I Was Blind, Now I See
October 1, 2023
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
John 9:1-41
9 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 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 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
8 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?” 9 Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10 So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 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.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 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.”16 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. 17 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.”
18 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 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. 21 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.” 22 (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.) 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” 25 He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27 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?” 28 And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” 30 The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.
35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” 38 He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” 40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?”41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.
As we read this passage I wonder if you wondered why the passage is so long? Couldn’t John have just said, “Jesus healed a blind guy, and it made some people happy and some people mad. The end.” Why use forty-one verses?
The question about length could come from an irreverent posture toward Scripture, as though we had better things to do and such a long passage messes up our morning. I don’t think that’s many of us. After all, you choose to come this morning, and most of you know that we set aside a large portion of the service to focus our attention on the reading of the Word of God and the preaching of the Word of God.
I think we can ask this question of length from a place of reverence. In the very last sentence of the gospel of John, John tells us that Jesus did lots and lots of things but, “Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). In other words, John is telling us that every word he did include, every story he did tell, and the length of each that he used to tell them, was intentional. So why is this story so long? Let’s pray as we begin to ask for help as we answer that question.
“Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
We don’t have as many blind people today as there were in the ancient world. Many of us are visually impaired in some small way. You wear contacts or glasses, whether fancy glasses that came with a prescription or just cheap readers from Walgreens that you scatter around your houses and cars and offices and jacket pockets. I know this because you often leave them at church and come back during the week looking for them. But medicine, nutrition, surgeries, and technology have made blindness far less common, especially in developed countries.
But blindness is still a thing. Recently a few people in our church had challenges with their eyes that required immediate medical treatments lest they would have permanently lost the ability to see. So, it happens.
You can search YouTube for videos of people receiving sight for the first time or people recovering their sight after having lost it for a long time. I did that late in the week last week. I waited until later in the week to do that because I was putting it off because I knew what would happen. I knew I would start weeping immediately. And I did.
The expressions on people’s faces, their joy and wonder, their confusion and excitement—like they don’t even want to blink. One man hadn’t seen his wife in ten years; he had lost his sight and got it back. Other videos had children who had never seen a sunrise or the colors of the rainbow or their mother’s face—or their own face.
You’ve probably seen a post on social media that says, “I bet you can’t watch this and not smile.” It’s typically a kid or an animal doing something super cute. I bet you can’t watch those videos of people receiving their sight and not smile, perhaps not weep.
The man in our passage this morning received sight for the first time. He had never seen a sunrise or his mother’s face. Not everyone who saw what happened to him was so happy. In fact, some were angry.
As is so often the case in the Bible, seeing (or not seeing) becomes a metaphor for something deeper. We do this too. A math teacher might stand at the blackboard, point at some equation, and ask, “Do you understand how this works?” And a student might say, “I see” or he might say, “I don’t see.” We hardly realize it, but “seeing” in that exchange becomes a metaphor for understanding. That’s what happens in this passage.
In this passage Jesus speaks of himself in several seeing metaphors. He speaks of the light of the world and about working while it is still day, that is, working before night comes. And at the end of the passage, he talks about those who can see spiritual realities and those who, conversely, become increasingly blind to spiritual realities.
And it is the importance of dramatizing this spiritual metaphor that explains, I think, why this passage is so long. This passage shows us the cruelty that comes from spiritual blindness and the warmth that comes from spiritual sight. God wants us to behold that when a person is blind to their need for Jesus and the beauty of Jesus, all kinds of bad things happen. [FCF] Of course, the opposite is also true, but that’s getting ahead.
So that’s how we’ll talk about this story; we’ll talk about it in two halves. We’ll talk about the cruelty of spiritual blindness and the warmth of spiritual sight.
1. Behold, the Cruelty of Spiritual Blindness
We’ll start with our first point, behold the cruelty of spiritual blindness. It might be helpful to start with a quick comment about context. In the spring we were going through the gospel of John. We made it to the last verse in chapter 8, and then we stopped to take a break for the summer to study the life of Abraham. Now, this morning we come back to John’s good news story about Jesus, and we’re picking up in the first verse in chapter 9. And except for a few brief weeks during Christmas, we’ll be in the gospel of John through Easter, which will let us finish the book. So that’s some general context.
Perhaps more specifically, I’ll mention that in chapters 7 and 8, there was a huge Jewish celebration taking place. It was called the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths. When we talked about it in the spring, we called it the festival of camping because it’s a festival to celebrate God’s protection in the wilderness when the Israelites had to camp in tents. In fact, this celebration continues today; it began at sundown on Friday night, and some Jewish people will still camp in tents or live in booths for a week. I suspect that’s what’s going on with one of my neighbors. So this is still a thing.
And besides the tents, a prominent feature of that celebration is the celebration of light. When God led his people out of Egypt, he used a giant pillar of fire by night and a smoking cloud by day. Where he went, they went. They never walked in darkness.
I’d like to read to you from what is called the Mishnah, a collection of Jewish traditions. Within the Mishnah, there’s a whole book about this festival. The writing dates to the second century, but we think it accurately describes the first century (see Kevin DeYoung’s summary in his sermon at Christ Covenant on John 8:1–12). On the temple grounds, younger priests climb huge tiki torch candles lit with sixteen gallons of oil.
[Young priests] would light the candelabra. And the light from the candelabra was so bright that there was not a courtyard in Jerusalem that was not illuminated from the light . . . The pious and the men of action would dance before the people who attended the celebration, with flaming torches that they would juggle in their hands, and they would say before them passages of song and praise to God. And the Levites would play on lyres, harps, cymbals, and trumpets, and countless other musical instruments. (Mishnah, Sukkah 5:3–4).
So, we have dancing and joy and light. But not everyone experienced the light of this festival the same way. For example, a young blind man. Look with me again at vv. 1–7.
9 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 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 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
We’ll have a lot more to say about Jesus later in the sermon, but for now, notice the disciples. They saw, just as Jesus saw, a man blind from birth, and they blurt out a question. If it feels rude to us, perhaps even cruel, as we read this story, it’s because it is. This man can’t behold the dance party that recently took place; he can’t even know what light looks like except perhaps the warmth he experiences when he sits begging in the Judean sun. That’s all he knows about light. And the disciples make him into a theological discussion, seemingly right in front of him. He may be blind, but he’s not deaf. And the way they frame the question tells us about their view of sin and suffering.
For them, the question isn’t whether or not some particular sin caused the blindness of this man. They don’t question that because they know particular sins cause particular sufferings. Their question is whether it was the particular sin of the parents or the sin of the man. Church, behold the cruelty of spiritual blindness.
It’s not true that all particular suffering is owing to a particular sin, as the disciples seem to see it. In other words, don’t assume that when you see a person blind or a person with cancer or Parkinson’s or who has a miscarriage, that their suffering is because they sinned in some particular way. When a child dies, you don’t tell the parents it happened because they have secret sin.
This is exactly what happened in the Old Testament book of Job. When Job’s children die, his friends—if we can call them that—make long speeches about how Job has secret sin and if he would just repent, God would relent. In the end, God rebukes Job’s friends for this and has Job pray for them that they can be restored. The disciples of Jesus should have known this; we should know this.
And when we forget this—when we become blind to spiritual truth—we become cruel. What we could call the rudeness of the disciples becomes full-blown cruelty in the religious leaders. Where we might call the disciples visually impaired, the religious leaders are spiritually blind. And that has cruel consequences.
I won’t go through all the back-and-forths of this passage, but let me summarize. Jesus heals the man, which we find out later happened on the Sabbath (v. 14). And so that gets them worked up because, according to their extra Sabbath rules, you can only heal life-threatening circumstances on the Sabbath, and blindness wasn’t life-threatening. And you can’t knead dough on the Sabbath, which was kind of what Jesus did by making his spit into mud. Jesus knows all this and does it anyway, seemingly on purpose. He’s rattling their cage or poking the bear—or however you want to say it. And I love this.
So, first they have to verify the miracle. They ask the neighbors (vv. 9–10). Some say, “Yeah, he’s been begging here for a long time.” So they bring him to the religious leaders. They talk to him, and he tells the whole story about the spit and mud and the washing, and they send him away. Then they ask his parents. You see that in vv. 19–23. They say, “Yes, he was blind since birth.” They are a little less certain who healed him because, as we read in v. 22, the religious leaders would excommunicate those who believed in Jesus. So the parents say, “He is of age; ask him” (v. 23). This detail indicates the man was probably young, perhaps an older teenager.
In v. 24 they bring the teenager back and ask more questions. Look at this exchange.
24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.”
The line about giving glory to God is not about praising him so much as their charge for him to stop lying, which they assume he is doing (cf. Josh. 7:19).
25 He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27 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?”
I love that line! He’s poking the bear too. The religious leaders, however, don’t. They essentially say, “You snotty teenage brat.” I’ll read v. 34. “They answered him, ‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out.”
There are so many things we could point out about their exchange and the logic behind it, but the point I want us to see is the cruelty of spiritual blindness. They don’t care that this man can now see; they want to make him an enemy in their theological crusade against Jesus. They need someone beneath them so they can stand above him. It’s cruel.
And their spiritual blindness has other consequences. It always does. Spiritual blindness will make you unwilling to reckon rightly with clear data. You can be shown all the data in the world, you can have all the spiritual truth in the world—you can even have Jesus, the light of the world, right in front of you—but if you are unwilling to open your eyes, it won’t matter.
They were unwilling to believe that they were sinners in need of a savior. And that unwillingness had consequences. It made them cruel. They became bullies to the parents, bullies to each other, bullies toward this teenager. “You know why you were blind,” they say, “because you were born in utter sin.” “Don’t lecture us,” they say.
Few comments can be as cruel as telling someone who is suffering that the reason they are suffering is because they have secret sin. If you’ve had a miscarriage or you’ve had cancer, and someone told you it happened because of your sin, you know how cruel it can be. Thankfully, we see the contrast in Jesus, don’t we?
2. Behold, the Warmth of Spiritual Sight
Our last point is behold the warmth of spiritual sight. Jesus sees the blind man too, but he sees more than others see. He sees a man whom God will use to display his glory. Jesus is also so kind toward the disciples. He just takes them where they are, essentially saying, “Well, it’s a bit rude the way you brought up the question, but we’ll worry about that later.” Jesus is willing to have people come as they are. In fact, that’s what he wants; he wants you and I to come to him as we are, to open our eyes.
And notice the way Jesus cares for this man who is thrown out. Not only does Jesus go and find him the first time to heal his physical blindness, but he goes again to find him when he’s alone again. I mean, his parents were a bit timid. “Go ask him,” they say. Certainly the religious leaders bullied him, while Jesus draws closer. Look how they talk.
35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” 38 He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” 40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.
You’ll notice, don’t you, the teenager’s statement of about the Son of Man? He essentially says, “I couldn’t have read it myself because I was blind, but I have been told about the stories in the book of Daniel about the coming of someone called the ‘Son of Man,’ the one who will rule and reign. But I don’t know who that person is. And others have read to me about the coming of the Messiah and how he will open the eyes of the blind to announce his arrival. But, sir,” he asks, “who is this person so that I can believe in him?”
Jesus says, “Open your spiritual eyes. He’s standing right in front of you.”
And what do we read next? “He said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him” (v. 38). The climax of this story is such an amazing verse. You don’t do this if you are a good Jewish person. You worship God alone. You don’t worship a man—unless he was more than a man. And Jesus was. He is. Which is just what John wants us to see.
I also love the warmth of the way his conversion unfolds. The more we see of Jesus, the more there is to love. Just as his healing took place in stages, so did his conversion.
First the spit and mud, then he washed, and then he could see. There were steps. In the same way, this teenager’s delight in Jesus grows with each step. First, in v. 11, the teenager speaks of “the one they call Jesus.” Then in v. 17 he’s a prophet. Then in v. 33 he claims that Jesus can’t be a sinner and must be sent from God. Finally, the man confesses that Jesus is the Son of Man, and he believes and worships him.
In this, the teenager is willing to see and confess more than his parents. And just as an aside, perhaps there are young men and women here who can relate. God has opened your eyes to the warmth of the light of Jesus Christ, and that’s given you boldness, and that’s wonderful, but your parents aren’t there yet and that can be hard. This teenager would understand.
In the end, I would just say that it’s a really precious thing that this passage is so long. On the one hand, it gives us the eyes to see the cruelty of spiritual blindness. But on the other hand, it shows us the warmth of Jesus.
This Sunday marks a special day for us. It’s the week after we planted a church. For months people have asked what’s next for us as a church. I think that’s a good question. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I don’t know all that God has for us in the next few weeks and months and years. I do know I want us to be about this: seeing more and more of the warmth of the living Jesus.
When we began this sermon series in John, in the first sermon I went near the end of the book, preaching just two verses. The verses are John 20:30–31, and they go like this:
30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
As we keep moving through this book, like this one man, we’ll see more and more of Jesus. We’ll see that Jesus doesn’t just heal physical blindness with his spit, but he heals spiritual blindness with his blood. While the connection to sin and suffering is usually mysterious, there is one connection that is crystal clear: Jesus will suffer for sinners so that sinners can behold the warmth of Jesus forever.
And that message could feel like something abstract, like, “Yeah, that’s great about Jesus does that, but what do we do?”
I guess I’d say everything we do is done because of this. Why do we have dinners planned among our church this fall? Why did we start two new Wednesday night programs for elementary students? Why do we have a membership class starting at the end of the month? Why do we have a few new volunteer pastors meeting with our pastoral team to explore whether they will join? Why do we have baptisms planned? Why will we have a pickleball tournament where we don’t just want you to invite friends from church, but we’d especially love for you to invite people from work and your neighbors, people who don’t have a church? Why all this activity? Why did we even plant the church in the first place? Because seeing the warmth of Jesus propels people on mission.
At the begging of John’s gospel two disciples ask Jesus a question, which Jesus doesn’t answer. He just says, “Come and see” (1:46). And he promised that for those who follow Jesus, they will see greater and greater things. And they did follow and they did see. I think that promise is still true.
Next week Pastor Ron will continue in chapter 10 and preach one of the more famous passages in this book, the place where Jesus says he is the good shepherd.
I’ll invite the music team forward so we can have a time of response through singing. Let’s pray. “Dear Heavenly Father. . .”
Sermon Discussion Questions
During times of suffering, have you wondered if your sin had caused the suffering? How would you know or not know the answer to that question? What does the Bible say?
In what ways have you experienced the cruelty of spiritual blindness?
Humanly speaking, what are the advantages of choosing to remain spiritually blind? Why did the religious leaders choose this? What did they think they gained? But what were they (in the end) losing?
In what ways have you experienced the warmth of spiritual sight, both the sight of Jesus and in the warmth of being among a community of grace?
