Readings: Isaiah 42:14-21 | Ephesians 5:8-14 | John 9:1-41
Text: John 9:1-41
Baptism of Clint, son, and Confirmation of Seth, father
There are times we do not understand God’s ways. Nevertheless, we can be certain that He desires the blind to see, the enslaved to be freed, the deaf to hear. Today’s Gospel offers spiritual insight into the difference between
Consider physical disabilities of sight: Can be overcome with interventions (sight impaired tools like Braille, large format). Even the sight impaired can be assisted (large text, narrator)
However, our spiritual infirmities cannot be overcome, no matter how much we try, as we see in the Gospel lesson from John 9. But today, we deny that it’s as bad as it really is, because we have been trained to think of rationalism & human reason as our source of truth!
Here are some of the fixes we hope will work, but don’t: It’s not a matter of better knowledge (think of how much the Jews knew of the Scriptures…they’d put us to shame!) It’s not a matter of moral behavior (the Jews had mastered ascetic living fasting multiple times per week and regulating how far one could walk on the Sabbath day) (This is the pattern with theocracy)
God cannot be ascertained by the emotions. (The Jews invoked ancient tradition from time immemorial. Even though they didn’t have the modern tools, their traditions have held them for hundreds of years).
After telling you many ways that God cannot be reached, how can we repair this alienation we have with our Creator?
14 For a long time I have held my peace;
I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labor;
I will gasp and pant.
15 I will lay waste mountains and hills,
and dry up all their vegetation;
I will turn the rivers into islands,
and dry up the pools.
16 And I will lead the blind
in a way that they do not know,
in paths that they have not known
I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I do,
and I do not forsake them.
Great! Now God is going to step in where man has failed! In a moment, everything will be made right that was crooked. Why didn’t He do it sooner?
He will humble the proud! He takes those who are blind and guides them! What could be better? But then the confusing part:
18 Hear, you deaf,
and look, you blind, that you may see!
19 Who is blind but my servant,
or deaf as my messenger whom I send?
Who is blind as my dedicated one,
or blind as the servant of the Lord?
20 He sees many things, but does not observe them;
his ears are open, but he does not hear.
21 The Lord was pleased, for his righteousness’ sake,
to magnify his law and make it glorious.
Let’s be honest when we say that this doesn’t make sense to our minds. On the one hand it would be cruel to the deaf to command them to hear, or to bid the blind to see! How can you ask them to do something they obviously cannot accomplish?
But isn’t that what God does? He presents what we in our selves cannot achieve, in order to humble us to acknowledge we depend on Him:
15“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 17But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess...Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live.”
(Deuteronomy 30:15-18, 19b)
This is the paradox of the ways of God! Seeing that we cannot reach Him, and knowing that our best efforts all end in some form of idolatry (even of things that are meant to honor Him), He proposed what to do.
Do you see these blind whom He bids to see, or these deaf He bids to hear? He also tells the remarkable mystery: “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11:27).
So, who really can save us? Today we witnessed the fruit of this incredible work that only God can work: A child was baptized and his father is ready to boldly confess Christ—even if it means the loss of all things. The same Lord is Lord of both: the weak infant who will need years before he is able to comprehend this gift given, and his father who will confess his faith today. We want there to be something remarkable about Seth that isn’t present in Clint, but the Word of God will not let us go there!
How? It comes from the “servant of the Lord” whom Isaiah told us of in the Old Testament lesson. He is no divine theory; He is the One who came in our flesh: born of the same kind of womb through which Clint was created. Both are called by the Gospel the same way Seth can give evidence to, despite what He has trusted in before! What could… No! Who could accomplish such a work, but the God who gives blind eyes to see and deaf ears to hear?
It’s no random chance that gave Jesus the ability to restore and give faith to a blind man in the Holy Gospel! The blind man’s healing is an illustration for our ears, so that we understand the complete grace of God. He is the one who came to us when we sought Him not! He is the one who calls the very ones who by nature would reject Him! He is the Mighty God who gave His servant for the sake of rebels like us!
6Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
This is no man who speaks these words; it is the very Son of God! I don’t know about you, but I often am tempted to chalk the miracles of Christ up to coincidence. How can a blind man suddenly see? It must have been some ophthalmological miracle. But I (and you) are taught here to believe that it is the Word of Jesus which makes whole what is broken!
So, let’s see today’s special events from the perspective of God and His powerful Word (the Word which conceived a baby in the womb of the Virgin!):
We witnessed the grace of God come to a little infant. He has no laudable works to “make God proud.” He is no more than a suckling infant! And I can tell you from recent memory that Clint takes a ton of effort on the part of his parents!
But we also witnessed a work of God that is related to the very same grace! A grown man, in the prime of his life, living the course that others covet, will now confess that what’s greater than all else: His beautiful wife, his two noble sons, his burgeoning career as an electrician—is all dross for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ!
St. Paul wrote of this Confirmation conviction:
7But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:7-11)
Certainly, Paul would have benefited greatly from continuing in his current career. It was a good time to be a Pharisee, with the rising fervor of fighting the new enemy of those people of The Way (Acts 9:2). You had friends in high places, and the approval of many respected peers! But when Paul was stopped on the road to Damascus, all that was destroyed in a moment!
But Seth has chosen something with more lasting reward! These earthly things that others trust in will do no good. They cannot last. All else may be taken away, but his Lord will never forsake him! This Jesus is the Lord who rescued Seth on the day when he and his firstborn son were baptized. The Holy Spirit has continued to grow that enlightenment, to firm that foundation which He has laid [Ephesians 2:20]. What could motivate Seth to make such a choice?
It was not foolishness, or some moral superiority, or an emotional conviction. It is Christ and His Holy Spirit whose work you see today!
Hear and hold fast to this Word which Seth has chosen to remind him of God’s excellencies:
“12Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life.” (James 1:12)
This is the sight which the Lord has given to Seth, to Clint, and all believers. So simple and true, yet profound as the difference between life and death!
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
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