I Was Blind But Now I See Series

Liz wanted to catch an earlier flight, but her work meetings ran long. She was the valedictorian of her class and graduated from Georgetown law firm. She had been texting with her mother throughout the day and looking forward to returning home to DC for her 33rd birthday. When she was supposed to land, her mother texted the word “Landed” with a question mark at 9:07 pm when she didn’t hear from her daughter. American Airlines Flight 5342 was just your typical midweek regional flight. Many of you have been on dozens of these kinds of flights. A mother and father with their two cats traveled to see their daughter who was away in college. A flight attendant switched careers in the middle of her life in order to see the world. Most of the 64 people on board had never met one another. It was the deadliest American plane crash in decades. As experts study the garbled recording of the plane’s black box, friends and family members cry out to God, “Why?” Nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus was faced with this question.

We resume our study of the gospel of John. Find John with 9 with me. For many of you country music singers, the legendary Hank Williams wrote a song entitled “I Saw the Light.”

The first verse:

“I wandered so aimless, life filled with sin

I wouldn't let my dear savior in

Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night

Praise the Lord, I saw the light”

Even though Hank Williams wrote those words almost a half a century ago, it could have been written and sung two millennia ago by a man whose name we do not know, but whose life we will never forget.1

Today’s Scripture

“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 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.” Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. 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?” Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 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.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know” (John 9:1-12).

A miracle occurs, but from the ensuing controversy, you wouldn’t know it. This man has congenital blindness. That’s when you have poor vision from birth.2 I have learned that there are a lot of adjustments blind people have to make.

Christina has been going blind since she was a teenager. She says many blind people prefer a cane because you can put a cane in a closet when you want to. A dog is wonderful, but they take a lot of caring and work as well. She says that even the white cane doesn’t always because her cane slips underneath tables and chairs, and it cannot tell her if there is overhanging brush. “You learn how to map out the world differently. Instead of reading the street signs, you count the number of intersections. You stop using the pedestrian signals to know when to cross the street, but look (or listen for) the traffic flow.” “Sometimes I use a human guide. I hate to do this, not just because it limits my independence, but because most people … are terrible at it. They’ll grab you and proceed to drag you, making you stumble and become disoriented. They’ll forget to stop before a step, so you fall. Even with instruction, guiding someone else is an intuitive exercise that not a lot of people have a talent for.”3

Under the sound of my voice are a number of people suffering from disabilities. We feel for you and want to come alongside you to alleviate your suffering. Disability is expensive — financially, emotionally, and relationally. Let’s leave the blind man for now and return to him in a minute to explore a question that gnaws at us.