JCSM Shareware Collection 1993 November/JCSM Shareware Collection - 1993-11.iso/cl040/study21j.lzh/BLIND.TXT

Text File | 1989-11-27 | 14KB | 229 lines

*    This sermon was preached at the Otisco Presbyterian Church
*    in Tully NY on the 4th Sunday of Lent 1984.  It's a
*    narrative, dramatic, sort of sermon, rather different from
*    my usual style of preaching, but it seemed to have caught
*    folk's imagination!


Ephesians 5:8-14                             1 April 1984
John 8:1-41                                  OPC  W. David Ashby

                           "Blindness"
1.   Ruth let the door slam behind her as she skipped through the
house.  "Wow!  You should have seen it!  It was neat!"  Her
father looked up from his reading, and her mother came in from
the other room.  "What was, dear?"  Hurling herself into a chair
as only a teenager could, she started.  "You know that Jesus guy
who everybody is talking about?  Well, _I_ saw him!" she
announced triumphantly.  "Abigail and I were crossing the square
in front of the big gate, and there he was with a whole crowd
around him, so we followed him.  And you know where all those
beggars sit so you practically have to step on them?  Well, as he
was going through there, one of his disciples asked him about one
of them, a guy who was born blind.  He said, 'Teacher, who
sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'"  Ruth
paused and thought for a moment: "You know, I always wondered
about that myself, 'cause if God punishes people for something by
making them blind, how could God make this guy blind at birth
even before he was old enough to have done anything?  And why
would God want to punish his parents by making their baby blind?
It just doesn't seem fair.  Anyhow, this disciple asked Jesus,
and everybody got real quiet to listen.  And you know what?
Jesus said it _wasn't_ 'cause anyone had sinned!  He said it was
to show God's power, so that God's works would be shown through
him.  Somebody at the back laughed, but Jesus helped the man
stand up.  Then he spit on the ground and stirred it around and
smeared the mud on the blind man's eyes.  It was gross!  And he
told him to go over to the pool at Siloam (I thought that was
funny: he sent him to a place called Sent!).  So Abby and I ran
around the back way, and we got there before the crowd did, and
we ran up on the roof so we could see, you know, and the blind
man gets there and starts to rinse the yucky mud out of his eyes.
And guess what!  It worked!  Jesus made his eyes better!  He
could see... I mean not real good right away, but he could see!
Everybody went crazy and he started dancing around and yelling 'I
can see!  I can see!'  He looked so happy that when he got back
to Jesus even some of the other beggars couldn't recognize him,
and they started arguing whether it really was him!  I mean, it
was awesome!  Everybody was calling it a miracle and slapping
everyone else on the back and hollering out, 'Praise the Lord!'
Abby said that must have been what Jesus meant-- that the beggar
was born blind so he could be a miracle."  Ruth hopped out of the
chair and skipped out the door.  "_I_ think that Jesus is pretty
neat!"

2.   Itzak walked home slowly, immersed in his thoughts.  It had
been quite an afternoon, what with the kids running all over the
place, and the Pharisees arguing, and Jesus making a blind beggar
see for the first time since birth.  It was a wild afternoon, all
right.  He didn't quite know what to make of Jesus' performance
with the dirt and spit that he put on the beggar's eyes, but he
knew he was ashamed of the performance that the Pharisees put on.
"I mean, tacky!  Shouting and braying at each other like a
stubborn bunch of donkeys.  And the way they picked on that poor
blind beggar!  It was hard to tell who was really on trial; they
certainly were going after Jesus, but why did they go after the
beggar and his parents, of all people?  Actually," thought Itzak,
"the Pharisees and their beliefs seemed like they were on trial,
too.  What kind of judgement might God be passing on their
performance?"  A basket blew across the street in Itzak's path.
He carefully stepped around it; this was the Sabbath, a day of
rest, and picking it up was forbidden work.  Besides, it was
almost sundown; the Sabbath would be over then, and the owner
could come retrieve it.  He wasn't about to break the Sabbath.
That brought up an interesting question.  Now, Itzak was just an
olive oil merchant, not a religious professional like a scribe or
a Pharisee, but he had been brought up in the faith and had
studied the Bible enough to know a few things.  Obviously,
picking up a basket, cooking, plowing a field, selling a jug of
olive oil, and things like that would break the day of rest; but
it was also an established principle that saving the life of a
person or even of an animal, or tending to the sick took
precedence.  It wasn't breaking the Sabbath to rescue a lost
sheep, so why should rescuing a blind person be breaking the
Sabbath?  It didn't seem right that they blamed Jesus for healing
someone.  It was pretty impressive, though.  How many people can
give sight to a man born blind _any_ day of the week?"  Itzak
figured that anyone who could do that kind of miracle must have a
good connection with God!  If Jesus was a sinner, like all those
Pharisees who complained about him healing someone on the Sabbath
claimed, how could he do something so wonderful?"  Itzak was
inclined to agree with the beggar, that Jesus was a prophet, not
a sinner.
     A young girl ran past Itzak, breaking his reverie by
yelling, "Hey, Abigail, wait for me!"  He adjusted his robe and
smiled; she reminded him of his youngest daughter.  He was proud
of her.  He wondered if the beggar's parents were proud of him.
"That was a dirty trick the Pharisees played on them, asking
whether he really was blind.  And then asking them what they
thought had happened.  For crying out loud, they hadn't even been
there!  How were they supposed to know?"  He had to sympathize
with them, dragged into the argument like that.  After all the
nasty things Pharisees had said about Jesus, they really couldn't
risk getting expelled from the synagogue by saying anything
complimentary about him.  Itzak thought they chickened out, but
they did it well.  They threw the question back on their son,
saying that he was old enough to speak for himself.  "Nice move,
even if it was cowardly.  Seems like lots of people are impressed
by Jesus, but they are afraid to admit it in public.  It was sure
rough on his followers, what with all the pressure the temple
crowd was putting on them.  Coming out in public and proclaiming
faith in Jesus, that was hard.  Not many dared to do that; most
were pretty reluctant about it.  But that blind... er, rather,
once-blind... beggar, he had class.  He was willing to stand up
and be counted.  Even taunted the old greybeards!  When they said
they were disciples of Moses and accused him of being the
disciple of somebody they didn't know, he threw it back in their
faces.  'If you're so smart, why _don't_ you know where he comes
from?'  Good question, that: where does Jesus come from?"  Itzak
turned the corner onto his street.  "Where _does_ Jesus get his
power?"

3.   "Tov Shabbot, Elihu."  "Good Sabbath to you, too, Eleazer."
Elihu pulled his prayer shawl over his head and sat down as his
friend passed him on the way out.  "Elihu... hmph, servant of
God,"  Elihu muttered.  Sometimes he felt like anything _but_ a
servant of God.  Take today, for instance.  He hardly knew what
to make of it.  He leaned back and looked up into the rafters of
the temple sanctuary.  The late afternoon sun was creeping away,
and the cool gloom of evening was creeping in.  He liked to sit
in the back like this after spending all his time at the front,
teaching and leading prayers.  Sometimes it was rough being an
important Pharisee, always on stage, always having to say the
right thing, always having to sit at the front.  He liked sitting
back where his family sat when he was a kid; he felt a little
more at ease with God back here.  He looked at the darkness above
him... "That those who do not see may see and those who see may
become blind..."  Wow, that Jesus caught him with that one.  He
just sort of naturally figured that if the blind beggar had
gained sight, Jesus was probably implying that they had _lost_
theirs, so he asked, "Are we also blind?."  That only made
matters worse, with Jesus rubbing it in, "If you _were_ blind,
you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your
guilt remains."  That Jesus could zing with the best of them!
Elihu wished Jesus was a Pharisee; at least that way he would be
on their side!  Never had he seen someone with such confidence
and audacity, such power and authority in teaching.  Elihu had
always imagined that the prophets of old would have that same
amazing charisma that he felt today in Jesus.  He groaned; come
to think of it, the prophets had just as hard a time with the
elders and priests as Jesus was having.  Maybe there was
something to this, after all.  He hadn't seen the healing itself,
but he was in on the argument afterward.  If Jesus really could
heal the blind and the sick, then he would have to do some
serious soul-searching about who this Jesus really is.  Elihu
pulled the prayer shawl over his forehead and started a long
conversation with God.

4.   Itzak walked past his partner's house.  "That Shemoel... he
can be so opinionated!  He was so closed-minded about Jesus, for
instance.  What did he expect, after all?  I guess having a
father and an uncle on the Sanhedrin and two brothers who were
scribes could make you a bit conservative, but somehow, Shemoel
seemed _too_ stodgy!  He probably wouldn't approve of Elijah
wearing camel's hair instead of the proper woolen cloak of the
merchants!  He probably would be offended if King David showed up
dressed as a shepherd!  Everything had to be just so, just the
way he expected it for Shemoel to like it.  He expected the Lord
(Blessed be He) to look like an olive oil merchant or a scribe.
No wonder he couldn't stand Jesus; Jesus was too radical, too
unrestrained, too popular, too different from the religious
establishment to be kosher!  Good grief, if the Messiah himself
didn't act like a solemn, prosperous, upper-middle class
gentleman, Shemoel would walk away!"  Itzak could see why Shemoel
and the others couldn't stand Jesus' way of preaching and healing
and all the rest.  Jesus was unconventional, unexpected.
     But maybe, just maybe, Jesus _was_ the Messiah!  "Wouldn't
that be a shock!  Just imagine: all the scribes and Pharisees and
lawyers and olive oil merchants of Jerusalem can't recognize the
Messiah of God walking around in their midst!  Wow... it would
explain a lot about Jesus, though, like how he could heal a
person _born_ blind, like how he always sounded like he had a
direct line to God when he preached, like how he was so casual
about keeping the details of the Sabbath just so, like how he
constantly confused the experts but attracted the simple,
faithful people in droves."  Itzak came to a full stop in the
middle of the road.  "Maybe he _is_ the Messiah...  Talk about
God surprising people!  Everybody expected the Messiah to be a
proper, conservative, observant Jew, watching every little rule
in the Torah, and here is someone who is more concerned with the
spirit behind the law.  Everybody was expecting a prophet who
would march up to the temple and declare God's will at the center
of the religious establishment, but Jesus walked among the
ordinary people, the real strength of the faith.  The Zealots
were expecting a Messiah who would overthrow those Roman
oppressors, but here is Jesus asking us to love our neighbor,
pray for our enemies, help each other out, and who was
overthrowing the real oppressors like blindness and sin.  Wow.
If God was going to catch us by surprise, Jesus is just right!
No wonder the Pharisees couldn't accept it; they had decided what
God _should_ do, rather than looking for what God was _really_
doing!  Their human expectations blinded them to what God was
actually doing in their midst.  No wonder Jesus called them
blind!"  The light dawned on Itzak.  "Maybe Jesus _is_ the
Messiah," thought Itzak, and he broke into a full run for the
last hundred yards home.

5.   When Elihu finally came to the end of his prayers, he looked
around.  It was nearly black in the temple, except for a few
lamps sputtering in their pots of oil.  He felt like the reverse
of that beggar-- _he_ had gone from darkness to a few glimmers of
light to full sight.  Elihu wondered if he was losing his
spiritual sight, if he was being left with only the last few
glimmers before total blindness.  Well, he made up his mind.  He
had to talk with this Jesus some more.  Jesus could give _him_
sight, too.  If this guy really was sent from God, he would have
to junk some of his precious theology and favorite beliefs, but
that was ok.  He would rather be right with God than with his
brother Pharisees.  "All right, Lord, if you say so!"  His own
voice echoing against the stone pillars startled Elihu.  He stood
up, gathered up all the layers of his prayer shawl and cloak,
bowed reverently toward the ark, and strode out.  As he touched
the mezzuzah on the doorframe of the portico, he caught his
breath when he saw a stunning sunset, bright and sharp.  With a
heartfelt prayer of thanks, he rejoiced in the vision.
     And as he turned, he noticed that, somehow, rising out of
the shadows of the valley below, the ugly little hill known as
Golgotha was bathed in a brilliant light.  It seemed very
important.