Lent 4A Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

March 10, 2002 The Rev. Beth Ernest

The complex and intriguing story of the man born blind is used by many churches during Lent, that 40 day journey toward the darkness of the cross that leads to Easter’s resurrection light. Lent is also the traditional period of preparation for baptismal candidates, that is, people who wish to forswear the darkness and follow the light.

In the previous chapter, Jesus has declared himself to be the "light of the world" (8:12), one of several such provocative statements of self-revelation Jesus makes in John’s gospel. The crowds and the Pharisees are buzzing with what he means about that other statements. A bit after declaring himself to be the Light, Jesus goes on to illustrate it in the life of a man he comes across. The man is beggar, blind from birth. He has known nothing but physical darkness.

The beggar does not even appear to be aware of Jesus. It is the disciples who see the man and ask a common question in the old, Jewish mindset, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (9:2). Even today, I believe, there is a nagging fear among some that one who suffers must have done something to deserve such misery. Jesus debunks this bad theology and biology. This man is blind, says Jesus, so that God’s works will be shown in him. With that, he repeats that he is the Light of the World (v. 5), proceeds to mix up mud from the earth, spreads it on the man’s eyes and tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam.

In wonder what the man’s steps were like on that round-trip to the pool of Siloam. On his way there, not only blindness, but mud keep him from seeing. Is he familiar with the way? Do others help him? He splashes in the water with his hands, and washes off the mud. Lo and behold, he looks down into his hand, seeing it for the first time. He sees the sparkle of water for the first time. He sees his reflection for the first time. He sees other people for the first time. He sees colors for the first time. He sees the town he lives in for the first time. He sees everything about his environment which once he could only feel with his hands or smell with his nose or taste with his mouth. He sees… the light of day.

The people around the man are amazed. Is he the beggar—the one always sitting over there, blind? Some people are sure. "Oh, that’s him all right!" Others are skeptical. "No, it only looks sort of like him, but you can tell, it’s someone else." So the man tells them, "yes, I am the same one!" "How did this happen?" inquiring minds want to know. The man tells them about Jesus and the mud and the pool. But the star of the hour, Jesus, is gone.

The man born blind sees with his eyes. He knows who healed him, but he hasn’t come as far as he will go yet. John’s telling of the story highlights both the darkness the man lived in and the light to which he came; but the light comes in stages. For others, like the Jewish leaders who now pounce upon the man and demand an explanation, the light never comes at all.

The religious leaders also know the man was blind. They also know it is the Sabbath, a day on which work (which healing is considered to be) is not allowed! They declare any healer who would heal on the Sabbath to be a sinner!

A courtroom scene ensues. First the man born blind is dragged through the questioning, but he can tell them no more than he knows. Then the parents are brought in. They quake in fear, sure the Jewish leaders will excommunicate them from the synagogue if they admit that this great healer, Jesus, might be the One they were all looking for, the Messiah. To be barred from the synagogue was a fate worse than death; you were totally cut off from your people, completely shunned, as if you did not exist. Your business failed, your social and family life was over. The consequences were grim. And so, frightened, the parents did what parents should not have done, refer the inquisitors back to their son to risk the same fate.

What more can their son say than he has said, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see" (v.25). "Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. "If this man were not from God, he could do nothing" (v. 33). Disgusted, the leaders throw the man out.

Who sees what in this story? The man gains his sight and sees with his eyes. The parents contemplate the Light of the World but pull the shutters over the light that wants to engulf them for fear of losing what they know and have. The Jewish leaders continue to bumble around in the darkness, adamant that their faintly lit match is all the light they or anyone else needs.

But Jesus returns to finish the story. He comes and finds the man who has been discarded and asks him a cryptic question. Does he believe in the Son of Man? The man born blind asks, who is he? And now Jesus reveals his identity to the man. With this, full and total sight is displayed by this man who was born into darkness. Not only does he see Jesus in the flesh, but he "sees" who he is, and worships him.

As the story closes, Jesus explains his purpose:

With that, the religious experts are exposed. They remain lost in darkness, unwilling to recognize God’s great work of bringing the light where darkness had dwelt.

They remain lost in darkness, thinking that God could not operate outside the box of the Sabbath law.

And yet the simple beggar offers a great confession; he believes who Jesus is. Light has come both to his eyes and his soul. Jesus shone like a beacon and chased every bit of darkness away from him.

The greatest light the people of Jesus’ day knew of was the great Pharos, the lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt. It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Built by order of Ptolemy in the 3^rd century before Christ, it stood 500-600 feet high with three-tiers, topped with a mammoth flame made even more intense by a huge, glass lens. It is said that the lens could intensify the light so strategically that its beam could burn enemy ships approaching the city. The flame was so big and so tall it could be seen by ships 100 miles off. The lighthouse was more than a light, it was practically a city unto itself, a center of industry, a monument to the Greek god, Poseidon, and the gateway to the glorious capitol of Egypt under the Ptolemys. Eventually, earthquakes and Arab invaders took their toll on the lighthouse until it was totally submerged in the 14^th century. Today, archeologists are raising up its former glory from the bed of the sea.

I just sort of wonder, did Jesus have this incredible light somewhere in the back of his mind when he said, "I am the light of the world?" When people heard his statement, did their mind roam to this most famous of lights (besides the sun), we might say, the mother of all lights? Everyone knew of it. There were lessor lighthouses around, as well as simple fires on hills by rocky shores, but the Pharos was in a league all its own. Besides the sun which is far away an unobtainable, it was the largest light then known.

Such a beacon illuminates the pathway for those who want safe harbor. It identifies hazards, and provides comfort that one is not alone in the dark, adrift. Its intensity can also drive some away. It can make the dark shadows all that much more pronounced.

Jesus is clear in John’s gospel; either we accept who the light is, or we reject it. We can’t see and not see at the same time. We can’t sail toward shore and out to sea simultaneously. We must come to the point where we say with the man born blind, "I believe" (v. 38) and worship the One who is light.

Today we begin a program called, "Bring Your World to Christ—Be a Lighthouse," in which we commit to pray for people we know or know of who need the light of Christ in their life. Write their names down on both columns on the flier, tear off the gray column, and put it in the collection box. Over the next year, we will remember these people in prayer. Next month, the papers with the names will be taken by our delegates, Tom Branscom and Steve Cauble, to the Annual Meeting of the East Coast Conference in Woodstock, CT. There the names will be joined with the names gathered from other Covenant churches throughout the Conference. In June, the collected names from all the Covenant Conferences will be taken to the annual meeting in Colorado, and there, likewise be prayed over jointly.

The hope is that as we pray for the names on our individual lists and as we pray for the collected sum of them, that we and our churches will be reflecting the light of Jesus Christ, showing him forth to the world, and directing his illuminating beam upon others. We are invited to pray that those people we have committed to pray for will come to a decision about the identity of Jesus Christ; was he a holy, itinerant healer, or is he the Light of the World? Of course, we also befriend and share with the people on our list wherever possible. And we will try as best we can to have our actions reflect the light, that we ourselves might be worthy guides, not rocks upon which one can perish.