Light in the Darkness!
John
9:1-5
Back
in November we were working on a series in The Gospel of John, and we had finished
John 8… Remember that after the resurrection John tells us, “Jesus did many
other signs in the presence of His disciples that are not written in this book,
these have been written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God, and that by believing you might have life in His name” (John
20:30,31). In John some have called the first half of the book (1-11) the “Book
of Signs” as we see a series of miracles that Jesus did which demonstrated His
power as the Incarnate Son of God.
1. Turning Water into Wine (John 2:1–11)
2. Healing the Nobleman's Son
(John 4:46–54)
3. Healing the Paralytic at Bethesda
(John 5:1–15)
4. Feeding the 5,000 (John 6:5–14)
5. Walking on Water (John 6:16–21)
6. Healing the Man Born Blind
(John 9:1–7)
7. Raising Lazarus from the Dead
(John 11:1–45)
So, we
are looking today at just a short few verses that set the stage for the sixth
“sign” and the controversy that follows in chapter 9. Really the whole chapter
is tightly connected. I am stopping at verse 5 today, where it restates a key
motif that reached a climax of sorts in the previous chapter, at 8:12, where
Jesus said, “I AM the Light of the world,” which He repeats in our passage in Jn
9:5. Light and darkness. That has been a key theme in the Gospel of John, almost
from the beginning,
3 All
things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was
made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John
1:3–5).
In
the incarnation, light shone in the darkness. But not everyone had/has eyes to
see. The unbelief of the leaders was exposed in chapter 8 as they cannot
understand and receive what Jesus is saying. And if the “I AM” statements of
Jesus had been subtle until then, at the end of the chapter, when He says “Before
Abraham was, I AM,” they “hear” what He is claiming, He is God, the Great I
AM, Yahweh who spoke to Moses from the burning bush now incarnate! They hear,
but they cannot see the truth. And they take up stones to stone Him.
But it was not yet His time, and they were unable to carry out their intentions,
Jesus concealed himself from them and passed out of the temple. Immediately
following that, this paragraph sets the stage for the sixth miracle, the
healing of the man born blind. The controversy in the rest of chapter 9 exposes
the blindness of the leaders, they investigate, but cannot “see” and accept
what the miracle proves about Jesus, and ironically, the once blind man, now
healed, becomes their teacher, and the leaders are the blind men!
A secondary truth in this scene is that we
shouldn’t jump to conclusions about suffering. The disciples assumed some
personal sin must be behind the man’s blindness. Have you ever asked, “what did
I do to deserve this?” I’ve known people who have gone through almost Job-like
experiences. Worse than asking that yourself are miserable comforters like Job
had who ask, directly or indirectly, “what did you do to deserve this?” The
disciples in this scene assumed that someone’s personal sin was the reason for
this man’s tragedy. And yet Jesus said there is a bigger picture, and God
is in control. My Hebrew professor from WTS had been diagnosed with melanoma
that had spread to his lungs and eventually his brain. His wife and four
children watched him struggle with treatment for a little over a year before
the end came. He kept a blog, and a year after his diagnosis, a month before
his death, he wrote,
…We have grieved, but always with hope
in the resurrection we have through faith in Christ. While we would not have
chosen it this way, we have seen God’s goodness, nearness, steadfast love, and
faithfulness in unprecedented fashion. We have rested in the reality that he is
absolutely in control and He is good.
Even
believers suffer in this fallen world. In the painful situations
of life we can be assured that God is good, and that He is working everything
together for our good, and for His glory. The Big Idea here is that we were the
blind man…
The
Big Idea: From birth we are all blind to the Light of
the World and separated from God. Only by grace through faith do we see the
Truth. We’ll look at three points…
1. What we see: The world
is full of suffering and injustice; the effects of the Fall are evident (1).
2. What
we know: We can Trust God, knowing He is Sovereign and He is Good (2-3).
3. What
we can do: Rather than focusing on “why” in the midst of trials, we should
focus on the Gospel, and the mission He has entrusted to us (4-5).
I. What we can see: We
see what the disciples saw, and the effects of the Fall are evident, the world
is full of suffering and injustice (1).
“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth…” (Jn 9:1).
That is the situation in which this
story begins. It illustrates a reality with which we are familiar, because we all
live it at some level. We see it every day in the news, and at some point, we all
experience hardship or suffering, heartbreak or grief, reminders that we live
in a fallen world. In fact, Jesus warned his disciples, “In the world you
will have tribulation…” In that same verse He goes on to say, “…but be
of good cheer, for I have overcome the world!” My eyesight is weakening a
bit with age, but somethings I do see more clearly. I see suffering and very
often my first thought is “this is why Jesus came!” The Bible makes it clear
that God created a world that was a paradise. He planted a garden in the midst
of it and placed the first humans there. A sinless man and a sinless woman, in
a paradise without pain, sickness, suffering and death. God gave them everything
they could possibly need, but… Adam and Eve gave in to the temptation of the
evil one. Augustine pondered the truth that they were created without sin, so
they were able not to sin, but they also were created with free will, so
inherently they were able to sin, the possibility was there.
Suffering, hardship, pain, and death are
not normal. The point is that when we see such things, that is the result of
human rebellion against God. Paul said in his letter to the Romans that “By
one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread
to all men because all have sinned.” There is a connection between sin
and suffering, but not the connection the disciples were assuming. We can’t
point to an individual suffering and say it is the consequence of their
personal sin. Many times I’ve had people come to me in the midst of horrific
suffering and ask, “What did I do to deserve this?” They may be wondering if
God is punishing them for something they did, or if He is unjust and they don’t
deserve what He’s allowing them to go through. Most often they are simply
trying to make sense of what’s happening. Losing a job, a bad report from a
doctor, a sudden accident and a serious injury, a breakup of a family… All of
it exposes the brokenness of the world we live in. It is normal and good in the
midst of crises to cry out to God. The Psalms are full of the pleas of God’s
people in the midst of their pain, “How long, O Lord?” (See Psalm 3:1,
13:1, etc.). God hears. *God understands, we have a High Priest who can
sympathize with us, He was tested in all point like as we are, yet without sin.
There isn’t much doubt that this blind man’s parents, when they realized their
son was blind, cried out to God, why? What now? It’s probable that some time in
his life he did as well: “Why am I different from everyone else?” There aren’t
easy answers, but we can be assured that He loves us. This is why Jesus came,
to undo the Fall! Even in the painful situations of life God is good, and that
He is working everything together for our good, and for His glory. From
birth we are all blind to the Light of the World and separated from God. Only
by grace through faith do we see the Truth. What we see is suffering and
hardship, but…
II. What
we know: God is Sovereign and He is good (2-3). I’ve said it… when
a prayer is answered and God heals as we had hoped, or a need is met, “God is
good!” But it is not only then that He is good. He’s good all the time,
even when we don’t understand.
2 And his
disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his
parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus noticed the man, and the disciples
had a question. They saw only two possibilities, “Rabbi, who sinned, this
man or his parents that he should be born blind?” Since God is good, and He
is Sovereign, it had to be that God was punishing, or at least chastening
someone, right? That was the perspective
of Job’s miserable comforters. To their credit they sat with their suffering
friend for a week without saying anything. He had lost so much, his family, his
wealth, his health… But when they spoke… they basically said, surely you did
something to deserve this brother! That is the attitude the disciples had as
they asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned…” Somebody must have done something
that would explain such tragedy.
Rabbi Kushner addressed the problem of
suffering and the question “Why do bad things happen to good people?” in a book
by that title in 1981 and he was by no means the first. The church has
approached the issue and struggled with it through the centuries. To the world
it is usually assumed that either God is not all that good, or he is not all
that powerful (that was essentially Kushner’s conclusion, “God can’t do
everything, but he can do some important things”!). Biblical Christianity takes
a more complex view: God is good and God is sovereign. He is so awesome that He
is working together a master plan that is good, over-ruling even the sinful
acts of humans and the consequences of the Fall to accomplish His good purpose.
The truth is we may never know “why” in specific cases, but we can know that
God is working is working out His good plan in the world (vv.2-3). The
disciples asked “Why?” Then…
3
Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but
it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him.
First, we see the disciples’ wrong
presupposition: They thought that personal suffering must be related directly
to personal sin. In our culture the Hindu idea of “karma” has found its way
into some popular American thinking. None of that is biblical. It is
appointed unto humans to die once, after that the judgment. The
biblical world view recognizes a bigger picture: God is good, and He is
sovereignly working behind the scenes, causing all things to work together for
our good and for his glory, even in the painful situations of life. Paul
learned that with his “thorn in the flesh.” We won’t always see what God is
doing, we are not certain about how much Job ever knew about all that led up to
his life blowing up. Let the Gospel guide our thinking: God took the greatest
possible evil, the rejection and killing of His Son, and He turned it into the
greatest possible good, the salvation of a people for Himself. We were the
blind man. The Big idea: From birth we are all blind to the Light of
the World and separated from God. Only by grace through faith are our eyes
opened see the Truth.
III.
What we can do: In the midst of uncertainties stay focused on
the Gospel. Jesus’ response really turns the question of the disciples
completely around (4-5).
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.
Rather than answering questions we might
have about the sovereignty of God and the injustice and evil in the world, He
points us back to God. We may not know why things happen, but we can
focus on pointing people to Jesus, the One who endured suffering so that we
could be saved (vv. 4-5). Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ,
who strengthens me…” (Phil 4:13). Because we are in Christ we can thrive in
every circumstance of life.
In 9:4 Jesus says, "We must
work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no
one can work…” Literally it says “It is necessary (dei) [often
used of a “divine requirement”] to work the works of Him who sent me…”
Some translations take that as “I must” (KJV, NKJV), others “we must”
(NIV, NASB). Both are true. As the Scripture reminds us, we are His body, we
are light in the world. While we are here we have a mission to carry out, God’s
mission. The story of Jacob’s son Joseph comes to mind. He was hated by his
brothers, sold into slavery, then wrongly accused by his master’s wife and cast
into prison. Yet for all he experienced, when he saw his brothers he could say,
“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen 45:5-8; 50:19-21!).
In our passage Jesus said in v.5, "As long as I am in the world, I am
the light of the world.” We know the story, the cross is the prelude to the
resurrection of Jesus and his ascension into heaven. From there He sends the
Spirit to empower the church – His “sent ones” (He’ll say in this Gospel, “As
the Father has sent me, so send I you…”). As Jesus sits at the Father’s right
hand, we are His body in the world. WE are the light of the world. One way our
light shines is our response to the trials we face. Another is our willingness
to come alongside those who are suffering, not with easy answers, but to show
them Jesus.
What
is God saying to me in this passage? What we see, what we
know, what we can do… Even in the painful situations of life we can be assured
that God is good, and that he is working everything together for our good, and
for His glory. We have a High priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, he
was tested in all points like as we are, yet without sin. And just as Adam
brought death and the curse, Jesus provided the way to life: Hebrews 12:2-3
“…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author
and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3
For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so
that you may not grow weary and lose heart.”
The
big Idea is that From birth we are all blind to the Light of the World and
separated from God. Only by grace through faith do we see the Truth.
What
would God have me to do in response to this passage? I
turn again to the words of my Hebrew professor, Al Groves… As he blogged, just
a few weeks before his death, he reflected on some lessons God was teaching
him:
First, God has continued to be a father
to me. He still ferrets out the issues in my heart and leads me in repentance.
The need for sanctification never ends; difficult circumstances have not given
me a free pass.... It may seem strange to some, but he shows his fatherly love
and concern by continuing to love me through discipline (Heb 12:5-6).
God will chasten us because, like the
good Father He is, He loves us. If we are being chastened, we will know it,
because we’ll know the conviction of the Spirit that we’ve been resisting. Al
went on to write…
…walking through the valley of the
shadow of death, we are not alone. We walk with one who has walked it already
and has emerged alive on the other end, who leads us through that valley, and
who will lead out to life all who trust him. We have had wonderful care, which
we see as part of God’s providential hand in sustaining us. God alone heals. He
does so in many ways. Sometimes his purposes are best served as we put off the
perishable and put on the imperishable. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes
away. Blessed be his name.
There is suffering in this fallen world.
And Jesus came into this brokenness, because of the Fall, to rescue us, by
giving His life, so that we could have life. Amen.
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