One Thing I Know

John 9:1-41

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.

Thus begins one of the most beloved hymns of the past two centuries, filling our sanctuaries, comforting our hearts, encouraging us in times of joy and sorrow. And the text for today’s passage is what inspired John Newton to first pen those words in 1772.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

We’ve certainly needed a little more of that this week, haven’t we?

Grace for each other as we all adjust to a new, but temporary, reality for a while.

Grace for our brothers and sisters who need us to stay home so they can stay well.

Grace for restaurant workers and grocery store stockers and teachers and medical professionals who are overrun and overworked during long and demanding days.

Grace, grace, grace.

It’s what we see at the beginning of the biblical passage, as the disciples question Jesus about a blind man and his connection to sin. Jesus immediately rebukes such a thought – this isn’t about sin, folks – and he heals the man born blind.

And how Jesus does that exactly is at best gross and off-putting and at worst dangerous and invasive.

That kind of healing – spitting in the ground, mixing spit with dirt to create mud, and then rubbing that mud on the man’s face with his bare hands – would surely not be welcome in these days of social distancing and protective hand hygiene. I guess Jesus missed that memo from the CDC.

Now don’t get me wrong, the guidelines we have in place are reasonable and fair and well-intentioned. But they can also leave us feeling isolated, left out, distanced and shoved aside – not totally unlike the man Jesus heals.

However, this man had been pushed to the very limits of society, his blindness seen as a sure sign of sin. So, he was passed by time after time after time by the people who knew him – but only by his lack of physical sight. They didn’t see him for who he truly was. They failed to look past what they saw with their eyes to see who he was as a person, as a child of God.

We’re reminded of our earlier reading from 1 Samuel, where God speaks to Samuel and reminds him that “the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

This brings us to a connecting point for our current climate: the challenge of bodily existence. Most of us face some sort of bodily challenge that has been brought to mind more recently. You may not be blind, but perhaps you are a person who is immunocompromised, or you have high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, anxiety, or difficulties with kidneys. The challenges that we face individually have been brought to the forefront of our lives if they weren’t there already.

But what the disciples see, and maybe what we see in ourselves, as a limiting disability, Jesus doesn’t.

“That God’s works may be revealed” we hear Jesus say about the man’s blindness (John 9:3).

A clarifying point here – this isn’t a cheap and tawdry theological whitewash but instead an opportunity to name directly the way others have seen this man and reframe how we might see him anew – as Jesus does.

Here’s what I mean: over the past week, we have all been confined to our homes for the safety of ourselves and others. Yes, there are limits as a result, and life looks different, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. We have lived life differently this week, and hopefully we have seen and heard things differently than we might have otherwise.

More than once this week, I was overloaded by the increased amount of screen time that everyday communication has taken on. So, on those days, I took a little more time to sit with the TV off and my phone on silent and really listen to the sounds around me. I heard birds singing about the arrival of spring. I listened to the reassurance of nearby church bells, ringing out in hope as they always have. I heard the laughter of children playing outside with their parents, spending more time at home. I took more time to talk to my own parents and check to make sure they have what they need. I felt the breeze on my face and stood in the sun for a few minutes.

These days are different, but they don’t have to be debilitating or disconnected from the things that matter. In the extra time I had at home, I also found a great story to share about a man who is blind but hasn’t let it stop him from seeing his own giftedness.

John Bramblitt lost his eyesight almost 20 years ago when he was a student at the University of North Texas.

“I relearned how to paint. I relearned how to do everything. And when you lose your eyesight, you have to learn a new way to do everything,” he said.

And last May, John took on a tall task – quite literally. He decided to create a four-story mural in the Bishop Arts District of Dallas, Texas. Bramblitt’s wife, Jacqui, gives him pointers, telling him where he needed to put the boom. From there, the blind artist said he feels the wall to make sure he is where he thinks he is.

Bramblitt also discovered a special black paint that he uses because it feels very slick and different from the brick. It also feels different than other colors. He can feel for the black lines to determine where to put his brush. The mural that he’s working on depicts a woman who is sitting on a porch playing a guitar. It’s bright and colorful. Bramblitt thinks it represents that area of the city.

“We’re in the Bishop Arts District. It’s a very fun, kind of laid-back place. It’s full of art and music. And whenever I hear music, I see colors. So, I have to have bright colors,” he said.

Bramblitt painted the design on canvas first and broke it down into stages. But now that it’s on a wall, he often loses his place.

“The wonderful thing about art is that it’s all about what you can do. What you can’t do doesn’t even enter the equation. So, you just figure out a way to do it and if that doesn’t work try to find another way,” he said.

Another way – of life, of meaning, of existence – is what Jesus gives to this unnamed man in John 9. No longer known only by his blindness, he is healed. And now, even the people of his town don’t recognize him, and certainly not everyone rejoices with him.

That’s been the most eye-opening part of the story for me this week. The miracle portion of the story comprises only seven (SEVEN!) verses of these 41.

What happens in the remaining verses? Lots of debate, lots of questions, lots of what-ifs and wondering about the unknown. If you go back through the passage with a highlighter or a pen, you can highlight 18 question marks in 41 verses.

There’s so much time spent on the questions, and that’s where I’ve found myself in the story this week. Not rejoicing, but mostly questioning and thinking, planning and praying, worrying and wondering. What if I can’t hug a church member or make a visit in person for the foreseeable future? What if my own friends or family get sick? What about our finances? What if there isn’t enough to make it through? Enough food, enough soap, enough creativity, enough hope?

We already know that Lent is a season for questions, but I didn’t count on this many.

Preaching Today contributor Ted Olsen offers his thoughts on these questions with a relatable commentary:

This is how I tend to approach problems, too. Or any question, really: I want to know. I keep believing that if I can just gather enough information, it will protect me against suffering. When I’m in pain, yes, I want a shoulder to cry on. But I also want a really good library and access to Wikipedia. There’s a lot of truth to the saying that knowledge is power. But it’s a lie to think that if we just gathered enough information, then we’d have control.^[1]

What are the things we know? Or don’t know? That’s been at the heart of our questions and worries and concerns this week.

Indeed, this is part of why we’re shifting our traditional methods of worship to an online format that’s new and uncomfortable. We don’t know how long this outbreak will last. We don’t know who might get sick if we gather in person. Maybe some of us don’t know where we’ll get toilet paper or hand soap or Clorox wipes or basic food items. I name those questions not to overwhelm us or to give even more space to fear and doubt but to be honest about the things that we bring with us into this moment.

But in the midst of so many things that we don’t know, we can find a kinship with the people from today’s passage. We can also see remarkable hope-filled, truth-filled, Spirit-filled things that we DO know and can claim fully this morning.

One thing we can know for ourselves today is that Jesus comforts us in our sickness and our fear.

“I am the light of the world,” he says.

He’s said it before, in John 8, and he says again here in John 9, reiterating and reinforcing his illuminating presence for our lives.

But look closer with me at what Jesus says – “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” That statement begs the question, “Is Jesus still in the world?” Is he still with us? Is he still here?

It may not always look like it, especially now, especially in these days. But surely Jesus is still in the world – through you and me. The light of Christ comes to us and surely shines through us, friends, especially in moments when darkness seems to engulf us.

Jesus’ teaching at the end of the passage also clearly shows us that blindness is more than just physical.

Gail O’Day, a John scholar and my former dean at Wake Forest, writes that this is “one of the story’s central theological themes: Blindness is not determined simply by seeing or not seeing, but by recognizing the works of God in Jesus.^”[2]

All the questions from the Pharisees, from the townspeople, even from this man’s parents – are asked out of worry and fear. So, blindness presents itself not only as physical, as with the healed man, but also as spiritual and emotional.

We’ve seen it for ourselves this week – the way fear spreads faster than this virus – with the hoarding of food and medical supplies and guns.

And even in the midst of that fear, in the midst of the questions, in the middle of our passage, the man speaks up: “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

“One thing I know” – right in the middle of the passage. As the voices around him hurl speculation and accusation and declaration, there is one thing that this man knows – “I was blind, but now I see.”

Can that be true of us today? Can we allow Jesus to stoop down before us, to make mud from the dust of the earth, and create a new person? Can we be people who are delivered from the worries of the present and fear of the future? Can our eyes be opened to see Jesus in front of us? Not just the Jesus from this passage, but the Christ who comes to us as our neighbors and friends who are more susceptible to COVID-19? The Christ who comes to show us another way, even in our shadows and uncertainty?

The shadows in this passage point to the cross. We are just a few short weeks from Good Friday, and the authorities’ resentments are gathering like a storm.

But the good news of the Gospel this week is nonetheless clear, especially as a pandemic sets in around the world: Jesus comes to give us true sight and insight; to make disciples out of ordinary, excluded, disinherited people; and to free us from the ways we blindly blame and scapegoat one another.

Think of the hardships of this time in another way, Jesus says – not as results of some sins in the past, but rather as occasions to see and to celebrate “God’s works” of amazing grace here and now. May that grace open all our eyes from the blindness of fear to know for ourselves that God is with us, even in this place and this time.

Amen.

Patrick Cardwell

Lindley Park Baptist Church, Greensboro, NC