Jesus: The God of Sight
Jesus wants to open our eyes so that we can see. If you aren’t humble or are new to faith, you might think, “I can see”, “I trust my own judgement”, or something like “My ability to perceive and understand the world is good”. That’s what the Pharisees and religious leaders of Jesus’ day thought. Yet, because of this, they missed so much that was right in front of their eyes. They literally missed God when he walked in their midst. The truth is that we miss so much. God is acting, revealing, and guiding us at every single moment, yet how often do we see Him or even his actions?
Have you ever reflected on your past? Maybe some important or difficult event and thought, “how did I miss this? It is so obvious to me”. We call this hindsight. This ability to see something that was true only after the thing has happened. It’s just another reminder of how we need something to open our eyes so that we might see the truth of any moment. Hindsight is also an important element of seeing God. We look back on our experiences and ask a simple question - “Where was God? Where was his mercy, grace, and guiding hand?” Scripture challenges us to do this, when it reminds us to tell our stories about God’s work and miraculous deeds. We are meant to pass on how God has worked in our lives, but an essential part of that is to discern where God was.
Let’s turn now to our 6th miracle in the gospel of John. If you want to follow along with me its found in the gospel of John chapter 9 and it takes up the whole chapter. You will notice we only read the first little bit, because I want to start there.
Our passage starts with Jesus on a journey. It’s along the way that his disciples see a blind man. A quick note: we can so often be focused on getting from point A to point B that we forget a lot happens along the way. God wants to work along the journey too. In fact, the journey can be just as important as where we are going. We should be turning and watching for God even in the most mundane. There is a once incapable but now famous man named Brother Lawrence who turned to God while doing dishes and was given great understanding from simply doing this.
Verse 2. The disciples ask Jesus, “Was this man born blind because of his sins or his parents?” It might be an inconsiderate question, but it is a good one. We know from Jesus’ own words that sin leads to destruction. I have also heard people ask, “What have I done to deserve this?” Though I think most times today people aren’t actually asking the question, but rather prejudging themselves as righteous. In this moment, Jesus tells us that there is a different option. Our suffering, illness, or brokenness may not be the consequence of someone’s wrongdoing, instead it can be for our good. It can be a place where God works and reveals himself. To clarify, I think all illnesses and great degrees of suffering are the product of a broken humanity and world, but that does not mean that it belongs to us.
So the point of suffering and illness can actually be for God to work and be revealed. This may not feel just, at first. This man was born blind. He struggled through his whole life. Why? So God’s work could be displayed? This might not feel like a great reason, but it is. All of us, whether born blind or not, struggle through life to some degree or another. We all experience something wrong in our lives and this world. Why? Because the world is broken. Because it doesn’t have God. Because we aren’t yet living in God’s Kingdom. Yet, in the midst of those suffering, struggles, and death I have heard from you, God’s faithful, things like, “God helped me through it”, “I experienced such comfort and peace”, “I could always see God’s hope”, “I know I will see her again”, “my faith has never been stronger” and so much more. These are amazing and wonderful things you are saying, that I wish the world could perceive.
Two amazing things come from this faithful experience of God in suffering:
You see God more. The suffering, the brokenness, the emptiness, becomes an opportunity for God to enter in like no other. In the good times we can have our hands full and our eyes set on other things. When we suffering our eyes get pointed at the space where there is a lack, gap - and if we have open eyes, we can see God enter into that space.
When we experience God in our suffering and even death, what happens to that suffering? It becomes less. He brings us comfort, hope, and sometimes even joy. Sometimes God even takes away the suffering completely. Our suffering is the result of broken lives and a broken world that cannot see or know God. The more we are drawn to him, the more that will diminish - until finally, as Revelation 20 reminds us, in God’s future realized Kingdom suffering and crying will be no more. This blind man, even while ignorant, was eventually able to perceive who Jesus was. I’m sure this was linked to his healing.
In Verse 4, Jesus tells us this cryptic phrase, “While it is day we must do the works of God, but night is coming when no one can do His works”. What does this mean? Well, the daytime is when business and good work are done, it is the time we are supposed to be up, the light reveals what is true and gives things beauty and life. We need the light of day to see. I think Jesus is saying many things. He is challenging us to live in the light and to create places and people that live in that light, because that is where God’s work is done. I think its telling us that there are seasons where God’s work can be better seen and understood. I think it is challenging us to use the seasons of light we are given to reveal God and do his work. In verse 5 - It is also telling us about the light that we get through knowing Jesus and the works that light empowers us to do. Here in verse 5 we also get another reminder that Jesus’ miracles remind us of his identity. Jesus the great revealer, the great source of light and life. Jesus the creator at the beginning of everything separated light into darkness and shed light on an otherwise chaotic world. Revealing was the first step of bringing order in creation.
Back to verse 4, “Night is coming when no one can work”. This is a scary reality. Is there a time when God won’t act? No. God is always working, always revealing. He is always the light that overcomes the darkness. That does not change. Okay, but is there a time when we can’t act? I think that is quite possible. There are times in our lives when we are so surrounded by so much darkness, wrong, and blindness that our actions cannot change something. Our actions can’t always open eyes, or soften hearts, or lead people to faith. We know this, we have experienced it - sadly, too often in the people we love. Where does this leave us? Well, as always, we need God. We need to watch for where God is shedding light, how he is revealing and opening their hearts and we need to be ready to speak faith into those moments when the sun has risen on them and day has come.
In an important parallel, I think Jesus is also referencing his death here. Even on the night of the last supper, we hear that night had fallen. This leads to them capturing him like a thief in the night, torturing him in private, whipping him for nothing, and unjustly sentencing him to death - the opposite of God’s works. As Jesus dies, literal darkness falls on the earth. The earth shakes and the dead rise. There is a time when there is an utter turning away from God and so God’s works are no longer done and the world feels like it stands still. At moments and in places night can fall just like this in our lives and world.
Yet, Jesus vanquishes that night by rising to life. He is the new day. He is the new week, the new start, the new sun, the new creation. Jesus is the light that can overcome any darkness and help us see. Jesus is the light of the World. We too can reflect his light and become beacons, lighthouses of his glorious, revealing, and beautifying light.
This brings us to verse 6 and 7. Jesus puts mud on his eyes, which in itself is a drawing back to the creation story in the garden - telling us that recreation is happening here. Jesus spits into it. God adds a bit of himself into it. Even his saliva is life and wholeness. There is a lot to unpack in both of these realities, but I’ll continue. “Then Jesus sends him to wash in the pool of Siloam (which means sent). The man washed and came home with his sight”. There are many more verses to this story, which show how this man comes to faith in Jesus. This man followed Jesus’ commands and the result was that he didn’t just see Jesus, but that he saw the world through him. It would seem that this blind man lived out a C.S. Lewis quote: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” Then this man went out, sent, with a new vision, a healing, a story, an encounter with God and a new faith. They all came together. Soon, by pointing to the light of Christ, he would become a light to the world. Through faith and sharing our stories, we too can be God’s light in this world. A light that reveals in an all too dark world. AMEN
