Biblical Text: John 9:1-41

The Gospel of John is the upside down one. Water becomes wine. Good things do come from Nazareth. Messiahs are enthroned on crossed. And believing is seeing. The Gospel lesson text is often just called the man born blind. In my reading it is John’s living commentary on the Synoptics’ Parables of the Kingdom (Sower, Wheat and Weeds). What it leaves no doubt about is that God is at work in this world. He is at work constantly through his word both his direct proclamation and then through our witness. But hearts have two reactions: Belief and confirmed unbelief. And unlike the folk wisdom, what you believe effects what you see. If you want to see the work of God you have to believe his word.

This sermon contemplates that reality through two larger movements. The first being the Sovereignty of God behind Jesus’ answer “neither sinned, but the man was born blind that the works of God might be displayed in him.” The second movement being the crisscrossing directions of the lives of the man born blind and the pharisees who insist they see. Through both of those movements it is presented to us to believe, that we might see both God’s proper work and his alien work in our midst.

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