"Was blind, but now I see..."

Pastor Ray
03/06/2005

“Was blind, but now I see…”
It’s Lent and as always, I get a little nostalgic as I think about what should be…. It’s another way of asking, What changes in life, and especially in my own life, would God like to see happen? It didn’t help that just a couple of days ago, a killer of thirty years was arrested… and much to the world’s surprise, he was a leader of his congregation. Killer and church person doesn’t seem to go together, does it? And, to make matters more vivid for us, this man, arrested as the alleged BTK villain, is the president of his ELCA congregation. How does that make you feel?
Nauseous is one word that comes to mind. But being the Lutheran that I am, I have to remember that he’s not yet convicted. Somehow I am to pray for him and for all those who have been harmed these past thirty years. Surely, God wants better for us. Has evil always been around? Or has life just recently gone wrong?
Well, I know that bad things have always happened, but life seems to have gotten worse. Leave the front door to my home unlocked all night long…. I don’t think so, yet, I remember my grandmother and her sister talking one day about the good old days when they never ever even considered having to lock the house.
It’s Lent and we reflect on how life could be better…. and how life has changed. My grandmother was born at the turn of the century as was my dear great-aunt. Imagine how much change they witnessed in their lifetime as horse and buggy sprouted wheels and gasoline motors. Imagine how much change -- as birds had to give over the right-of-way to giant airplanes.
And look around. We’re all sitting here in a heated and air conditioned building… no wood stoves allowed anymore. Some changes are indeed good! Yet there’s more. Change? Where’s the red book? And the sad … the Bible stories we all know… well, not everyone knows them all anymore.
Care to help me make the point. Let me ask you a couple of questions. “Who was swallowed by a whale?” (Jonah.) “And who led the children of Israel out of Egypt into the promised land?” (Moses.) I knew you knew the answers. Just like you know that the Ten Commandments are found in Exodus chapter 20. Here’s the change: Right down the street from where you and your family live, there are people who have no idea about the basic Bible characters and stories, or who God’s people are, or what’s a Commandment. Used to be that almost everybody could at least tell you which church they ought to be in on any given Sunday morning. Not today. Blind from birth you might say. But then, a couple of days ago, when the president of one of our Lutheran congregations is arrested for multiple murders, well, there’s a lot we can’t see.
Today, we who do know about God’s love are confronted in John’s Gospel with a man born blind who receives his sight. Jesus, you know, the Messiah, puts mud on a man’s eyes, tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam, and when he comes back, … he’s not blind anymore. That’s change. That’s a gift from God. That’s a miracle.
The once blind man who can now see, and stands now before Jesus looking at him, marveling at what has just happened. He has no idea who Jesus is. Prophet? Optometrist? Physician? He doesn’t have a clue. Then, Jesus tells him what he needs to know. Oh My Lord, it’s you. I didn’t know. Blind. But now I see. By God’s grace, lots of people who were once blind, now see. Of course, we’re talking about spiritual blindness. And by now, you too have thought of the old hymn, Amazing Grace, haven’t you? Maybe even hummed a couple of bars in your mind. The first time I read the history of this hymn, I was amazed to learn about its, John Newton. Truly a story of transformation and change of heart. He was a slave trader, blind to the call of God for human equality. And on one journey across the Atlantic in his boat filled with slaves stolen from their homeland …. John Newton was confronted with the story of God and right there on that ship, realized what it meant to see God for the first time. With a changed heart he quickly penned the words that we know all so well, “Was blind, but now I see.”
What a strange and wonderful story this is of a man once blind, but now who sees. What wonderful stories of two men given new sight… one blind from birth physically and one blind for a long, long time… by profession and trade. Once healed, you can almost see these men running around looking at the beauty of God’s new creation seeing things they had never seen before. The things we as children of God just simply take for granted. You understand my words here and all that they may mean, but would all your neighbors understand?
In John’s Gospel, we greet a man who represents the world so well… blind. For isn’t so much of the world blind to the power and mercy and presence of God. This one man, like all too many of us, is blind to what God offers in life, until Jesus, the Light of the World, reveals God’s healing message. Go and wash and you shall see. Go and wash and you shall be changed. Go and wash and you shall … never be the same again.
But down the street, maybe they don’t understand. They have no idea what has happened. They are too blind themselves to see God at work. So, God calls for us to simply re-tell the story… again. It’s in the telling of the story that others may come to understand and to know and to want to be able to see as well. But not all were interested. Not all would even listen. So Jesus said, those who were blind will see, but those who already “see” may plunge into darkness. Personally, I don’t like that. … Why can’t all of us see?
If we think we know all the answers, we are blind. But if we know that we are pitiful without the love and grace and power of God in our lives…. if we know that we are blind, then there’s hope.
In our Gospel, the once blind man discovers that Jesus is none other than his Lord and Savior. “Lord, I believe.” He says and worships him. You didn’t miss this, did you? : before his statement of faith and belief, Jesus had already healed the blind man. The man receives the loving touch of Jesus and is healed… and only then can he begin to understand and live in faith in the true fullness of life which God intends for all His people.
The challenge for us today is to know that God has already touched us. There’s no reason to be blind, or struggling, or unsure of our lives. God loves you. God claims you. Now go wash… and come back seeing the splendor of God’s kingdom which has been promised to you. Like the once blind man, we are called to tell and tell and re-tell the story…. That all may one day hear and believe and want to go wash as well.
It may take a long time to tell the story enough times that all the world will believe, but ‘til then, God was patient with me, and with many of you. So, doesn’t everyone deserve the same chance to see? After all, the same Jesus who gave sight to a blind man two thousand years ago…. is same Jesus who gave sight to a spiritually blind man, on a slave ship two hundred years ago… is the same Jesus who gave sight to us.
Through the generations, some things have changed, some for the better, some for the worse. But, in all of life, there is but one constant – the God who made the world is the same God who brings life and sight it as well.