Sermon from Sunday, 3 April 2011 Christ Church, Millwood, Cunningham Chapel The Rev. Karin MacPhail On the Sabbath Day, a blind man sits by the side of the road, not too far from the Temple. 1 His eyes may not work,but his hearing works perfectly. He hears a group of people walking towards him, coming from the Temple. They are talking, their voices growing louder as they approach him. One of them asks, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind? 2 The man has heard this question often enough, especially since he s been hanging around near the Temple, hoping for a miracle. The words sting nonetheless. He braces himself for the rabbi to condemn him or his parents for something they must have done to cause such shame and imperfection. But instead of words of judgment, the blind man hears a most extraordinary reply. The rabbi says, You re asking the wrong question. Don t look for someone to blame. Look instead for what God can do! The blind man is bewildered. He is grateful that this rabbi did not condemn him or his parents as so many others had done before. He is confused and curious about what the rabbi means. The rabbi continues, 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. As he is pondering these words, trying to make sense of this strange rabbi, the blind man feels someone come closer and touch his face. He feels pressure as a damp, gritty paste is smeared onto his eyes. The rabbi s voice says, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. As the man turns to go, he hears some of the others in the group say the rabbi s name. Jesus. Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, this Jesus said, so the blind man walks in that direction. He has spent much time there already, climbing down the steps into the stone-lined pool, hoping the pure water, which supposedly could cure leprosy and other diseases, would open his eyes. 1 Background information on the Pool of Siloam is taken from Archaelogists identify traces of miracle pool, (AP) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6750670/ns/technology_and_science-science/, Dedember 23, 2004. 2 The Message: The Bible in Contemporary English (translated by Eugene Peterson). Some biblical translations/interpretations in this sermon are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, some from The Message, and some are my own. 1
The Siloam Pool was connected to the Temple Mount. People with all sorts of disabilities, people who were barred from entry into the Temple, would wash themselves in this pool, hoping to be healed and allowed to enter the Temple. He had sipped from the pool, bathed in the pool, and dunked his head in the pool, but nothing had given him sight. So as he returns to the pool, he has little hope. He steps into the water, and scoops up a handful. He splashes the cool water on his eyes more to get his face clean of the muddy paste than for any chance of a cure. He washes the mud away and wipes his eyes. Suddenly light floods in. The man blinks and blinks. Tears spill out of his eyes tears of pain at the brightness of the sun, tears of confusion and joy and astonishment. For the first time in his life, the man can see his own hands, dripping with muddy water. He can see all of the other people gathered at the pool, washing, drinking, hoping. He stumbles back to the side of the pool, rubbing his eyes, choking on his sobs. The light is so bright, the people, the water, the pool, the sky, it s all too much. His life from birth has been a dark prison, and he is overcome by the light. The man climbs out of the pool and goes back to his usual spot. He doesn t recognize anyone because he has never seen any of these people before, but the voices he hears are familiar. He laughs a little because no one looks the way he imagined they would. He wants to shout for joy and praise God for this miracle. He wants his neighbors to join him in celebrating, but they stand apart from him, talking to one another. He hears them say, Isn t this the man who used to sit here and beg? Some say, Oh yes! It s him alright! Others say, No, no. Just someone who looks like him. The healed man jumps up and down, It s me!! Don t you see me? Don t you know me? I am the man you re talking about! But the neighbors are blind. They do not see him. They do not want to see the miracle. The will not see their way to rejoicing in God s good work. Some of the neighbors, even though they are skeptical, finally say to him, Fine. If you re the man, how were your eyes opened? Tell us that! He thinks about their question. He doesn t really know what happened or how it happened. He just tells them what he does know, The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and told me to go to Siloam and wash. I did what he said, and when I washed, I could see! So where is he? they ask him. I don t know, the man answers. The next day he sees these same neighbors and some others he hasn t seen before gathering in corners and at the market, huddling and whispering together. They are talking about Jesus he can hear that 2
name rising in almost all of the conversations. He hears some of them say that to make the paste he put on the man s eyes, Jesus must have kneaded the mud like dough, and kneading is prohibited on the Sabbath. The man cannot believe his neighbors are focusing on such a silly detail in the face of a miracle. He cannot believe how blind they all are to the glorious healing he has experienced! They seem to only see what they think is Jesus Sabbath transgression. Some of the neighbors take the healed man to the Pharisees. The Pharisees grill the man, You were born blind. Now you see. How did this happen? The man again answers, He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed. Now I see. He tries to make it as simple as possible. But he can t believe what he s seeing. The Pharisees begin to quarrel with themselves, just as his neighbors did. Some shout, Obviously, Jesus is not from God! He doesn t keep the Sabbath! Others wonder, But how can a sinner do miraculous, God-revealing things like this? The Pharisees are divided. They turn to the man, What do YOU say about him? It was YOUR eyes he opened! Before he can think, the words are out of his mouth, He is a prophet! What has he said? The words just spilled out, and now he s afraid. The Pharisees are aghast. They don t believe that Jesus is a prophet. The Pharisees are beginning to doubt the man was ever blind to begin with maybe this is all some big trick. They reject his testimony, and they call for his parents. He watches them bring in his mother and father for questioning. His parents tell the Pharisees that they don t know how their son was cured. He can hear the fear in their voices. They are worried about being punished, and they tell the Pharisees to ask the man himself. He is old enough to testify after all, and they weren t there when this miracle happened, so they don t know what to say. Suddenly, the man finds himself called back before the Pharisees. They make him swear an oath, and then they say to him, We know that Jesus is a sinner. The man realizes that he doesn t know anything about Jesus. He only knows that he was blind, and all of his life had been spent in darkness. And now he sees light, color, water, faces, his own hands, his parents, everything. He does not know that Jesus is a sinner, and he tells them so. The Pharisees ask him again how the healing took place, and now the man becomes angry. He realizes that no one cares about the miracle that has changed his life. No one is celebrating this transformation for which he had prayed and hoped. The Pharisees supposedly religious men are not interested in his healing. They are only interested in accusing Jesus, somehow using this glorious event to trap Jesus. 3
The man shouts at them, I ve told you over and over again, and you wouldn t listen! Why do want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? he asks them. He knows they do not. He can see they only want to make something wonderful into something terrible. The Pharisees snarl at him, You might be a disciple of this man, but we re disciples of Moses. We know for sure that God spoke to Moses, but we don t even know where this man comes from. Why are they so blind? Why don t they see that God is doing a new thing? The man feels his temper rise, and he shouts back, This is amazing! YOU don t 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. We have never heard of anyone opening the eyes of someone who was born blind never! If this man did NOT come from God, he could do nothing! As these words are pouring out of his mouth, the man knows that he has seen the truth more clearly than these holy and righteous men who are judging him. He feels something inside himself break open, and he understands that there is sight and there is blindness that have nothing to do with how a person s eyes work. He sees clearly that Jesus is from God, and that the Pharisees are blind. They think their sight and understanding are perfect, but they have shut their eyes tight to the deep truth, the revelation of God. They are blind more profoundly than he ever was. He looks up at the Pharisees, and they say to him, How DARE you take that tone with us?! You are nothing but dirt! And they throw him into the street. The man finds himself alone again, but he doesn t mind. He is overwhelmed, and he sits down to think about what has happened. He remembers that Jesus saw his blindness not as God s curse or punishment, but as an opportunity to glorify God. No one had ever seen him or his blindness that way before. He remembers that without being asked, Jesus healed him changed his life forever and then seemed to disappear. He marvels at the sudden miracle of his physical sight and the growing miracle of his inner sight. He wonders which one has changed him more. Then he feels a hand on his head. He looks up and sees a man he has never seen before. The stranger opens his mouth and asks, Do you believe in the Son of Man? The man doesn t know the face, but he knows the voice of the One who healed him. He would have recognized Jesus voice anywhere. The Pharisees threw him out he was alone and rejected again, as he had been for most of his life. But here is Jesus again. Jesus searched for him and found him. The man stares at Jesus. He has never seen anything as wonderful as this face of love and forgiveness. The face of the one who gave him sight. With tears in his eyes, and even though he knows the answer, he asks Jesus, And who is he, sir? Tell me so that I may believe in him. 4
Jesus says to the man, You re looking right at him. And the man, seeing Jesus, realizes that there is no sight without him, no light without him, no life without him. All is darkness without Jesus. He remembers what Jesus said before he put the mud paste on his eyes. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. The man knows that this is true. Lord, I believe, says the healed man, the man who can now see so clearly. And he worships Jesus. 5