healing the eye of faith

4th Sunday in Lent

Let's remind ourselves at the outset that we're dealing with the Gospel of John.  The style of this writer is unique.  He writes with double entendres.  So we meet a blind man in our gospel lesson, and we may entertain the notion that John may indeed be speaking of more than physical blindness.  Light may be taken as more than just rays that allow us to see.  Light is also a reference to God's self-revelation in his Son Jesus.  So we enter this gospel lesson with our eyes and ears more carefully on the watch for language that may have meaning on a level that is deeper than first appears.

Now into the story.  The first person we meet is a blind man.  We're told that this man has been blind from birth; he has never seen the light of day.  And what does it mean to be blind?  Looking for the double entendre in John, blindness surely means that human beings live in the condition of not fully knowing the character of God.  Humans all around the world throughout history have had some ideas about God, but being blind would indicate that a person doesn't see God clearly, doesn't have the whole picture.  There's a story of a king who sent out several blind servants to investigate the nature of "elephant."  Not being able to see, each of the servants felt a part of the elephant—the skin, the tail, or a tusk—and reported back to the king.  "Your Majesty," said one blind servant, "elephant is tough and leathery."  "Oh, no, Your Majesty," interrupted another, who felt another part of the elephant, "elephant is long and smooth and tapered."  "Not so, Your Majesty," piped in the third, "elephant is fuzzy."  Well, they were all right, but limited by their blindness to comprehend the whole picture.  When it comes to knowing God, human blindness is like that.  Humans can't see the whole picture.  In our gospel, we meet a man who is blind.  Count on the fact that he doesn't have the whole picture of God.

So what does Jesus do?  He commands.  Jesus commands the man, "Go, wash."  Doesn't that sound just like God speaking? "Go, wash."  How many times has God commanded people, "Go"?  We lose count.  The Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country."  To Moses, "Come, I will send you. . . . Now therefore go."  God commanded Aaron, "Go into the wilderness to meet Moses."  To David, God said, "Go and attack the Philistines."  To Isaiah, "Go and say. . . ."  To Jeremiah, "Go proclaim. . . ."  To Ezekiel, "Go, speak."  To Amos, God commanded, "Go and prophesy."   Now here comes Jesus before the blind man sounding just like God speaking.  Jesus sees the blind man and speaks to him words of a command.  "Go, wash."

Well, the blind man goes!  That's faith!  Faith is obedience.  Our gospel writer is clear about that.  Those who believe in Jesus do what he commands.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer agrees, saying, ". . . only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes."  Paul Ricoeur is credited with saying, "Obedience follows imagination."  Preachers know that visual language helps listeners "see" themselves as obeying.  Visual language is an aid to obedience eventually being chosen by the listener. It's interesting how "obedience follows imagination."  Surely the eye of faith is being made whole as a believer sees herself obeying a command of Jesus, then actually obeying the command.  "Yes," she says to herself, "I could love those around me.  I could stop snapping at them.  I could treat my customers warmly, instead of breathing fire on every person who makes a demand on me.  Loving neighbors, loving family and friends, yes I see how that looks."  And so the eye of faith begins to heal as the believer begins to trust Jesus enough to do what he says.  Jesus commands the blind man, "Go, wash."  And the blind man goes.  With that trust, the man begins to see.  In the case of the eye of faith, believing is seeing.

Of course, given a chance, faith develops.  Where there's a willingness to see, the eye of faith is continually made whole.  The result is that we begin to see more clearly who Jesus is.  Remember, remember how it was for you.  There was a time when you had no idea about the person called Jesus.  Your earliest memories may include that picture of Jesus holding a lamb.  Perhaps you can retrieve a memory of one of your Sunday school teachers talking about how Jesus loves children, but still, you didn't know much about this lamb-holding, children-loving Jesus.  As you grew up, you recognized your condition of blindness.  No, you didn't speak that metaphor ("Hey, you know what, I'm blind").  But as you matured, you became aware of what you didn't know about God that you wanted to know.  Into your blindness came light in the form of God's word, perhaps sermons you listened to a little more carefully, perhaps a Bible study or confirmation class.  Then you began to see that Jesus has some connection with God.  You trusted Jesus to be God's revelation, that is, you began to pattern your life according to Jesus' commands, not perfectly, but you began genuinely to try.  Your faith matured to the point you wanted to join the church and confess "Jesus is Lord."  Faith, which begins with a first step of obedience, develops.  The eye of faith is healed by the light of God's word.

And what do the healed do?  They speak of their faith.  Those whose eyes of faith are being healed confess their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord.  Did I say "confess"?  Sometimes confession gets carried away and celebrates:  "Amazing grace—how sweet the sound—That saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see."  "Jesus loves me!  this I know, For the Bible tells me so."  The blind, who now see, confess their faith in Jesus, who is God's light in person.  A nurse went about her duties in the hospital.  Someone noticing her, said to her, "You're a Christian, aren't you?"  The nurse answered, "Yes."  A simple moment.  A simple transaction of words.  "You're a Christian, aren't you?"  "Yes."  Sometimes confession is just that simple.  Sometimes it's a kid coming home from church camp, all excited about the bright light of God's revelation seen there.  For those who were blind, but now see, confession is natural.

Still, not everybody sees.  Some wear spiritual blinders.  Call it trusting in one's own intellect.  Make no mistake, this pulpit is not calling for ignorance or blind faith.  Mount Carmel near Waco ought to be enough evidence that blind faith is a dangerous perspective.  Indeed, Jesus, God's self-revelation, brings light into spiritual darkness. And yet, blindness abounds because of a trust in only what one can prove in the laboratory.  In Harry Kemelman's novel, Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet, we hear Chester Kaplan and Dr. Al Muntz discussing religion.  Dr. Muntz, an agnostic, prides himself on his scientific outlook.  Kaplan talks about a recent religious retreat, adding a description of the positive physical benefits that some had experienced.  Dr. Muntz replied, "I'm willing to believe that Joe Gottlieb's sinuses may have stopped bothering him—and temporarily—but don't try to tell me that God did it.  Just don't try."  "Only those are blind," wrote Massey Shepherd, Jr., "Only those are blind who will not see."  Remembering that only those who are obedient believe, and that only those who believe are obedient, the little slip in a fortune cookie speaks here:  "Knowing and not doing are equal to not knowing at all."  Much blindness is of the willful category, self-inflicted so as not to see God's self-revelation.

And yet, those who are blind and seek light will find light.  The blind will find light because "the light of the world" seeks the blind in order to make them see.  The purpose of the coming of Jesus, the "light of all people," was to bring God's self-revelation into the darkness that enveloped the human soul.  In short, those who want to see, will see.  Morton Kelsey paraphrases a Jewish scholar, named Pinchas Lapide who wrote in The Resurrection of Jesus:  A Jewish Perspective  "that of course Jesus was raised from the dead, because you cannot account for the Christian church without that event."  The blind who seek light, find light.  Keith Miller writes about a highly educated agnostic, who attended an office prayer group where they discussed "the fact that the Christian life and faith in Christ can only truly be grasped experimentally, through a committing of one's life."  Miller describes the nature of this man's blindness:  "This idea of the faith in Jesus Christ having to come before the understanding sounded like intellectual suicide to him."  But the man was now plopped in a chair before Miller because he had just witnessed the result of an accident, a woman lying on the street, dying, having just stepped into the path of a truck.  This accident "shattered the shell of intellectual sophistication," the man said.  He began to admit that his objections to committing his life to Christ were not intellectual at all, but volitional.  In his car, moments after the accident, the man "committed as much of himself as he could to as much of Christ as he could perceive."  His eye of faith was beginning to have vision.  Those who are blind and want to see will see.