There are a lot of people in our world today and in our community who feel like they cannot see. They feel like they are going around in the dark. They feel lost in the world. Forbes magazine had an article a few years ago written by a popular psychologist and author. In the introduction of the article he said, “I’m going to examine eight reasons why so many of us feel lost in our lives.” He identified the various causes of people’s lost feeling as following…

– Drift Syndrome. Many can’t figure out why they’re doing what they’re doing, how they ended up working the job they’re working or living in the place they’re living. They didn’t plan to be where they are. They feel a bit adrift.

– Too busy to do something they’re passionate about. He says for many their job is not something they’re passionate about. It’s just a means to pay the bills. And they’re so busy with their job and other daily routine responsibilities that they don’t have time for anything they love doing. He says that’s a reason for the lost-ness many feel.

– Can’t locate a purpose. They’ve not found a meaningful reason for being. They feel there should be, but they can’t see. So they feel lost and in the dark.

– Cognitive overload; when we’re getting text messages and emails and phone calls constantly, and media input from the radio and the television and the mail and the phone. For many people there’s so much information coming to them from all different sides, they can’t process it all, and it results in mental fogginess and feeling a bit lost and confused.

– Related to that – Distractions which fragment our focus; when we can’t focus our time and energy on any one project without being distracted by our smart phones, email, news alerts, TV. We don’t want to miss out on anything, so we’re constantly distracted.

– Bad diets which fog the mind.

– Media representations which create false expectations. Many look on the TV and see the perfect people and how things are “supposed to be”, and things aren’t like that for them, and they just can’t see how they could ever be what others think they’re supposed to be.

For all those reasons many feel lost and in the dark. This psychologist, as many others, would counsel you that the steps out of that feeling are things like “carving out time in your schedule for passionate pursuits, whatever they may be (music, art, writing, movies, volunteering, etc).” And through that, he suggests, you may find the sense of purpose you’re missing. He would advise that you limit the cognitive input; turn the TV off and leave the phone at home sometimes, and remove the unimportant distractions and eat healthy and don’t buy in to the media’s portrayals of how you’re supposed to be and what you’re supposed to have. And I’m sure those steps would help people to not feel so lost and in the dark and adrift.

But I bring you the word of the One who made us this morning. Thus says our God, unless Jesus Christ opens our eyes and illumes our world, then whether we feel it or not, we are lost in darkness and do not know where we are going (cf. John 12:35). John 8:12, Jesus declared to a crowd in Jerusalem, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

We’re going to look at an event this morning recorded in John 9 that took place later the same day that Jesus declared Himself to be the light of the world.

Jesus opens the eyes of a blind man (John 9:1-7)

“As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth.” It was a pitiful sight, this man. The text will later tell us the man was a beggar. I imagine for hours every day this poor man sat there in his darkness, helpless and begged.

Jesus’ disciples see this man’s terrible situation. And you know how sometimes people seem to forget that people nearby can hear them talking about them. That’s kind of how I picture the scene here. Right in front of this poor man the disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” It was orthodox Jewish theology at the time. If you see a person who is healthy and wealthy, God must really love them. If you see somebody who is poor or unhealthy, that means God has placed a curse on them. So when they see this pitiful beggar blind from birth they think either he or his parents must have really made God mad. Maybe God knew something terrible this man was going to do in his life and started punishing him from birth before he even did it.

3 Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. ” He was not born this way as a punishment for sin. He was born this way primarily for this very moment. Really as this story unfolds, you’ll find his years of blindness that seemed like a curse were actually a gracious act of God, because it prepared this man to see forever. So God planned for this moment and set this man up for this moment in which God would demonstrate to him and all who hear of this what He and Jesus can do in people.

Verse 4, Jesus says, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me [you might want to underline the word ‘sent’, and you’ll see why in just a bit] as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” In other words, God has given us a lot of work to do and not a lot of time in which to do it. So even though it’s the Sabbath day, as we will see, and it will go against the Pharisees’ interpretation of how the Sabbath should be observed and they will condemn us for it, we cannot let that delay us from doing the good work God wants us to do. We cannot put off good works in order to appease judgmental people. We don’t have time for that. So I’m going to do this good work though it won’t be popular with some.

But before He does it, at verse 5, He again makes this declaration. This is what this good work will illustrate and confirm. “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” The statement suggests something about the world, that the world is in need of light. The world is in darkness. The world’s situation is like that of this blind man. The world cannot see. But Jesus is the Light, who can enable the world to see.

The method He takes to heal the blind man is very interesting. He “haawk twaw!” to make a little mud. Then He picked up the mud and smeared it on the blind guy’s eyes. Then He said to the blind guy, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” Now, Jesus didn’t need mud to cure the man’s blindness, did He? He healed  all kinds of infirmities and even raised the dead with no ingredients. And this wasn’t a quick convenient thing Jesus told the man to do. The way this chapter is introduced, sounds to me like Jesus is exiting the temple when He passes by this blind man. Well, if this guy is sitting close to the border of the temple complex, he’s probably three quarters of a mile from where recent archaeology has found this pool of Siloam. Going three quarters of a mile through busy streets was no convenient thing for a blind guy. Why did Jesus tell him to do this? John helps us. He tells us the word Siloam means “sent,” S E N T. We saw in verse 4, and we can find all throughout the gospel of John over and over again, Jesus is called the One God has sent. Jesus heals this man in this strange way to illustrate how every human being in the world can receive the ability to see beyond what our physical eyes can see. To see the unseen realities you must come to the One whom God has sent and through listening carefully to Him and letting Him teach you and trusting Him and complying with what He tells you to do, you allow Him to wash away all the crud of ignorance and misconceptions and doubt and let Him show you the way things really are.

“So he went away and washed and came back seeing.” Can you imagine? As he wiped the mud from his eyes, for the first time in his entire life he saw water. For the first time in his entire life he saw his hands. All his life, he heard people talking about colors and now he saw what they were. As he lifted his head he saw for the first time people walking around, and buildings and trees and blue sky and birds.

You know, when Jesus takes a person who is totally spiritually blind and opens their eyes, it’s like that. Everything in the world and everyone they see is new. They see the whole world like they have never seen it before. All of the sudden the birds in the tree are not a product of just chance and natural processes. They are the handiwork of our heavenly father. The bird’s voices, my Father gave them. The sunset is not just the way light beams are reflecting off stuff. It’s a reflection of the beautiful creative mind of our Father. Glacier Park is not a geological phenomenon. It is a little expression of the power and glory of my Father. The stars that fill the night sky are not just luminous balls of hydrogen and helium, but demonstrations of the big-ness and power and eternality and incomprehensibility of my Father.

And people… people are no longer a bother, people are no longer a nuisance, people are no longer objects to be used. When Jesus opens your eyes, people, all of them, even if they’re very different from you, are precious souls made in the image of your Father like you, loved so immensely He gave His Son for them.

And death … Death is not the end if we walk in the light to it. Death is only the end of chapter one of our never ending story.

And money and possessions look so different when Jesus opens your eyes. They’re no longer something to be amassed and held on to. They’re just tools to be used to advance the gospel and build and strengthen the family of God.

Have you allowed Jesus to open your eyes? What happens to a person who was blind, but now really sees? Well, a couple things illustrated in this text…

Radical Transformation (John 9:8-9)

Verses 8-9, “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?” 9 Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” [It does kind of look like him. Maybe it’s his brother.] He kept saying, “I am the man.” Why was it hard for them to recognize him? Certainly, the seeming impossibility of a man born blind and then seeing would be part of it. But I think another part of it was the fact that the countenance of his face and his demeanor and the way he acted was all very different. There was a smile and joy and wonder in his face they’d never seen before. There was a confidence and certainty in his face and his movements they’d never seen. He had energy and enthusiasm like they’d never seen in him.

That’s how radical the change is if Jesus opens our eyes… I mean if He really opens our eyes, not just that we get the concepts and pretend to believe, but if the unseen realities Jesus reveals become real to us, like the things we see with our physical eyes are real to us, it radically transforms us.

II Peter 1:5, “Make every effort to add to your faith, moral excellence… knowledge… self-control… perseverance… godliness… affection for the brethren… love.“… Verse 9 “For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted…” If you are no longer blind or shortsighted, if Jesus really opens your eyes, then you love your neighbor, you have affection for your fellow believers, you are not still unforgiving, bitter or jealous or angry, you take sin seriously, money is no longer so important to you, doing the will of the God who loves you and is saving you is the most important thing in the world to you, you pray regularly because you see what happens when you pray…

He who lacks these qualities, he whose attitude and behavior and priorities are like the blind world around them, has not yet really had his eyes opened.

This radical transformation is a reason why many choose to remain in their blindness. It seems strange that anyone would choose to remain blind, but billions do. They’re comfortable in their blindness. They know if they go to the pool of Siloam and wash, if they go to Jesus humbly, sincerely, seriously, seeking, asking, listening, complying, He just may actually open their eyes and they will see stuff that will compel them to change. But they don’t want to change. They enjoy their sin. They enjoy being selfish. John 3:19, “the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”

But those who love the darkness don’t understand how wonderful it is to see, and the changes that result in no way dilute or dull or take the fun out of life, but enhance your life with meaning and purpose and confidence and hope and excitement and joy and peace. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and self-control. The kingdom of God, Romans 14:16, is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Here’s another thing that will likely happen to you if you were blind but now you see is…

Conflict with those who hate Jesus (John 9:10-24)

“10 So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14  Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15  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.” 16 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 signs?” And there was a division among them. 17 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.” “I think He’s on team God. I don’t think He could have done this for me if He did not have God on His side.” (Jesus did not just help the man with His physical sight but His spiritual sight as well.)

18  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 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. 21 But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” 22 (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

The threat of expulsion from the synagogue was very scary for Jews.

“The synagogue was more than a place of worship. Synagogues were central to commerce and economic livelihood. The synagogue also served as the community school. Legal judgments in civil matters were often made there. It was a place to administer the financial aid and relief the community provided for its own. If you were put out of the synagogue, you were an outcast—unable to continue as a member of Jewish society. You might as well move to Egypt and become an Egyptian.” (https://jewsforjesus.org/publications/havurah/havurah-mm96-02/it-s-no-fun-being-shunned/)

It’s likely many of the original readers of John’s gospel had been or were threatened with being expelled from their local synagogue. The man who was blind and now sees is being put in that very situation. This would be a powerful story for them. And it should be for us if we have friends, or co-workers, or customers, or family, or neighbors who hate Jesus and hate those who confess to believe in Him.

“24 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.” They’re going to force him to choose a side – them or Jesus.

This is another reason many don’t want to go to the pool of Siloam and wash, but rather remain in their blindness. It’s because they know if their eyes are opened and they’re compelled to change, then likely they will lose certain friendships and acceptance and respect and perhaps business from certain people. And it’s very scary to them.

But let’s look here at…

What happens in and through conflict with those who hate Jesus

25 He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27 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?” 28 And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” 30 The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. 33  If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

Do you notice how his spiritual vision was refined in the conflict? How his sight got better and better? Verse 25, “Whether He is a sinner I do not know.” But then as He’s challenged and thinks more about their reasoning and experiences their irrational hatred, suddenly good and evil, truth and error, friends of God and enemies of God, come more into focus. When the alternative is put on the table, He realizes “No way is Jesus a sinner! He has to at least be a worshiper of God who does His will, for God to hear Him. If He were not from God, no way could he open my eyes!” And I think as we experience hatred, the Lord sharpens our vision through conflict with those who hate Him. When we’re challenged to think and decide, and when the other alternatives are put on the table before us and we see how unreasonable and wrong they are…the truth and error comes more into focus.

34 They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.

What do you think? Was it a tragedy for this man to be cast out from them? Would it be a tragedy if you were cast out of the “in” crowd, whatever the “in” crowd is in your life? He was free now, from feeling the pressure everybody else felt to please these men. He was free from their influence. And I think the answer to that question is very clear when you read what happened next.

35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out [And you know, if they cast you out of the “in” crowd at the office, if they cast you out of the “in” crowd at school or in your family, because you confess your faith in Jesus, then Jesus will hear that they cast you out! And when Jesus heard that they cast him out, Jesus went and found him. Jesus quit whatever He was doing, for this man. Jesus put everything else aside for a while, for this man. Jesus focused His attention on this man. This man was put out of the “in” crowd of the Jews, but he endeared himself to the Lord of heaven and earth. And so will we if we are unashamed of Him. Jesus said, “Whoever confesses Me before men, I will confess before the angels of God.”

“having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”  36 He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.”  38 He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.” Jesus continued to open his eyes.

Verse 39, “Jesus said, “For judgement I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Jesus as the light of the world will do one of two things with everyone, He will either open your eyes to see forever, as He did with this blind man, or He will take away what vision you have, and you will never see again (cf Deuteronomy 28:28-29, Zechariah 11:17). Like the headlights of cars in the dark; if you’re going with the headlights and you’re in the car, they enable you to see, but if you’re going the opposite direction, against the lights, they will blind you.

I hear Jesus saying, “I am the Light of the world. And those who come to Me humbly and sincerely and they turn around and go with Me, they are going to see forever.” But if you continue to go against Him, you’ll never see again.

Verses 40-41, “Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” ⁴¹ Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.” I think He means, if you were physically blind so you couldn’t see all the miracles and signs I’ve been doing, then you’d have an excuse at the moment for not accepting Me. But because you say “we see the evidence,” yet you’re still rejecting Me, then your rejection is evil and irrational and your guilt remains.

This is the reality of our existence. The One God has sent us is the Light of the world. And if you’re hesitant to allow Him to open your eyes because you’re comfortable in your blindness, and you don’t want to lose acceptance with certain people… I so hope you’ll reconsider. Because the change that results, does not dilute your experience of life, rather it enhances it tremendously. And being cast out is not all that bad; it’s freeing, it will endear you to the Lord of heaven and earth, it will draw you closer to the people you want to be close with, and you never know, you may help some of those old friends to follow you to the Light. Those of us who have experienced Jesus opening our eyes, we mean it when we sing, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”

-James Williams