John 9:1-25 • I Am the Light of the World
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Transcript
(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
I'm going to ask that you look in your Bibles now at John chapter 9, as we will be looking at verses 1 through 25 of John chapter 9.
The theme is consistent through the Scriptures. Think of it, you know it. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light, and there were shepherds abiding in their fields.
And the angels appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in darkness,
but the darkness comprehended it not.
All preparation for the great thing that Jesus will announce about Himself in John chapter 9, this announcement.
"I am the light of the world.
Long expected, now come. The light shining in darkness has come."
What difference will that make?
John 9 will tell us, "As a man born blind, suddenly has light in his life." Let's stand as we read this portion of God's Word. John 9 verses 1 through 25.
"As he that is Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.
And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents that he was born blind?"
Jesus answered, "He was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed 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." Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva.
Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, "Go wash in the pool of Salome," which means "sent."
So he went and washed and came back seeing.
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?" Some said, "It is he." Others said, "No, but he is like him." He kept saying, "I am the man."
So they said to him, "Then how were your eyes opened?"
He answered, "The man called Jesus, made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, "Go to Salome and wash." So 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 been formerly had been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes, 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."
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 things?" And there was a division among them. 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."
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 how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him. He's of age. He will speak for himself."
His parents said these things because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be the Christ, he was to 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 said to him, "Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner."
He answered, "Whether he is a sinner, I do not know.
One thing I do know that though I was blind, now I see."
Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the light of your Word and the light come into the world through your Son.
And now we ask that by your Holy Spirit you would enlighten our minds and open our hearts to the wonder and the goodness of the light come down to break our night and to undo the darkness of people around us. Help us that we might understand not only what he did, but what he calls us now to do that the light might shine.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. Please be seated.
William Tandy was 70 years old when he received his sight.
Marvelous medical innovation gave the man seven decades without sight the opportunity to see having been born blind.
I saw him interviewed a few years ago in 60 Minutes and while much of the interview is out of my memory, I remember one of the particular things he was asked when he was asked, "What do you see that is different than how you imagined it?" And the thing that he pointed out was the falling of the autumn leaves.
He said, "In my imagination as people had discussed what it meant for the leaves to fall off the trees in the fall," he said, "I just kind of saw them falling straight down like a spoon falling off a table.
But now I see them, each leaf on its own pilgrim journey to the ground, blown and dancing in the breeze, making its way down, each in the path of God's design." He said, "I'm in the same place I've always been, but now that I see, it's as though I'm in a different world."
Now maybe that's not much of a revelation, but it's precisely what we are made to understand in this portion of God's world, that you can be in exactly the same place as you were prior to the work of Christ in your life and yet be in an entirely new world. We doubt it at times. We look at the obligations of our families, maybe the limitations of our abilities, our occupations, our skills.
Maybe there's been disappointment or heartache in our lives, and we cannot imagine that we could be any place different than we now are.
And yet if light were to come, that were to reveal a whole new world to you. You could be in exactly the same place and yet have a whole new world open to you.
And that's what Jesus is saying here when He declares Himself to be the light of the world, to people who in many ways are in their same position, but by His work can be in an entirely new condition because they now see a new world.
What are the things that we are meant to see in the light of Jesus' ministry?
The first, perhaps obvious from the passage, is simply this.
Calamity is not a conviction.
It's the consideration of most people, maybe in the church as well as the world, that if something wrong happens, it's because I did something wrong. It's precisely the question that the apostles asked. Remember in verse 2, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" It's a standard question. It was the question of Job's friends in the Old Testament, of the Jews in Jesus' time, and of Julie Andrews in our time.
Right? The remake of The Sound of Music was just on. I could not help but remember some of the songs from my youth, right? I must have had a wicked childhood. I must have had a miserable youth. Why? Because nothing comes from nothing.
So if something good is happening now, I must have done something good.
What's the logic?
Good things happen to good people.
Bad things happen to bad people.
So if bad things have happened in your life, you must have done something bad.
And Jesus says it is 100% wrong thinking. You simply cannot make the one-to-one relationship that because something wrong has happened,
one has done something wrong. Jesus makes it clear not just out of the past, but so clear because of what we must know. Verse 3, "It was not this man that sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him." So clear because we so easily mess it up. I'm not just talking about people in biblical times. I'm talking about our own lives. I can remember as a child this pattern of thought working its way into my life, given church and family background. I remember one particular day when I was playing Little League baseball in our area, we knew we called it Pee-wees, and I had played so magnificently that day that I had been moved out of the infield to that great desert of baseball that is known as Wright Field.
And there in Wright Field, having had the day that I had had, I can remember fervently praying the ball would not come my way again, a prayer that was not answered.
To my horror, here comes the fly ball out to Wright Field.
And I can remember first the dread, "Oh, no."
And then kind of the sense of, "Well, maybe this time."
And kind of getting a beat on the ball and getting my glove up and watching it come right to me and then go right over my head.
And while I can laugh about it now, I can remember the precise words that I said as a child as I turned to run and go after the ball.
"Oh, God, what did I do?
What did I do that I have to suffer and hurt this way?"
It's not just what children think.
It may be as the ready reflex of everyone who suffers and can't explain the cause and then wonders, "What did I do that my family, my child, my job, my experience is now so hard?"
I love the fact that for reasons I can't quite explain, Jesus has taken this experience of this man who he sends to the pool of Salome to be a solace for you and me and the people of the church for all time. I don't exactly know why Salome becomes the place of the solace of Jesus, but it is the place that he chooses. Here in John 9 is a man who is born blind and Jesus says, "Listen, this man did not sin nor did his parents." That's not the cause. And Salome becomes the place that the message is made clear. But Salome is a place in Luke 13 where another message is made clear of the very same variety. In Luke 13, the tower of Salome falls and kills 18 people.
And Jesus says, "You should not imagine that the 18 who were killed were any more evil than anybody else."
That is a fallen world.
Bad things happen because the world itself has been corrupted and undone by our first parents' sin and the world is not, if you will, amenable, nice for anybody in this day of tragedy and catastrophe, but we will make it worse.
If the thing that we do is jump to the ready conclusion, somebody experienced something bad so they must have done something wrong. Jesus just says by Salome, "That is not the case." And He doesn't just say it by the events of Salome but by His own presence. Here is this man who, in his blindness, has the presence of Jesus come.
And even in that self, that's an important message. It's calamity in the present tense that brings the presence of Jesus.
We're going to talk in just a little bit about how sometimes calamity can work ultimately for God's purposes. But what I want you to hear just for the moment is what Martin Luther called the theology of the cross, that Jesus is not just coming before crisis, nor is He just waiting to come after a calamity.
Those of you, and I, know who have suffered real loss and hurt in this life is often Christ is most real to us, most precious, most treasured, not at the end of the crisis but right in it.
When in that moment of a family's suffering or difficulty or grief, we say, "I need Jesus now." And somehow the realities of His promises and His Word mean so much to us then. He is real and powerful and present in the crisis itself. The cross nature of whatever we are experiencing brings the reality of His presence in a more powerful way than a life of ease, where at times even after the crisis is gone. We find Him powerful and precious when we know there's nothing else to hold onto.
And it's that understanding of Christ in the midst of crisis who keeps us from saying, "Somebody is suffering, therefore they must have done something wrong." In fact, we begin to recognize from the scope of Scripture that there are reasons that Christians suffer that have nothing to do with wrongdoing.
If you're just going to ask the basic question, why do Christians sometimes suffer? You have to say one very clear reason the Scriptures is they do so for the sake of righteousness.
If you just consider what happens in this unfolding story of this blind man, you recognize in verse 16 he's facing opposition.
Some of the Pharisees said, "This man," speaking of Jesus, "is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath." And yet for this man now who has received his sight to testify the goodness of Jesus, he must contradict the religious leaders who hold sway on his life and his future and his family.
And so he must stand up against them and he does so in verse 17.
When they say, "What do you say about him since he opened your eyes?" He says to the very people who have just declared Jesus a sinner, "He is a prophet."
Jesus said that if we stand for him, we will suffer. It is a promise in the Scriptures that the priorities of Christ are so at odds with the principles of the world that if you stand for Christ, righteousness will at times in your life require suffering. And this man certainly experiences all of that. If you go on through the consequences that he faces, just for saying Jesus is a prophet, they are rather dire consequences. There's much in this passage, if you read it carefully, that's kind of humorous.
But the humor is actually raised to drive harder the point of how Christ himself must be the answer to the suffering we experience. Once this man says in verse 17, "Remember, he's a prophet," you must recognize that all of his healing is now going to result in conditions that make his life harder. In verses 8 and 9, what happens?
His neighbors don't recognize him, right? Remember the account? He's coming back. Here's what happens.
He's apparently healed somewhere up around the Temple Mount.
The pool of salons that Jesus says he has to go to is all the way down at the bottom of the mountain. You have to go through what's called the City of David, all the way at the bottom of the mountain, about a half mile, that he must go down somehow with mud on his eyes to go down. People have to see him, be aware of him. He goes down and cleans and then he's got to come back up.
And when people who know him see him, they say, "You can't be the man. He loses his identity." "No, it's me." "No, it's me," he says. "No, it's not. It's not you."
"Yes, it is. It's me."
But the loss of identity is not the only problem. Ephesians 20 through 23, do you remember the parents' reaction?
The Pharisees now who don't want Jesus to get the credit don't believe that this man is truly the one who is blind. So they first check with the parents. "Is this your son?"
"Yes."
Well, how did he gain his sight?
Well, ask him. He's of age.
Why ask him?
Because we're scared of what you might do to us if we tell you it's Jesus.
And so he not only loses his identity, he is abandoned by his parents now that he has his sight.
He's not only abandoned by his parents. If you go on to verses 26 through 28, you find that by his continuing to say that it was Jesus who healed him, he is reviled by the religious authorities.
No comfort in the church, no comfort from those who say that they are supporting the things of God. And finally, if you move to verses 33 through 34, he is cast out of the synagogue and you and I don't understand the consequences. In a society where theology and civil matters so much intertwine, for him to be cast out of the synagogue, to be excommunicated, means this man who has been born blind cannot now have a job, perhaps cannot purchase items in the marketplace. He has no family supporting him. It's gone from bad to worse.
Why?
Because he's standing for Christ.
It's not just a message of Old Testament times. It is a message of our time as well.
For the sake of righteousness, God's people may suffer.
Some of you may know the New York City Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who in the fall made news for declaring this the new age of Christian martyrs, noting that since 2000, over a million Christians have been killed in this world for their faith. The largest number of Christians killed in any century, and it's already happened in this century, and we're only a decade and a half into it.
It's not just decades.
You must recognize if you just take what has happened at this time, the words of Jesus ring true. In this life, you will suffer for my namesake. If you name the name of Jesus, there will be a cost because righteousness must be purchased and sometimes it is purchased with the blood and the tears of God's people.
This week, not years ago, this week in North Korea, news was made worldwide because the vice president, the uncle of the ruling leader, was executed by his nephew. But what was lost in all that news was the Christians who were executed in North Korea. This week, do you know why?
Because they possessed Bibles, that was their offense.
In Iran, Iranian-American pastor, Sared Abedini, was moved to a prison for hardened criminals with the assumption that he will die there or be killed by Muslim criminals within the prison.
Why? What was his offense?
Departing the security of the nation.
That's the charge.
What did he do to jeopardize the security of the nation?
He met with a small group of people for church in his house.
This week in Egypt, former Muslim, Armia Ballous, was tortured and imprisoned.
Why? What was his offense?
He was a Muslim who now claims Christ.
And in Egypt, under the current government, that is against the law.
In the Central Africa Republic, this week, 700 killed in religious fighting that left also three pastors murdered.
And if those realms sound different to you, consider what happened in Libya this week.
Ronnie Smith, in his early 20s, a young man that I have known from the gospel coalition,
gunned down by the American embassy as he and his wife were in Libya to take the gospel. I couldn't help but think of it here as Steve and Robin were up here just a little while ago. And to think a young couple like this sent by a church in Texas, man, I know, gunned down this week for righteousness sake, standing for the gospel.
His wife, Anita, said what he was doing was this. We simply wanted others to treasure Christ above all things. And so we were teaching English in Libya as a way of doing that.
Why do Christians suffer?
Because for the sake of righteousness.
And the righteousness itself becomes the witness that is needed. It's no mystery to me, I hope it's no mystery to you, that John takes special purpose in verse 7 when Jesus says, "Go wash in the pool of Siloam to translate for us what Siloam means."
Sent.
"I'm sending you to the pool named Sent." Why? You have to walk all the way down the hill through friends and neighbors and family and religious leaders. They have to see you walking down the hill to the pool and then you've got to come back up.
You are a testimony to what I have done simply in responding to the grace of God in your life. And of course, witness is part of what God is calling us to. And we suffer not only for righteousness sake, many times Christians are called to suffer for witness sake. I think how it happens in this chapter in verse 9. Yes, the man just says, "First of all, look, it's really me. I'm the one healed. It's me, really."
But then by verse 11, the man called Jesus did this. Verse 17, he's a prophet. Verse 25, "I don't know how you explained this, but I was blind and now I see." And by the end of the chapter, verses 35 through 38, Jesus asked him, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" The man says, "Who is that?" Jesus said, "Well, the one talking to you."
And the man says, "I believe."
There has been a progress in his life even though he has suffered much, and all he has done is to say who Jesus is and what he's done and what I now believe.
It's the progress of witness, and it's not something just ancient in the books. I wish all of you could have been with us that night when this church hosted a supper for those families who were affected by the tornadoes in this area. And without prompting, without scheduling, without people deciding what they would say together, virtually every family said the same thing. As awful as this crisis has been, as terrible as it has been to lose so much that we hold dear, we recognize that this is the moment.
This is the time in our lives to have the most powerful witness to our neighbors that we have ever had. We hate the loss, but we rejoice in the opportunity. We recognize that calamity may be for the sake of witness for people who need to know that earthly things are not their hope, that they have to rest their hope in eternal things. And this is our opportunity to say to them, "We don't value the earthly things more than we value eternity, and we can lose those things and still have the joy of the Lord that comes from the light of knowing Him."
Sometimes, we recognize that calamity, not only at not conviction, it is for the sake of righteousness, it may be for the sake of witness, but always it is for the sake of our souls.
Listen, we cannot deny as Christians who read the scope of Scripture that at times calamity may come as discipline. I mean, that's what the book of Hebrews says in the 12th chapter. But then adds these words, "God only disciplines those that He," what?
"Loves."
Wait, I don't understand. Well, just for the moment, hold to this.
God did not say He punishes those that He loves.
That is a principle irreconcilable with the grace of the gospel. I know it's going to sound strange, but I want you to hear me through. God never punishes believers. Never.
The punishment that we deserve was put on whom?
On Jesus Christ. Punishment carries the notion of penalty, of hurt or harm. And all the penalty for our sin, past, present, or future, was put upon Jesus Christ upon the cross. We bear it no more.
If discipline comes, it has an entirely different object. No penalty, no harm, that is not its purpose. Where discipline comes, we are told it has a purpose, that it, though it does not seem pleasant for the moment, will in God's time bear a harvest of peace and righteousness.
That if we are going down a path to our own harm, if we are going down a path that would take us away from the assurances of the gospel, discipline may come, but it is only fatherly. It is only for those that He loves to turn them back into a path that is better for them. That is all that God will do these days. If there is calamity, it may be, not always, it may be for discipline's sake.
But it is always for the soul's sake. Because what is happening through the calamities of the world is we are being loosened in our grasp upon earthly things.
Listen, even as families in our church have been affected by the tornadoes, and we have heard amazing testimonies of people saying, "While we suffered so much, it has in some ways been the most wonderful weeks of our lives to be able to see our testimony have such impact and power for our neighbors. And while we want to rejoice in that, we have to at the same time say, "But it still hurts.
It still really hurts to lose everything."
And that is actually part of the progress of grace in our lives to say, "Do not rest your hope here.
Do not rest your hope on these things." This man, though he has released from blindness, though he knows Christ now, he suffers. He goes through hard things. Why? So that ultimately we say, "Jesus, I believe You and the eternal things You offer and not the things of this earth."
It's because of those eternal things that we recognize what Jesus is teaching us here is how we have to approach others as well if we are going to have His light. It is so amazing the progress of the gospel in this man's life goes from compassion to convincing, but also in that order.
Compassion from Jesus comes before the man is convinced of who Jesus is.
Why is that pattern important?
Because there's sometimes a tug of war that goes on the church between those who say, "We are word people," and those who say, "We are deed people." Right? Those who say, "I want all our efforts evangelistically and spiritually to be about the eternal things," and others who are saying, "We have to show the mercy of God." And what Jesus is doing here is not allowing us to polarize these two things, word and deed.
They must be allies. And at times, compassion even proceeds convincing. This man doesn't deserve to be helped by Jesus. Remember, if you were to read verses 5 and following very closely, you will recognize he never asked for Jesus' help. Never does.
Jesus calls to him, puts the boat on his eyes, and even after he has helped him, it isn't until the end of the chapter that the man recognizes him to be the Son of God.
Up until that time, he's being helped without deserving, which, by the way, is a wonderful grace principle, to be helped before you deserve it.
Sometimes we get confused in the church because we know we want to offer help in a way that makes people responsible, and we begin to say to ourselves, "Well, then I don't have to help until you become responsible. I shouldn't help until you deserve it." And I will tell you clearly, that is not the gospel.
There is compassion before the man is convinced of the gospel truth at all. As the Word follows the deed, as deeds open the door to understanding the mercy of the gospel, and then the merciful one is understood.
We have to understand that. I will just tell you straight out, increasingly in a culture that is secularized and calloused to the things of Christ, people will increasingly read the mercy of the gospel through the lens of mercy expressed.
And that's going to call more and more upon us as a church to say, "What will it mean to us?" Listen, this is not news for this church. As Christ Himself expresses compassion before convincing, I've rejoiced in this church how many of you are involved in rescue missions. How many of you helped with those who were involved in the tornadoes, believers and nonbelievers? How many of you helped, as it were, those who need tutoring in the school system of the city? How many of you provided shoeboxes for Samaritan's Purse? How much mercy is being expressed? And I just want to say, we will have to do more of that. As we unfold this comprehensive call for our church for the coming year and coming years, I'm just telling you the leadership of this church is going to say more and more for us to have a hearing in this culture. We may have to express compassion in order to get a hearing for who the Son of God is. And it's not foreign to the gospel. It is the way the gospel has moved in this church for generations, the way you and your fathers and forefathers have served this community, and we're going to have to renew it and maybe intensify it so that we will win a hearing for the gospel in this community. It's what Jesus does.
We may say, "Well, it just won't make a difference. People are too hardened and they're too calloused and it just won't make a difference."
But then we don't hear the final message in the light of Jesus in this passage. You know what that final light beam is saying? This simple truth, "Light conquers night."
Won't make a difference? How could you say that? This man believes, well, of course, he has blindness healed. But why is it recorded for us so that we will see the reality of who is present in this man's life? Listen, the fact that it is a blind man healed and given sight is no just kind of chance miracle, no happenstance.
If you were to go through the Old Testament and see what the most common characteristic is of the Messiah to come, how we will note Him, the most common characteristic given to Him is that He will give sight to the blind.
It is the most common miracle attributed to the coming Messiah. And if you were then to go through the New Testament and you begin to catalog all the miracles of Jesus, listen, different kinds, right? The coin out of the fish's mouth, yes. Healing lame people, yes.
But do you know what the most consistent miracle of Jesus is in the Bible?
Giving sight to the blind.
What's He declaring?
There have been centuries of darkness, centuries of wonder. Will He come? Will He do? Is He who He says He is? And suddenly here is the message. Light has conquered night. I am the light of the world. The light that shines around the manger scene is the light that shines upon the cross and will shine in eternity. He is the one who has come. The Messiah is here. He is the light of the world and He shows Himself to be perhaps more telling than any other fact is. Not only does Jesus do healing of the blind as His most common miracle, it's not repeated by any apostle.
As though they are not going to take this light from Jesus, it shines entirely on Him to say He has come. The light has conquered the night.
But then He calls us to share that light.
Isn't it interesting?
You go to the pool called Scent and then when you come back, you know what's going to have to happen?
You're going to have to tell other people what happened to you.
And He does.
Listen, I don't know all who He is. I don't have the great theology to teach you, but this I know.
I was blind, but now I see.
It's ultimately what we are called to say to family and friends at Christmastime. We're called to say to co-workers and we say, "I don't have the right words. They know who I am too much. I don't think I'm capable of being a witness for Christ."
Listen, if Jesus could use dirt and spit, He can use you.
Say what happened to you.
I was in the dark. I was hopeless. I lost so much, but I have hope again. I have joy again. It may be the things in my life that I thought were bringing me happiness, my career, my income, my house, my family.
Maybe all that's fragile and fracturing in some way, but I have hope.
I can see beyond the darkness. I can see beyond what this world holds. I'm seeing the world of Christ, which is the eternal things unfolding where there is the promise of life eternal and sight given and life renewed and the lame walking and the old renewed and the reunion of families like they never have been on this earth. That is what Christ is promising. And that world, as I believe in Him, is unfolding to me. That's the light that I see. Even if you think, "I'm not the witness that I should be," just say what Jesus has done for you. And as you share the care, the message moves.
I can't think of it more powerfully expressed than what something Karen Fry told us about her experience working with the tornado-affected families in Washington. And as she helped people set up the free Walmart and took people through, Karen talked about one young woman who came one day who'd lost everything.
And as she had lost everything, she'd almost lost her ability to emote anymore. Karen said that when she stood in the door of the free store, it was like she was totally flat and emotion and affect just couldn't express anything anymore.
But Karen invited her in and signed somebody to walk with her through the store to collect the things that she might need.
And just in God's wonderful providence, as this young woman was being steered through the Walmart free store, she came to a place where hairbrushes were being distributed and, you know, by people's generosity, hundreds.
But the one who was taking her through the free Walmart, reached in, pulled out one,
not knowing it was precisely like the one that the young woman had lost in the tornado but used every day.
And when she saw that hairbrush come out, the smile came on her face. There's something more powerful than wind, more enduring than our affections.
It is the work of God.
The young woman took the brush, gathered up more supplies, took them and went to her mother's house.
And Karen said, "In an hour, came back with her mother to work in the store and serve others."
She had lost everything.
But the care of the Lord had come into her heart, and that was now hers to share.
What does God call you to do?
To share the light. How do you do that?
Just say how He cared for you.
And when you do that, you will multiply the light of Christ as you share His light with a world in darkness that needs Him and you to tell them about Him.
How so work in us, we pray, that we who have known the light might reflect it, radiate it, multiply it for Christ's sake. And where we feel incapable, where we wonder what we should say or do, would you help us just to say what we know you have done for us? And when you do that, Father, we know that we will be part of the heralds of the light of God. So use us, we pray, to show Christ's light into this community, into our families, into this world, for Christ's sake we pray. Amen.