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March 6, 2005; The Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A
    The Rev. Harold "Skip" Comer, Rector

I believe that the point of our Gospel reading this morning is that sometimes we can be so focused on doing things by the book that we can shut out the possibility of God acting.

In our story of the healing of the blind man this morning there is a play on blindness and being able to see.  We have the man born blind whose sight is restored, and we have the Pharisees who refuse to see that Jesus has performed a miracle.  The blind man not only has his physical sight restored, but sees or accepts Jesus as his savior.   The Pharisees reject Jesus because he is not doing things by the book.  They are blind to the possibility that Jesus is God’s Messiah.

The story begins as Jesus comes upon a blind man, has compassion on him, and gives him is sight.  We’ve heard similar stories before, Jesus heals someone and it enrages the religious leaders. 

As we learn from the story in John this morning, Jesus performed the healing on the Sabbath, thereby violating the Sabbath law.  This is the reason we are given that the Pharisees were so outraged at Jesus.  But in reality that was only the tip of the iceberg.  It was a commonly held belief by the time of Jesus that birth defects were God’s punishment for a sin committed by the parents.  That is why the disciples question Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”   Jesus shakes the foundation of religious teaching by saying, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed through him.” 

He then proceeds to perform a miracle, a miracle unheard of ever before, by restoring the man sight.  In doing so Jesus is on the verge of undoing centuries of beliefs and doctrine, to say nothing of totally embarrassing the Pharisees.  Challenged by what has happened, the Pharisees lash out, trying to prove that this is somehow all a hoax.

A head on confrontation erupts as God’s works are done through Jesus.  Using his saliva, Jesus makes some mud and places it in the blind mans eyes and then tells him to go and wash his eyes in the pool of Siloam.  Upon doing so the man sees.

As news of the healing spreads, the man is brought before the Pharisees for questioning. Refusing to believe his story they summon his parents to find out the truth.   Because they feared they would be kicked out of the synagogue and shunned by their friends, they only admitted that this was their son who was born blind.

But there is a second and more important miracle that occurs - the miracle of spiritual sight.  This was a man who was in darkness, not only physically through his blindness, but spiritually as well.  The first miracle actually set the stage for the second miracle at the end of the story – the statement of faith by the once blind man, "Lord, I believe."  The man accepted Jesus as the Messiah, or in John’s imagery, as the “Light of the World.”[i]

Yet, while this man moves from the darkness of being physically and spiritually blind into the light, others in the story seem to lose their sight.

The Pharisees were good men, who earnestly defended the traditions of their faith, and they were deeply troubled over the changes that Jesus was proposing.  Perhaps they could not afford to see anything new.  They found that nit picking and the rejection of Jesus, his miracles and his teachings, allowed them to live in a world which they found to be more to their liking.  For them to admit that this man was blind and could now see, would have necessitated their acceptance of someone whom they had already rejected.   It would mean an admission that they had been wrong - about many things.

And who likes to admit that they are wrong?  Perhaps one of the greatest barriers to growth and well being is our hesitancy to admit when we are wrong.  Couple that with not being willing to let go of the past and you have the ingredients for a repeat performance of the Pharisees' descent into spiritual darkness.

There are others in the story upon whom the cataracts of impaired vision descend.   The blind man's parents knew the truth, yet when they had the opportunity to be witnesses to that truth, they passed the buck off on their son.

Then we have the witnesses, those who saw what Jesus had done and questioned whether or not the miracle happened.  They were using every ounce of their energy to discredit the truth that stared them in the face.

There is also another group that is not mentioned.  These were the folks who more or less quietly witnessed what took place and reflected on what it might mean for them.   Perhaps their faith was strengthened.  Or perhaps they too dismissed the miracle as hocus pocus and with it the man Jesus.

Where do we fit in the Gospel story?  Are we the blind man, his parents, the Pharisees, or those who are not mentioned?  Are we willing to admit to our blind spots, the darkness in our lives, and submit ourselves to the healing touch of Jesus so that our sight can be restored?

C.S. Lewis in his book, The Case for Christianity, says, “This man we’re talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse.   Now it seems to me obvious that He wasn’t either a lunatic or a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.”[ii]

At the beginning of the Gospel of John, John says that Jesus is, "The true light that enlightens every man..."[iii]  During our Lenten journey may our prayer be that we come into that light so that our hearts and minds may be filled with the presence of Jesus who restores sight not only the physically blind, but more importantly to those who have spiritual blindness.

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