Clearly Seeing Jesus

Clearly Seeing Jesus

John 9: 1-12 March 2, 2008

This morning we have another one of those beautiful stories of Jesus healing someone. Today, he heals a man who was born blind… A man that had never been able to see… And man that could truly say, “I once was blind, but now I see!”

In this scripture, as always, Jesus takes an everyday situation and uses it for a spiritual lesson – because here Jesus uses this blind man to illustrate another kind of blindness – Spiritual Blindness…

I’m sure it’s awful to be blind – not to be able to physically see things… But I think it’s worse to be Spiritually blind… Because when you’re Spiritually blind, you have no hope and you have no joy and you have no life…

When you’re Spiritually blind about the only thing you can see is yourself… and that’s a miserable sight… When you’re Spiritually blind you can’t see others, you can’t see Jesus, you can’t see God…

When we look at our scripture, the first thing that we see is HOW PEOPLE SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY…

Notice than when Jesus saw this man, he saw a BLIND Man that needed his help…

The disciples saw this same man and immediately they classified him as a sinner, for they asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

There is an interesting theological point here… The religious leaders of Jesus’ time had the mistaken notion that persons who were down on their luck were in that fix because they had sinned… and this was God’s judgment upon them for their wrongdoings…

So these blind people, or lame people, or leprous people, or poor people were looked down upon by society as sinners, as wicked people and they were shunned…

But Jesus didn’t see them as wicked people or sinners… He saw them as children of God, as persons of integrity and worth, as members of God’s family, as His brothers and sisters… And he loved them and embraced them, and healed them…

And that’s what Jesus does for this blind man… Notice this… He spits on the ground and made mud with the saliva and then he anoints the man’s eyes with the mud…

Jesus anoints the man’s eyes with the mud… Now, the most single important word in this whole passage is the word “Anoints.”

Listen to this… The word, the original Greek uses here for “anoints” is the same word it uses for the word “Christ”… which of course means “The Anointed One.”

Listen! He Anoints the man’s eyes! Or we could say, He “Christs” the man’s eyes! Isn’t that beautiful? He “Christs” the man’s eyes!

Let me ask you something. Wouldn’t it be nice to have our eyes “anointed” or “Christ-ed?”

We didn’t take the time to read the whole story, but it really is one of the great ones… Because it’s a story about blindness and sight, sickness and healing, prejudice and love, fear and faith, rejection and acceptance, defeat and victory…

But I think there is one question that just explodes out of this gospel story and addresses itself directly and personally to you and me… Namely this… Have your eyes been “Christ-ed?” Can you see with the vision of the Lord? Have your eyes been anointed with the Spirit of Christ?

Because when your eyes have been Christ-ed, first of all, IT CHANGES THE WAY THAT YOU SEE YOURSELF…

Listen! We are all born blind… All babies are born blind… Now don’t misunderstand me… I love babies… babies are wonderful… They represent God’s greatest miracle – the miracle of birth… But the truth is that they are born blinded by the cataracts of selfishness… That’s the way babies are…

They come into this world screaming: Do something for me! Feed me, love me, hold me, burp me, change me, rock me… and do it right now!

And throughout their infancy and childhood and sometimes the teen years and sadly sometimes even into adulthood for some… life is all about ME, ME, ME… Take care of me, please me, pamper me…

But in the Bible, time and again, Jesus makes it clear that one of the things that blinds us most is selfishness… and the only cure is to have your eyes “Christ-ed.”

To have your eyes “Christ-ed” moves us from selfish vision to service vision… It moves us from “Do something for me” to “Let me do something for you and for God and for others…”

Have your eyes been “Christ-ed?” Can you see beyond you own selfish desires? Do you see yourself not as one that needs to be pampered, but as one that is committed to be God’s servant?

But to have the eyes of Christ not only changes the way in which we see ourselves, but IT CHANGES THE WAY WE SEE OTHER PEOPLE…