Lord, I Believe

Oculi - February 27, 2005

John 9:13-17, 34-39

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

How many people do you know who were born blind? At a guess, I would believe that few of you here knew someone born blind. There might be one or two that you may know who were born blind, but not many.

In my life I dealt with many people who were physically handicapped since their birth. Tyler, my brother, was born with Spina Bifida, paralyzed from the navel down. As our family was part of the Spina Bifida support group in Green Bay, I knew numerous children born with this defect.

Since there really was nothing available financially to support this group, at least not like the financial support rendered for those born with Muscular Dystrophy, this group would always be recipients of the MD telethon done in Green Bay which was run on the same day as the Jerry Lewis Telethon for MD. I even got to meet some of the stars of Hogan’s Heros one year who had come celebrity volunteers to help with the Green Bay telethon. I even got to sing on TV with Colonel Klink.

As Tyler began his education, he attended a special school for students with special needs. At functions there, I met many who were born with various kinds of birth defects - from MD, SB, Down Syndrome, and others - even some who were born blind.

While at the Seminary, there was a group that wanted to make students aware of those with special needs. We decided to take a week and have special needs highlighted each day. I came to school one day, as part of that program, acting as if an accident had injured my eyes. I came to school with them bandaged - bandaged so well that I didn’t have to act blind, I was.

As I got a ride to school, I thought I’d be able to get around pretty well on campus, because I was a security guard on campus during the night shift. I thought I knew the campus pretty well in the dark and would be able to function without my eyes. Ooops! Being blind isn’t fun.

But I’d take being physically blind over living my entire life - and into eternity - in spiritual blindness.

A couple years ago, we were in Denver. We went to a cowboy show. There was a young boy sitting not to far away. His eyes were closed, held that way with what looked like stick-pins in them. Timothy asked me what it was all about. It is always better to go up and ask, than it is to stare. So, we went over and asked the boy’s father. He had been born blind, the pins held his eyes shut, but they also held eyeball shaped objects in the eye sockets so that the bones would of his face would develop properly - as if there were eyes in his sockets.

Timothy asked if they were Christians. Then he asked if they would mind if he’d pray for the boy. You know, I have prayed for Daniel since then.

It is tough to imagine life without lights and colors and sights, yet the blind often compensate with their other senses. As blindness is a malady of Multiple Schlerosis, my mother was effectively blinded. However, she could recognize family and friends just by the sound of their footsteps. Tyler was a dead give-away, his wheelchair had a distinctive squeak, I even recognized his approach.

This is a longer introduction than I normally have, but maybe a little blindness awareness is a good thing - as it is also to become aware of others in their handicaps. A good lesson? Because they are normal people. If you want to know what or why someone is the way they are, go up and ask. It is more polite than staring and wondering.

Back to blindness. Someone born blind would literally look blind to others. No eyes in the sockets would be a dead give away. Why do you think that some wear dark glasses, like Ray Charles? Those born blind would be a gruesome sight to others.

Our text revolves around a man born blind, in fact Jesus says, “For judgement I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.

How many of you here were born blind? I don’t see any hands.

The Pharisees questioned the man born blind about how he had received his sight. He told them Jesus put mud on his eyes, he then washed, and now sees. Some of the Pharisees proclaimed that Jesus, who did the healing, could not be from God. Why? Because He had healed on the Sabbath. Others asked, “How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?”

Even with our medical advances, there is no way to give sight to someone born blind. It is a medical and scientific impossibility. There is a section of the conversation missing in our text, verses 18-33. In that part, the Pharisees questioned the man’s parents to determine if he’d really been born blind. If so, how could they explain the miracle? The man’s parents, out of fear, avoided the question. They knew that those who proclaimed that Jesus is the Christ, and Christ had performed the miracle, would be kicked out of the synagogue. And so, they diverted the question and told the Pharisees to ask their son, he’s of age.

His answer is more than we have in our text. He began his answer by stating that Jesus is a prophet. But then, he even said, “Do you want to be His disciples too?” Ooo, they didn’t like that at all.

Since they didn’t like his answer, they had their own response? “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us.”

He was steeped in sin at birth? How did they know? They made that assumption from the fact that he was born blind. A physical defect was evidence of sin.

If being born blind happens because you are steeped in sin, then how many of you were born blind? I don’t need to see your eyes to know you were all born blind - just as I was. You were born steeped in sin. I don’t need to see your eyes because I know the Scriptures - the same Scriptures the Pharisees had and should have knowb from memory - but ignored. They had the words of King David in Psalm 51. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.

Every single one of us was born spiritually blind, dead even - dead in trespasses and sin. In Scripture, we can look and see that, that when blind eyes are opened, they see and believe that Jesus is the Christ. Blindness that brings eternal peril is spiritual blindness.

That is why I said earlier that I’d rather go through life physically blind than be spiritually blind, like the Pharisees. The Pharisees rejected Jesus, and the firmer their resolve to reject the one who came to save them from their sins, the blinder they became.

The Pharisees claimed the blind man was born steeped in sin. In the process they denied that they were also born steeped in sin - they denied God’s own Word about themselves. They claimed that they were good, so good, that they had earned God’s benevolence toward them.

While the Pharisees were blind to their own sin, the man born blind, never denied that he was born steeped in sin. His sinfulness had been evident to him since the time of his own birth.

Even as each of us in born sinful, and the wages of sin - death - are made evident in the frailty of our flesh in different ways, so also the very sins we commit differ from person to person. When we do not admit our sinfulness, blindness takes over. It is so very easy to slip into the false holiness of the Pharisees and feel justified before God. It is then that we are in danger of becoming blinded by Christ.

That is why Paul wrote in our Epistle, “you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.”

Your eyes have been opened, not only to see your sinfulness, but to see the grace of God in Christ Jesus. The man in our text declared that fact that he could see when Jesus asked the man, “Do you believe in the Son of Man? The One speaking to you?”

His response, which showed that God had opened His eyes of faith, was, “Lord, I believe!”

Do you believe in the Son of Man? Do you believe that His life was given unto suffering, and death to make the blind see? Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith!

To say, “Lord, I believe.” Is to proclaim that you know that only in Christ Jesus is there forgiveness and life. To say this is to proclaim that only by the Word made flesh can you see eternal life. Christ heals blind eyes with the healing balm of His Word and His sacraments.

Christ comes to open the eyes of the blind by the forgiveness of sin and by building faith. He opens eyes so that they might see their need for a Savior and that in Christ, they may know with absolute confidence they have one. Dear friends, proclaim with me, I once was blind, but now I see. Your eyes have been opened to confess your need for Christ as your Savior - Lord, I believe! Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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