Brothers and sisters in Christ, here in this fourth Sunday of Lent we are blessed with an abundance of themes about light triumphing over darkness. From our Epistle lesson: 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.
From our Old Testament reading: And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.
And last but not least from our gospel reading: We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
In the scripture darkness does not only mean evil, but also being lost and not getting anywhere, darkness is futility. And as we will see as we dive further into our gospel reading from John chapter 9, people in darkness are often not aware that anything is even wrong. This is because darkness in the scripture means going without the light of God’s truth, it is living in a constant lie and deception.
Likewise in the scripture light means more than just goodness and freedom from the bondage of evil. Light also means knowledge of truth. To walk in light is to walk in knowledge of God’s Word, following God’s law instead of the rule of sin.
Psalm 36 describes that we see because God first gives us light as a gift of his steadfast love. “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.” We see because God gives us the light of his truth. When we try to find clarity and purpose in our lives outside of the purpose in God’s Word, when we try to light our own path, we are only walking in the darkness of our sin.
In our gospel lesson Jesus is asked about a man born blind from birth, if his sin or his parent’s sin led to this disabling blindness from the start in this man’s life. But Jesus corrects their line of questioning in trying to always find someone to blame for sin. He gives them the light of God’s truth to see how foolish it is to look for reasons why others deserve afflictions and why we don’t.
The disciples are caught up in the question of what went wrong for the man born blind, and Jesus turns their attention from the man’s blindness to his healing mercy. Jesus made mud with his saliva and anointed the man’s eyes with this healing mud. He commanded the man to cleanse himself in the nearby pool of Siloam. The result is that the man came back seeing for the first time in his life. Jesus came to take away the spiritual darkness of the world, and what better way to show that then the sight he gave to this man born blind.
Greater than the gift of restored sight, Jesus gave the blind man the gift of an amazing sign that pointed to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. Every time the man woke up in the morning he opened his eyes to what for so many years was darkness. Everything he saw, was a testimony to the blessing Jesus gave to him.
The man’s role as a living witness to the light of Christ continued as word of what he reported about Jesus spread and the Pharisees sought after him for questions. The Pharisees wanted to use the man to somehow testify against Jesus. But he had nothing negative to say about Jesus.
He simply shrugged off any accusations that were made against Jesus by pointing out: ‘all I know is that I was blind and now I see.’
After this and other clear statements about Jesus they reject him and cast him out of their sight. They jeer at him “You were born in utter sin.”
The Pharisees assumption in this thinking is that you get what you deserve. Those who have blessings in life must have deserved them and those hardships likewise must deserve the punishment of misfortune. Many in our culture believe this today as well in the form of a belief in karma- what goes around comes around.
In fact we ourselves can fall into this blindness as well, as it is easy to adopt some of the common sense assumptions of Karma, that if we do the right things in life it will go well with us, and if not we will pay the price. This thinking can lead us to the blind delusion that we can secure our own salvation in life through making the right choices.
But this is not how God works. Jesus quickly denies any thinking about personal sin as the cause of inherited misfortune for the man born blind or anyone else. God gives us gifts not according to what we have earned, not according to some universal law of karma- but instead from the foundation of his steadfast love.
We heard in our Introit, “My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net.” Although this man was born blind, he looked to Jesus in faith. He followed Jesus’ instructions to go and wash, and he spoke the truth of what Jesus had done for him. His eyes were now toward the LORD because Jesus had delivered him both from his blindness of his eyes and the blindness of his sins.
We all know the hymn Amazing Grace. “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind and now I see.” How beautiful when God’s Word lifts the darkness of our lives with the light of Jesus. How beautiful when we repenting of our sins that weigh us down and cloud our vision, we see New Life in Jesus!
Our Lord spoke to the disciples about how he had come to do far more than restore sight to one blind man- but instead to over take the spiritual darkness of this world with his light.
4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
In this world there are always those who reject the light. In fact we are surrounded by those who live in the darkness of this world and in spiritual blindness. People will always cast doubt and skepticism on what is good and what is of God’s design and purpose for this world.
We heard in our gospel reading the sad irony of the darkness the Pharisees lived in, where they point to their own false righteousness and point at the sins of others. They try to look at apparent circumstances such as the fact that the man was born blind, and they give their theological interpretation that this was a punishment for his sin.
The same self righteousness is at work today when someone looks at the church in pessimism and says, look at all of the hypocrisy and failed lives people have in the church. People conclude the church has nothing godly in it, that it is not the light of the world- that they are as much a light to the world than anyone else, that their darkness should be celebrated.
The restoration of sight to the man born blind was an undeniable miracle. Nobody would pretend to be blind his whole life until adulthood. The Pharisees take the most clear and apparent sign you can imagine that Jesus is sent from God, and they try to cast doubt, they cannot believe he was really born blind so that they ask to talk with his parents.
This is the same thing those who live in darkness do. They claim the world is billions of years old because they are unwilling to see the clear evidence of creation all around us, or listen about the six days of recorded in Genesis. They cast doubt on the origins of the books of the Bible, as if other writings were rejected by the church in a conspiracy to advance one version of the truth and suppress another.
Even within the church people trivialize God’s Word and hand pick which things they want to be true teaching of God, and which teaching in the scripture that they want to call merely past cultural practices that we have evolved past. As a result, you can find erring church bodies permitting and condoning all kinds of immorality and evil that the scripture clearly speaks against.
Still others hold beliefs about being a Christian that separate them from the light and truth of God’s Word because they don’t believe Christian faith is meant to be manifested through a church. They see church as part of society and their own private study of the Bible as a more pure practice of the faith.
This pride leads to all kinds of walking in darkness as it means doing what is right in your own eyes without the correction or guidance of a pastor and fellow members of the body of Christ. And most importantly it means rejecting the way in which Jesus has designed to come to us in Word and Sacraments in the gifts of worship.
Jesus is the light of the world, and that which leads us away from his truth leads us into darkness. To follow in the light of Jesus is walking a road less traveled in this world. It takes courage and it takes faith to keep our eyes open to the truth of God’s Word. Together let us walk this path, let us walk in the light. Amen.