever got.

I, you know, Saturday afternoon watching football, climbed up under it in the fall, and I slept under it for one night.

And I slept, I fell asleep like just instantly.

It felt so good.

I woke up about two hours later in a full-blown panic attack.

I felt like a sumo wrestler was sitting on my chest.

I'm not kidding, I've never had a panic attack in my life.

I have no sympathy for those who had panic attacks until I had one.

Hadn't had one since because I got rid of that blanket.

But you know, you might say, well, that's, I mean, that was a suffering.

I couldn't go back to sleep all night.

I was, I mean, I sat in my chair.

I just, I didn't know what was wrong.

It was a panic attack.

Some of y'all have had those.

You I had no clue and no sympathy for what that felt like.

God's used even that to give me sympathy for people that go through things that I haven't been through.

So sometimes suffering can be constructive discipline.

And in other cases, like here, it's solely that God might receive the glory.

I was thinking this week of Johnny Erickson Tata.

At 17 years old, she misjudged the depth of the water in the Chesapeake Bay and she dove in and the impact left her paralyzed from her shoulders down.

She spent years in physical rehabilitation.

She battled severe depression, suicidal thoughts, deep doubts about God, before she found renewed strength and renewed purpose through her faith.

She went on to found Johnny and Friends, an international organization that provides practical support and spiritual encouragement for special needs families around the world.

She's written over 40 books.

She paints, she recorded music.

She hosts a radio program, a weekly radio program that's in 17 countries, no 1,700 stations in 36 countries and reaches a million people a week.

She has faced untold ongoing health battles in the 59 years since she was injured.

She survived breast cancer.

She deals with chronic pain.

But if you've ever seen her, if you've ever listened to her, she just exudes joy.

This is what she said.

My quadriplegia and daily suffering are tools used by God to bring spiritual growth and hope and the message of Jesus Christ to me as well as to others.

I'd rather be in this wheelchair.

I'd rather be in this wheelchair knowing God than on my feet without Him.

Isn't that amazing?

When Jesus, the light of the world, breaks in, he reveals our misguided assumptions about suffering and also our misguided assumptions about so many other areas of our lives.

Assumptions about the prosperity or the ease of life that we think we deserve if we're going to follow Jesus.

Assumptions about physical health and relational happiness and vocational stability that we think we deserve.

If I'm going to follow Jesus, my life shouldn't be this hard.

When Jesus, the light of the world, breaks in, he reveals our misguided assumptions.

Secondly, he displays his sovereign power.

Look at verses 6 through 12.

Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva.

Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sent.

So he went and washed and came back seeing.

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?

Some says, It is he.

Others said, No, but he is like him.

He kept saying, I am the man.

So they said to him, How then were your eyes opened?

And he answered, The man called Jesus.

Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, Go to Salome and wash.

So I went and washed and received my sight.

And they said to him, Where is he?

And he said, I do not know.

Because the story is so familiar to most of us.

If we were raised going to Sunday school, the story is so familiar.

Let's make sure we don't miss something here, what's really happening.

Think about this poor man.

He had been in darkness his entire life.

He had no concept of what colors are, no concept of the beauty of creation of trees or green grass or flowers or sunrises or sunsets.

He had no idea of what his mother's face looked like.

Can you picture him as a little boy who have you touching his mother's face?

He lived a life of constant dependency on others to get him around.

Then he hears this man named Jesus declare, as long as I'm in the world, I'm a light of the world.

And this man, whom he can't even see, kneels down, spits on the ground, makes this little mud, mud paste, and puts it on his eyes and says, Go wash in the pool of Siloam.

Don't you wonder how he felt?

I wonder if in his heart, if his heart started to beat faster at the possibility that maybe this would work.

Maybe he'd heard about Jesus.

So he goes to the pool and he washes.

And what happens?

Behold, he can see.

In obedience and faith, he responds.

Not saving faith, not saving faith yet.

We'll see later in this passage, it's moving, it's growing towards saving faith.

What do you think he did next?

Like he washes, he can see.

Do you think he said to himself, well, this is great.

This is great, but I got to get back to my spot and continue begging.

You know, begging is a competitive business.

I got a great spot.

I don't think he did that.

We're not told exactly what he did, but most likely you can think of him jumping up and down saying, I can see.

Whatever happened, he comes back, he's got clear vision, all his neighbors are astounded, saying, Is this really him?

Is this really the guy who used to sit and beg?

It looks like him, but it can't be him.

How did it happen?

And all this guy can say is, It is me.

I was blind, now I can see.

This man called Jesus told me to do this, and I did it, and I washed in the pool, and everybody's amazed.

It's not clear, if you think about it, it's not clear in the text why did Jesus make the mud and put it on the man's eyes?

I have I have a hunch that I'll share with you in a middle.

It's not clear here.

Jesus didn't have to do that.

He could have touched the man's eyes and healed him.

He could have just said, be healed.

What is clear is he's just declared that he is the light of the world.

And then he proceeds to illustrate that by giving light to a man born blind, to a man who had lived his whole life in physical darkness.

And what he does here, it's not just a miracle.

John would say, don't just view it as a miracle, it's a sign.

The Father sent the Son to shed light on those living in darkness.

The Son is displaying his sovereign power over all of creation.

If you've been keeping track in the Gospel of John, John has seven different passages where he mentions specific, miraculous signs.

Signs designed to prove that Jesus is the Son of God.

He turns the water into wine.

He heals the royal official son.

He heals the crippled man at the pool at Bethesda.

He feeds the 5,000 on the Galilean hillside.

He walks on water on the Sea of Galilee.

He heals this man born blind.

And in chapter 11, he raises Lazarus from the dead after being in the grave for four days.

And what's the point of all these miracles?

They're signs, they're miraculous signs, displaying his sovereign power over all creation and his identity as the Son of God who came to save sinners like us.

He reveals our misguided assumption.

He displays his sovereign power.

Lastly, he exposes our true allegiances.

You might even say our idols.

In verse 13, this man who's formerly blind is brought to the Pharisees, and we don't need to ascribe kind of malice to that.

They probably just wanted the advice of the local synagogue leaders.

But what happens, what follows, is three different interrogations that the Pharisees institute.

Here's the first one.

Look at verses 13 through 17.

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

Now it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made mud and opened his eyes.

You just know, well, we got trouble already, don't we?

So the Pharisees again asked him, How has he received his sight?

And he said to them, He put mud on my eyes, and I washed and I see.

Some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.

But others said, How can a man who's a sinner do such signs?

And there was division among them.

So they said again to the blind man, What do you say about him, since he's opened your eyes?

And he said, He's a prophet.

See the progression is happening here.

The man called Jesus, and now he's like, He's a prophet.

We'll see what happens next week.

But this is astounding.

Their first reaction of the Pharisees, when they see this man born blind, their first reaction is, This guy is not from God, he doesn't keep the Sabbath.

Can you imagine?

If you knew a man born blind from birth and someone had healed him, miraculously healed him, he did it on the Sabbath, so he cannot be from God.

The Pharisees taught that healing on the Sabbath was forbidden unless the life of the person was in danger.

Well, this life is then not in danger.

This guy's been blind his whole life.

So that's a clear Sabbath violation in their minds.

And the second, the second is he makes mud from the dirt and the saliva.

That clearly falls into their prohibited category of needing or mixing ingredients.

That's considered work.

Like you can't you can't make bread, you can't do anything that mixes ingredients.

That's work.

You can't do that on the Sabbath.

Can you imagine that as your reaction?

The point is, Jesus sees people, he sees needs.

The Pharisees sees law.

If we want to know what a Phariserical heart looks like, it's on full display.

It's spiritually blind to the work of God, blind to others' plights, blind to their own desperate need.

They're so consumed with their man-made laws that they miss the miracle right in front of them.

All they see is a violation of the Sabbath, not this miraculous healing that's a sign pointing to Jesus' identity.

It's the same way in John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

They're so preoccupied with their understanding of the law, their perceived violation of the law.

John chapter 5, the man who is disabled for 38 years.

John 5 · chapter mention

Remember him?

Jesus says to him, Get up, take up your bed and walk.

And the Jews' response when they saw him was, It's the Sabbath.

The law forbids you from carrying your mat on the Sabbath.

Can you be imagine how spiritually blind that is?

Jesus is exposing their true allegiances, their true idols.

Their true allegiance and their idol was man-made laws above everything else.

They're spiritually blind, but they think they have 20-20 spiritual vision.

And their allegiance to these man-made laws, it brings division.

Others, he says, John says, others ask, how can a man who's a sinner do such signs?

That's a question worth exploring, right?

How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?

So the Pharisees' allegianes exposed.

So next they interrogate the parents.

Look at verse 18 through the end.

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, Is this your son who you say was born blind?

How then does he see?

And his parents answered, We know that this is our son, and that he's been 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 will speak for himself.

And then John adds this his parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be the Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.

Therefore his parents said, He is of age, ask him.

So the parents are questioned by the Pharisees, and what do they immediately do?

They shrink back in fear of man and in self-protection.

They're afraid of getting put out of the synagogue.

They think in the first century, like if you if you think about it, getting put out of the synagogue in the first century would mean you're a religious outcast and a social outcast.

You're not going to be welcomed amongst the Gentiles or the Samaritans, nor are you really going to feel comfortable with them.

You lose all your friends, so they duck the question saying, Yep, he's our son, but we don't know how this happened.

We don't know who opened his eyes.

Let him speak for himself.

Social acceptance mattered above everything else.

When Jesus, the light of the world, breaks into our life, he'll expose our idols to.

Our ultimate allegiances to.

Excuse me, compete for our primary allegiance to Jesus.

We don't have time to go into them this morning.

I need to close, but I will say this: they kind of can be grouped into three little categories.

And one is identity and acceptance idols.

The second would be security and comfort idols.

And the third one would be success and fulfillment idols.

I hope we'll all take some time today to maybe prayerfully look at our own hearts and see where we might have things that are often good things that we've now elevated to ultimate things.

I'm out of time, but let me tell you the really good news.

Let me close with the good news.

Jesus came to free us from all of our competing idols, all of our lesser allegiances.

He came to draw us into the joy and the peace and the security of finding our ultimate resting place in Him.

As the hymn writer wrote, My faith has found a resting place from guilt, my soul is freed.

Let's pray together.

Our Heavenly Father, we rejoice in your word in the time that you're giving us this fall and John's gospel.

It really does, Lord, challenge us to consider who Jesus has revealed himself to be and what he's done for people like us.

It challenges us to fully accept that we can't save ourselves.

We can't change our hearts.

Indeed, we need your Spirit's intervention in our hearts, Lord, that He might shine the light of Jesus into the darkness in our hearts.

We ask that, Lord, if there are those with us this morning who've not yet come to a saving knowledge of Jesus, that you would use this day to open their eyes just as you've opened ours.

And that you would press these great truths that we've looked at this morning.

You'd press them deeper into our hearts that we might go from this place today overwhelmed afresh with all that you've done for us through Christ and all that you've promised to do in us through your Spirit.

We ask these things in Christ's name.

Amen.