The 1964 Philadelphia Phillies will always be known as the team that suffered one of the great collapses in sports history. They let a huge division lead slip away by losing ten games in a row at the end of the season. Despite the collapse, the Phillies season had its share of memorable moments, including a perfect game and a ninth-inning home run by a Phillie to win the All-Star Game.
But the most remarkable moment of the entire season occurred after a game, not during it. Clay Dalrymple, a Phillie pitcher, was asked to assist a blind girl who had requested a chance to walk out on the field. Dalrymple took the girl to home plate where she reached down and felt the plate. Then they walked to first base, second base, and third base before ending up at home plate once again.
While Dalrymple was showing the girl around the bases, he never noticed that the fans remaining in the stadium had stopped to watch him and his companion. He just assumed that the silence in the stands meant the fans had gone home. But when the two of them finally reached home plate, the ballpark erupted. Dalrymple was shocked by the applause. When he looked up, he saw thousands of fans giving him a standing ovation.
Later, Dalrymple told a Sports Illustrated reporter, “It was the biggest ovation I ever got.”
I am convinced that we take so many things for granted in life. Sight is one of those things. For those of us who have been blessed with the ability to see, we don’t know what it is like not to see. It is not until moments like the story that was just shared that we realize the blessings of life that we have that we take for granted. (sermoncentral illustrations)
Have you ever been told you could not do something because
1.You were too tall/short
2.Too Old/young
3.boy/girl
4.too thin/too fat
Imagine this man's parents
1.Anxiously awaiting his birth
2.overjoyed at the announcement “It is a boy”
3.All the things the father thought about doing with the boy
4.Imgaine the disappointment when they learn he is born blind.
In that community, at that time a blind person could
1.Never learn a trade
2.not read
3.only beg.
He was resigned to a life of ridicule and begging
1.Most believed people born with an infirmity were being punished because of sin
2.Look at what the Apostle's asked (v2)
3.Now look at Jesus' answer (v3)
Although Jesus had healed blind people before, this one is special because it will show the power of God. No one has ever, or since, opened the eyes of one born blind. This is not a transplant or a graft, the dead eyes of this man were made alive.
Then He meets Jesus.
1.Jesus spits on the ground and makes mud
2.Puts the mud on his eyes/face and tells him to wash in the Pool of Siloam (some think this is an illustration of God's creative work)
3.What if he went to a different pool to wash? The mud on his face would be cause to wash.
4.Why Siloam? Possible a distance from where they were. The Pool of Siloam was located at the southern end of the city, probably a considerable distance from the place where the blind man was. The walk would call for some exertion. Certainly the man would not want to continue sitting by the roadside with mud smeared over his eyes. If his lifelong affliction had tended to make him apathetic, he now had at least one motive for obeying what must have seemed a foolish command. How could washing in a public pool restore the sight he never had? The trip the man made must have been a venture of faith. Jesus had not even told him that he would be healed but had merely commanded him to wash. If the man had overheard Jesus' conversation with the disciples, he would have expected something to happen. Yet so extraordinary a miracle as giving sight to a man born blind would have seemed impossible.
He opens his eyes and sees for the first time. Listen to what Max Lucado writes about one particular man who was blind:
For 51 years Bob Edens was blind. He couldn’t see a thing. His world was a black hall of sounds and smells. He felt his way through most of five decades of darkness. And then, he could see. A skilled surgeon performed a complicated operation and, for the first time, Bob Edens had sight. He found it overwhelming. “I never would have dreamed that yellow is so…yellow,” he exclaimed. “I don’t have the words. I am amazed by yellow. But red is my favorite color. I just can’t believe red. I can see the shape of the moon—and I like nothing better than seeing a jet plane flying across the sky leaving a vapor trail. And of course, sunrises and sunsets. And at night I look at the stars in the sky and the flashing light. You could never know how wonderful everything is.”
Are we blind? Many of our world are and do not even know it.
We were once blind, spiritually blind. There are those of Jesus' day who were spiritually blind and did not know it. What was it like when they first saw? What was it like when we met Jesus and saw for the first time?
Following the Law, they amazed people brought him to the Priests. Again we are told this happened on the Sabbath. There are those who are amazed, yet there are those who can only see the Law. The do not see the miracle because it is the Sabbath.
How many times may we have doubted someone coming to Christ because
1.They were deep in sin
2.They were too young
3.Or we knew them when....
How could they miss the fact that this man now sees? How could we miss someone being saved? They did, and the only one who comes back to worship is the man healed.
Take a look around our world. Odds are there is someone we know or love that we don’t think can ever be reached by the gospel message. Someone we know who is so spiritually blind, that there is no hope for them. Let the light of the Gospel shine, and even in that spiritual blindness, their eyes could be opened too.
