Seeing Is Believing
John 9:1-38
Pastor Daryl’s youngest daughter Mandi, who just turned four, sometimes comes into my office during the week. One of her favorite games to play when she visits is Hide-and-Seek. But being so young, she plays it a little bit differently than older kids do. Normally the person who is “it” closes their eyes and counts while everyone else hides, and then they try to find them. Mandi plays it differently. She’ll say, “Close your eyes and count to ten while I hide in here,” pointing to an empty compartment in my desk. “Then you try to find me.” Okay. So I count to ten and then look around as though I don’t know where she is. Inevitably she’ll start shouting, “I’m in here, Mister Afan! I’m in here! Come find me!” But when I look down at her and say, “I found you!” she covers her eyes and protests, “Nuh uh! You can’t see me, Mister Afan! I’m hiding!”
To Mandi, that’s her reality. She can’t see me, so I can’t see her. She’s hiding, so I can’t find her. Funny enough, a lot of kids play Hide-and-Seek this way. Sometimes they’ll lie down on the floor with just their head sticking under the bed, and they think you can’t see them because they can’t see you. If darkness is their reality, then they assume it must be yours as well.
Adults are really not so different from that, are we? We tend to impose our perceptions onto other people. As we collect experiences every day, we sort them and file them according to our perception of reality. When I go to a Shorebirds game and see Sherman, the mascot, I know that he’s not actually a giant bird in a baseball uniform, because that’s what my understanding of reality tells me. My grasp on reality tells me this.
Every sight I see, every sound I hear, every idea that’s presented to me—I glance at each one and file it in my mind in its appropriate category. Each day’s experiences shape my reality, sometimes stretching it, sometimes constricting it, always adjusting it. But how do I know what is actually real? How can I be sure that what I believe is true?
Recently I read a quote by this guy who said: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Reality is that which, when you stop believing it, doesn’t go away. I can stop believing that the Twinkie is bad for me, but it will still make me jiggle in the middle. I can tell myself that the knuckle I caught in the door doesn’t hurt, but it still shoots sparks of pain up my finger. I can tell myself that it’s still necessary to use hair gel… When I stop believing these things, the reality is still there.
So how can I see clearly? I’ve discovered from reading the Bible and from the life stories of other people and myself that those who believe in Jesus are given the gift of sight. Those who believe in Jesus are given the gift of sight. People who believe in Him—more specifically, those who believe Him—are given the ability to see clearly. Seeing is believing—we do not believe because we see, but rather we see because we believe.
Turn with me in your Bibles to the Book of John, chapter 9, and let’s look together at the story of a man who learned this lesson in a startling way.
(1) John 9:1-11: The man born blind is given sight
Jesus is walking along with His disciples and they see this blind guy. Rather than asking, “Why is this guy blind?” they give Jesus two options. So what’s the answer? A or B? Jesus’ answer is C: none of the above. It seems to have never occurred to the disciples that the guy might be blind for reasons they didn’t know and couldn’t understand. But they had assumptions about the way God operates. Their limited vision gave them a limited reality, which in turn gave them a limited God.
Sometimes we miss God because we only look for Him within our own limited framework of understanding. Rather than looking for a God that is bigger than our reality, we try to squeeze Him into our narrow vision. That’s what the disciples did here.
Jesus told His friends that this guy was born blind “so the power of God could be seen in him.” Has it ever occurred to you that your most frustrating situations, your most agonizing pains, your darkest moments, might exist simply for the purpose of God’s power being seen in you? Just a thought.
Our assumptions about God and about reality can keep us from knowing and seeing God. That’s one reason so many people never come to see Him or know Him—He doesn’t fit their preconceived ideas, so they reject Him. But He’s still just as real, just as God.
Rather than lecture His followers about their assumptions, Jesus tells them that He is the light of the world. He has come to the earth to shed light on who God really is, so that we can see Him as He truly is and not have to guess or assume. God wants us to see Him, and Jesus is the light that helps us to do so. He shines a light on our darkened vision so we can see what is real and true.
Look at verses six and seven again. I love this—look at how Jesus heals the blind man. He could’ve just touched the guy or said some magic words, you know—done something cool and exciting and real holy-looking. But what does He do? He makes mud out of spit! Not exactly the kind of divine Visine I’d expect God to use. But that’s exactly what Jesus does—puts spit-mud on the man’s eyes and tells him to wash it off. No one has ever done this before—it’s not like anyone could say, “Jesus, wait—You’re doing that wrong!”
The man does exactly what Jesus tells him. He goes to the pool of Siloam and washes off the mud. And suddenly, for the very first time since God first set the globe spinning, a man born blind can see. A lot of awesome miracles were done in the Old Testament, but not this one. No one has ever seen a blind man gain sight! Not even the great miracle-working God has ever done such a thing.
But it’s true! The man can see! There is no denying this reality. It doesn’t fit anyone’s idea of what is possible, even with God. Such things just don’t happen. They can’t happen. They’ve never happened. Something like this cannot be explained—and yet there is no way to deny that it is reality!
Naturally, the people demand an explanation. The man gives a very matter-of-fact explanation. “It’s like this: That Jesus guy spit in the dirt, mixed up a little mud, slopped it onto my eyes, and told me to go rinse off at the pool. So I did, and now I can see!” But his detailed, step-by-step account does not add up to the end result. They didn’t say, “Oohh, now I get it! That makes perfect sense. He spit and made mud and put it on your eyes, so of course you can see now! That’s how we do it too!”
The man explained the what (which is, after all, what they asked him), but he didn’t explain the how. He didn’t care! He was blind, and now he can see! Who cares how it happened? Don’t you get it? I was blind. Now I can see! Who cares how?!?
(2) John 9:12-25: Evidence on trial
When the people ask the man where Jesus is, what does the man say? “I don’t know.” I don’t know--that becomes this guy’s mantra: “I don’t know.” He doesn’t care! He knows he was blind, and now he can see. He can’t explain how it happened—he just knows that it did happen. He could see, so he believed.
Rather than celebrating with this man and running into the surrounding villages to share the exciting news about what God had done, the man’s neighbors decide instead to take him to the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the religious cops of that culture. They were supposed to be the experts on God, and they took great delight in trying to force their own ideas about God onto everyone else.
The Pharisees threw a barrage of questions at the man--I can just see him running back and forth and waving his arms, like an unpopular kid in a game of dodge ball. When he finally gets a chance to speak, he gives a simple three-step answer: Jesus put mud on my eyes. I washed it off. I could see! He was concerned with reality, not with explanations.
The Pharisees, who were big on explanations but couldn’t come up with any that made sense, declared that Jesus could not be from God. Then they start arguing among themselves about Jesus’ identity. They could not see who He was; the Light was among them, but they were groping around in darkness. What they heard and saw didn’t fit with what they thought they knew, so they refused to believe even though the truth was plain to see if they would just open their eyes to the light. But they chose darkness instead. The Bible explains this in John 3:19-20: “God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.” They willingly chose to go blind and live in darkness--they could not see, because they would not believe.
Let me encourage you this morning: Please don’t let your desire to cling to your current worldview hinder you from perceiving reality and truth. We only gain true understanding, true vision, through believing.
The former blind man’s response in verse 25 is the centerpiece of this story. The King James Version best portrays his response. It has him saying, “One thing I know….” One thing I know. I don’t know the answers to all your questions. I don’t know about Jesus’ background, His education, His credentials, His work experience, His references. I don’t know how it’s possible for the chemicals in spit and dirt to mix and react in such a way that they give sight to a grown man who has never seen anything. I don’t know how such a thing can be explained. But I know that my whole life I saw nothing but darkness. I spent the brightest and sunniest days imprisoned in a blackness I could not escape. I never knew what my parents looked like. I couldn’t imagine what a color like blue or red looked like. But today I saw my parents’ faces for the first time. Today I ran for the first time. Today for the first time, I saw the smile on a child’s face, the beauty of a single lily, the graceful flight of a bird, the sun casting shadows on the side of a mountain. Today for the first time ever I saw my own hands. For the first time I saw my own reflection. Say whatever you want about Jesus or about me. Say whatever you want, believe whatever you want. I have no idea about all that stuff. There is only one truth, one reality, one absolutely undeniable fact that I will stand here and tell you with all confidence that I know for sure: I was blind, and now I see.
This man’s reality was undeniable. He saw; he believed. Seeing is believing. When we believe, the Giver gives us the gift of sight. We see things clearly; we see reality and truth as they actually are.
(3) John 9:26-34: Hostile confrontation
People will often bombard Christians with questions about God and His work in us. It’s okay to say, “I don’t know”! We don’t have to know the answers to everything. As a matter of fact, neither do they. One of my favorite preachers, a pastor near Atlanta named Andy Stanley, stated it well when he said: “You don’t have to understand everything to believe in something.” You don’t have to understand everything to believe in something. We don’t need to understand or be able to explain everything in order to have faith, in order to believe.
We doubt when we focus on the pieces we don’t see or can’t see, the things we don’t understand or can’t explain. We are kept from belief when we focus on what is unexplainable rather than on what is undeniably true.
People often use unanswered questions as an excuse for putting off believing in Jesus. “Well first I need to have some questions answered,” they say, and then proceed to list every unanswerable question that no one has understood from the beginning of time. “Where did God come from? How can a loving God let people go to hell? How do we know who wrote the Bible? What’s the deal with the dinosaurs? Why would God let my aunt die from cancer? What happens to all those people who never hear about Jesus? Where was God during the tsunami? Why do bad things happen to good people? Is there life on other planets? Could God make a boulder so big He can’t move it?…”
Guess what? I…don’t…know. I don’t know. You don’t have to know. And guess what else? It doesn’t matter. We can know some things without knowing everything. After all, we don’t apply this standard to anything else in life.
For instance, tomorrow I’m getting on a plane and flying far away. I don’t even know the name of the pilot or how long he’s been flying. I don’t understand how they know what direction to go. I definitely don’t understand what keeps the plane in the air. I don’t know what kind of food they’ll be serving. I don’t know how comfortable or uncomfortable my seat will be. But in spite of all those things I don’t know, I know one thing: I’m getting on that plane. And I’m confident it’ll get me where I’m trying to go.
When I eat in a restaurant, I don’t know where my food came from. I don’t know who prepared it, what was done to it, or sometimes even what’s in it. Recently my wife made this casserole thing that looked like some kind of meat-cheese-rice concoction. I couldn’t tell from looking at it exactly what was in it. But it looked good, it smelled good--so I ate it! And I’m still here about three weeks later, so I guess it was alright.
When you get out on the road in a vehicle, you don’t know who else is on the highway, how long they’ve been driving, how much they’ve had to drink, or if they’re capable of eating fast food, talking on the phone, and driving at the same time--as they’re doing. But it’s a pretty safe guess that most of you got here today in some kind of vehicle.
When I go to sit in the dentist’s chair or on the doctor’s examination table and look at the degrees on the wall, I wouldn’t know a real one from a fake one. I have no idea if this person really knows what they’re doing as they put drills in my mouth, stick me with needles, and inject mysterious substances into my veins to course throughout my body and stay there for years.
So why is it that when it comes to eternity--the single most important subject we ever deal with--we have to understand the Holy Trinity? We have to know why God didn’t answer this prayer the way we wanted Him to. We have to know why He hasn’t given us a better job than the one we have. We have to know how He can let disasters happen around the world. We have to understand how saliva mixed with dirt and rinsed off with water can make a blind man see…or do we?
The Pharisees had ears but did not hear, just as they had eyes but did not see. Seeing is believing. This former blind beggar knew God better than they did! They should have known from their own Scripture that Jesus was the Messiah. After all, Isaiah 35:5, talking about the coming Christ, clearly says: “And when He comes, He will open the eyes of the blind and unplug the ears of the deaf.” Jesus did both of these things, which no one had ever done before! The Pharisees also knew the Scripture which says, in Psalm 146:8: “The LORD opens the eyes of the blind.” That obviously meant that Jesus was the Lord. Jesus is God. But they would not have their blind eyes opened. They refused to even acknowledge their blindness.
Assumptions about God and reality can keep us from knowing and seeing God. We can miss the truth if we build our own false reality rather than letting the Giver shine His light and open our blind eyes.
“No one has ever opened the eyes of a blind man,” he says. “Your own Scriptures tell you that only God can do such a thing. I was blind. Jesus gave me sight. You figure it out.” He knew where Jesus was from: He was from God.
All they can do in response is insult him and abuse him. They resort to character assassination since they cannot refute his words. When they shout, “You were born a total sinner!”, that’s pretty much the equivalent of a school kid today saying, “Your mama!” Not exactly a sophisticated theological argument.
“You were born a total sinner!” they shout. They held the same mistaken assumption that Jesus’ disciples had in verse 2, that the man was born blind because of his sins.
(4) John 9:35-38: Seeing is believing
This is a story of spiritual sight and rebirth. The man who was blind sees Jesus, really sees Jesus for who He is. He recognizes Him as the Light of the world, and he worships Him for the God and Savior that He truly is. Seeing is believing, and believing is seeing. The former blind man saw because he believed. The Pharisees were blind because they refused to believe.
Verse 38 is the big moment here. “Yes, Lord, I believe!” the man exclaims. With this simple four-word statement, he is saying: Jesus, I see who You truly are. I see that You are the Light of the world, the Savior. I see that You are God in a body of flesh, bone, and blood. I see who You are, and I believe that You are the Lord. His response to this new gift of sight is most appropriate. The Bible says: “And he worshiped Jesus.”
Apart from faith in Jesus Christ we cannot see reality as it truly is. If you’ve been wandering around in the darkness, the first step to turning on the light is to admit that you’re stumbling in the darkness. Jesus offers you the gift of sight if you will allow the light to penetrate your blindness, to puncture your darkness--but first you need to admit your blindness. The man in this story knew he was blind, and he willingly--gladly--received the gift of sight. The Pharisees thought they could see better than anyone else, but they were completely blind. This is tough and maybe even offensive, yet it’s true. Christianity might not fit with your assumptions or previously held beliefs about God, but it’s still the truth. It’s still reality. Will we remain blind in the dark, or welcome the light and receive the gift of sight?
One thing I know, which is undeniably true. I don’t have all the answers. One thing I know, which is undeniably true. I don’t know why God allows people to go hungry. I don’t know why He sometimes chooses to heal and sometimes chooses not to heal. I don’t understand the big questions about heaven and hell. I have no idea why some of your pain never seems to end and some of your dreams never seem to begin.
But there is something I do know. I know the immeasurable difference that Jesus Christ has made in my life and the lives of many others. I don’t have a lot of the answers, but I do know one thing. I know that I was a drunk, but now I’m sober. I know that I was depressed, but now I’m joyful. I know that I was despairing, but now I have hope. I know that I was restless, but now I have peace. I know that my world was spinning in chaos, and now I have clarity. I know that I was condemned, but now I am rescued. I know that I was dead, but now I live. I know that I was blind, but now I see!
These things are all undeniably true! If you’re stumbling in the darkness, I urge you to shift your focus from what is unexplainable to what is undeniable--then you will see Jesus. Our faith rests on truth, not on complete understanding. And the truth is that seeing is believing. If you refuse to believe, you will be blind. But if you believe, you will see. You will receive the gift of sight from the Giver.
I forgot to tell you the rest of what happens when I find little Mandi hiding. As she’s covering her eyes and telling me that I can’t see her because she’s hiding, I gently pull her hands away from her eyes. Every time, she smiles and grins and giggles as she jumps into my arms. If you’ve been playing Hide-and-Seek with God, covering your eyes and saying, “You can’t find me—I’m hiding!”, I want you to know that God has known all along exactly where you are. He wants to gently pull your hands away from your eyes so you can look right at each other, and then you’ll smile and laugh as you jump into His waiting, open arms.
