Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

This entire story is a real life event that Jesus uses as a parable…a story to teach spiritual truth.

The world is lost in darkness…He is the Light…the world is spiritually blind…Jesus came to give sight.

“Who Sinned” — It was the thought of the day, and the thought of many in our day as well, that sin and suffering are connected.

That this man must have been born blind because of some sin on his part or that of his parents.

The Jews of the day thought it possible for a baby to sin in his or her mother’s womb.

For instance, when a pregnant woman worshipped in a pagan temple her unborn fetus was regarded as participating in the pagan rite.

In one sense suffering is connected to sin.

Without the fall of man in the Garden there would be no sin of any kind and therefore no consequences resulting from sin.

In fact there would be no death without sin!

But attempts to connect some specific suffering or consequence with a particular sin is very difficult and thin theological ice.

It has been the case at times, such as during the revolt of Miriam in , where she led a revolt against Moses and was cursed with leprosy.

But one can never assume that some illness or calamity is the Lord’s discipline or judgement on someone.

In December 1985 the United States NBC TV News ran a week long feature on it’s evening news program.

The advertising in the lead up showed a child praying, “Our Father, who art in heaven, what about the earthquake in Mexico City, the Japan Airline crash that killed 520 people, the AIDS epidemic, and the starvation in Africa?”

The advertisement finished with this tag line: “Is God punishing us?”

In December 1985 the United States NBC TV News ran a week long feature on it’s evening news program.

The advertising in the lead up showed a child praying, “Our Father, who art in heaven, what about the earthquake in Mexico City, the Japan Airline crash that killed 520 people, the AIDS epidemic, and the starvation in Africa?”

The advertisement finished with this tag line: “Is God punishing us?”

We live in a sin sick world.

It is broken.

There is always going to be, generally speaking, brokenness all around us until the return of Christ and the end of the age.

In this man’s particular case, he experienced blindness from birth for a purpose; so that He might glorify God in His life.

So that the Son of God might be revealed through His healing and subsequent sight.

So that He might become a witness and testimony to the identity and mission of Jesus as Messiah.

Generally speaking we see three identifiable kinds of illnesses in Scripture: A sickness that is caused by demonic powers…sickness unto death…sickness to the glory of God.

The blindness of the man is one of the latter.

He was bearing blindness for God’s glory.

So that His life, and in this case His healing, might make much of God.

“As long as it is day” — Jesus was not going to walk on the earth as a human being forever.

There was soon coming the “night” three days in the tomb when Jesus would be taken from them in death and they would be in disarray.

Jesus and the disciples must do all the Father has given them to do while they have the time and opportunity.

Jesus is the Light of the world…the light is shining!

The time to enjoy His light and be a part of what He is doing in the world was upon the disciples.

The day is upon us again in this generation because the Holy Spirit has come and we are saved!

We must do the works of God in cooperation with His Spirit at work in us while we have the time to do so!

The Healing

So Jesus goes about the business of working.

He spits on the ground, makes mud and puts it on the blind man’s eyes.

There has always been a lot of debate on why mud, why spit, what was He doing.

Some have even guessed that He was making a set of eyes for the man much in the way God made bodies for us from dirt at the beginning of our creation.

He told the man to go to the Pool of “Siloam” which means “sent” and wash.

The man was sent by Jesus.

He wasn’t healed until He had faith in the words of Jesus, went and washed.

This is reminiscent of the story in the Old Testament of Naaman the leper in .

Naaman was a soldier in the army of the Arameans and was a leper.

He had a servant girl, a slave, who had been captured in a raid upon the Jewish people.

She told Naaman about a prophet in Israel who could heal him of his leprosy.

So he went and talked to Elisha and asked him to heal him.

Elisha told Naaman to go wash in the waters of the Jordan river seven times and he would be cleansed.

Naaman was angry that the prophet had told him to do such a thing.

His homeland had clean rivers and the Jordan was filthy.

Why couldn’t the prophet just speak the world and heal him???

But Naaman’s servants encouraged him, telling him, had the prophet commanded you to do some valiant act for your healing would you not have done so?

He has simply told you to go wash…do it!

So Naaman went down to the Jordan…He wasn’t cured the first time, second time or third time, 4th 5th or 6th time…but when Naaman came up out of the muddy waters of the Jordan on the 7th time…well he had the skin of a baby.

Jesus sends us…Our job is to have faith and go!

The healing, miracle or simple blessing of being a part of something God is doing will never come until you have faith, go and obey the Lord.

Many of us would have gone to the nearest water we could find to wash off spit and mud someone smeared upon us.

But the blind man obeys Jesus to the letter…He goes down to the pool of Siloam and washes.

And when the mud us wiped off and his eye are dry…He can see!

The Aftermath

This man’s healing caused no small stir.

The only way a blind man could make a living in the ancient world was to beg.

His neighbors had seen him doing just that day after day for years and now he is walking around with eyes that see!

Some of them thought the blind man had disappeared and that this fellow just looked a lot like him…they simply could not believe the man they had know to be blind…blind since birth…could now somehow see!

But the man once blind says, “No it’s me!

I can see!”

Does this not often happen the the man or woman who genuinely comes to faith in Christ?!?

The change is so profound, they are born again, a new person and no one can believe it.

Friends and neighbors just cannot believe such a change possible!

But the new Christian says, “No, really!

It is me!

I was blind but now I see…lost but now I’m found!”

When a person goes from spiritual blindness to spiritual sight the change is incomprehensible to a world still living in the dark!

Jesus opened my eyes — So the people ask, “How did this happen to you?”

He says, “Jesus opened my eyes!” Isn’t that the testimony of every believer in the room this morning?

How did this happen to us?

How were we changed?

How did we go from death to life…spiritual blindness to the light and vision?

JESUS OPENED MY EYES! Hallelujah!!!

Many historians believe that central to the rise of Christianity was the simple fact that Christians generously loved each other and their neighbours.

They point out that in the ancient world mercy was widely seen as a character defect that ran counter to justice.

Justice demanded people get what they deserved and was seen as appropriate, where mercy extended grace, love, and kindness to people who had done nothing to deserve it.

Yet the Christians valued mercy.

Christian communities became places where people tended to live longer and healthier lives, for when they suffered sickness, poverty or mishap they had brothers and sisters in Christ who provided for their need.

And Christians extended love way beyond the boundaries of family and congregation to their pagan neighbours.

In 251 A.D. for example, a great plague struck the Greco-Roman world.

Memories were revived of a plague a century earlier in which more than a third of the population died.