Earning What We Deserve
John 9: 1-7 NRSV
We often hear stories about crime
and punishment and ponder the relationship between them. We are either outraged
or puzzled when our sense of justice doesn’t match the facts of how a court
case turns out.
We’ve seen criminals get off and
relatively innocent defendants get big time.
A lawyer was defending his client,
who was accused of theft. The defense was not going well so the lawyer
attempted to go in a different direction.
“All my client did was to insert his
arm across the counter and into the cash register and remove a small sum of
money. As a matter of fact, it was just his arm that committed this crime, My
client’s arm can hardly be seen as my client. I don’t understand how you can
punish the entire individual for a crime that was committed by a single limb.”
The judge saw through the flimsy
defense immediately and answered the lawyer:
“You have stated the dilemma well. So by using your line of reasoning, I
will sentence only the defendant’s arm to one year of imprisonment. As a
courtesy to the defendant, he may either accompany his arm or he may not, as he
chooses.”
Upon completion of the sentencing,
the judge sat back in his chair with a smug smile of his face. He had played
along with the lawyer’s defense but had still outsmarted him.
But the defendant and the defense
lawyer smiled as well. With the assistance of his lawyer, the defendant
detached his artificial limb, laid the “criminal” limb on the bench, and left the
courtroom a free man.
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His
disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was
born blind?”Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, he was
born blind so that God’s work may be revealed 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.
When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud
with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash
in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came
back able to see.
Everyone of us has asked at some point or another, “What have I done to deserve this illness or this trouble?” The Jews struggled not just with the question of whether bad things were a result of sin but as to whether successive generations inherited sin.
Jesus encounters a blind man, blind
from birth, and Jesus’ disciples ask him, why is the man blind? Jesus’ answer,
if you listen closely, may surprise you.
Jesus says the man is not blind
because of his or his parent’s sin, rather that his blindness will be used to
reveal God’s work, word, and glory. This is consistent with Jesus’ ministry
where we see everything working to reveal and accentuate the messianic nature
of His role in the Kingdom of God.
John chapter 9 tells the story of
the healing of this man and its consequences. We would think there would be
rejoicing and unrestrained gladness at this man’s good fortune. But the
encounter becomes a wonderful witness to what faith accomplishes even in the
midst of pessimism, persecution, resentment, and outright skepticism.
Again the blind man has both a
literal and figurative role. Blindness is both physical and moral. It can be a
physical ailment and a disease of the heart. It can means failure to see the
physical world, and failure to see the spiritual world. The impact of Jesus’
words speaks to unrecognized and un-confessed sin.
The important issue in this passage
for us this day are two questions: Does sin have consequences, and can these
consequences be thwarted? The answer of course is an easy one:
Listen to Romans 3: 23 – “For
all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.” Can you repeat
that with me (“For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.”).
So sin is a state that all humans
are in and some are thriving and some are perishing – and some sins have
natural consequences such as drug or alcohol addiction, or Adam and Eve’s fall
from perfection in the Garden of Eden.
Sometimes in our sin, we don’t have
a clue. We’re like the little girl who cut her own hair while her mother was
running errands, and it was a terrible job. When her mother got home she was
horrified to see her child. The little girl said, “But Mommy, how did you know.
I hid all the hair very carefully in the waste basket.”
Listen to the first part of Romans
6: 23 – “For the wages of sin is death,”
Can you repeat that with me (“For
the wages of sin is death,”).
Through Adam and Eve’s failure to
obey God’s command led to the consequences of death entering God’s creation. A
death, that God was unable to prevent as a consequence, then or now, if sin is
present in a person’s life.
Jesus’ answer speaks to the nature
and course of our world as created by God. We were created in the image of God
to glorify God; so regardless of whatever happens God will use it for His great
Glory. God uses Jesus to glorify Himself.
Now listen to the first and second parts
of Romans 6: 23 – “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in
Christ Jesus our Lord.” Can you repeat that with me (“For
the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus
our Lord.”)
Jesus told us that some people still
wouldn’t listen. The rest of this chapter in John 9 shows that to be true.
I once heard about a preacher who
made a list that counted 572 different sins in the Bible. He received numerous
requests for the list from people who thought they might have missed doing some
of them.
Sadly, spiritual blindness in people
keep them from understanding or recognizing Jesus as the “cure” and answer for
sins. This is what you and I are to witness to others about.
It starts with our acknowledging
that as sinners death is what we deserve, but because of God’s Love through
Jesus, eternal life is our hope, if we have faith in the treatment.
A young teenager,
suffering from anorexia and bulimia, was undergoing treatment at Baptist
Medical Center in Kansas City. On a particularly difficult day she was told to
drink a glass of milk, but she just couldn’t.
Her doctor was
called in. He sat down beside her on the bed and said, “You are a Christian,
correct?” When she answered yes, he said, “Do you remember the man Jesus healed
near the pool of Siloam? Jesus put mud on his eyes to bring about his healing.
But what really healed him?”
She thought for a
moment and then answered, “His faith.” “Good!” he said. “Now drink your mud.”
Here’s the rest of
Chapter 9:
The neighbors and
those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man
who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying,
“No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept
asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”
He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud,
spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then 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. Then the
Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them,
“He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.”
Some of
the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the
sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?”
And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about
him? It was your eyes he opened.”
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 we do not
know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him;
he is of age. He will speak for himself.”
His
parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had
already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put
out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
So for
the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him,
“Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I
do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was
blind, now I see.” They
said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 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?” Then they
reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God
has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”
The man
answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from,
and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but
he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the
world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born
blind. If
this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born
entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.
Jesus
heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you
believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that
I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking
with you is he.” He
said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him.
Jesus
said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may
see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard
this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to
them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We
see,’ your sin remains.
Amen.
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