Title: Who is Blind?/John 9:35-41
Content: Who is blind? / John 9:35-41 Park Myung-ho
The word 'blind' is used in the Bible for blind people who cannot see.
In modern times, it would be more preferable to use the term blind rather than blind.
Today's Bible text is a continuation of the Siloam incident preached two years ago.
Of course, there may be some young people who will remember it, but it is thought that most will not.
Of course, the perspective we see today is a little different from before.
In the overall sense, the message of the Bible today is who is blind.
This means that just because your eyes are open does not mean you are healthy.
The true eyes are the eyes of the heart and the eyes of faith.
Through today's Word, I hope that you will have the eyes the Lord wants.
I hope that you will have wider and brighter eyes by drawing closer to the Lord every day.
1. Today's crisis and problems are to show the glory of God.
If anyone has a problem, raise your hand.
Now, our country is facing a number of economic and national problems.
Having a problem like this means that we have an opportunity for development.
There is hope that things can get better.
But if everything is a problem, this will be a real problem.
However, if you see this also through the eyes of the Lord, God will be doing the Lord's work in you too.
As Jesus is walking, he meets a blind man who has an eye problem.
But when the disciples see this blind man, they ask Jesus a question.
Look at chapter 9 verse 2.
Rabbi, whose sin is it that this man was born blind?
come on
To this, Jesus answers.
to show what God is doing.
The questions and answers are very simple.
But it contains God's deep desire for us.
God wants our eyes on problems to be re-illuminated with God's eyes.
Often, when given a problem, the reaction is similar to the thinking Jews had at the time.
At that time, the Jews believed that “disease is the result of sin”.
Therefore, being born blind is either because his parents have sinned, or the person himself is guilty.
When we are faced with a problem, we come to think that there is a reason at the beginning of this problem.
Judging from the thinking that the Jews had, they thought that problems were the result of life's actions and had a cause.
Of course, this is also the view of the blind.
It is common for us to take a similar approach when recognizing the problem in the same way as the Jews who see these blind people.
But Jesus shows us that there is a problem with this approach.
In verse 3, Jesus says that the parents were not created because of the person's sin, and that it is to show what God wants to do in him.
This is when certain problems arise, some can be judged by human standards and some are not, but the Lord asks us to ask a religious question about such a problem, 'What is God trying to show and what message is there?' is.
If you encounter a problem with such a question, you will meet the Lord who comes into the problem, and you will experience the wonderful blessing of God through that problem.
It is from this perspective that Anne Sullivan looked at Henren Keller.
He showed what the Lord would do to a child who was seen as a blind and hopeless child.
It was because he was able to see the world of Lena Maria in a new way, expecting God to work in him.
People who find out that the blind man has opened his eyes ask him.
“How did you open your eyes?”
Verse 11 says
A man named Jesus made mud and put it on my eyes. He said, "Go to Siloam and wash." So I went and washed, and I was able to see.
In short, it is because of Jesus that we can see.
If you look at the original Greek text of what you see here, it is written as ‘Aneblebsa’.
In the past, you could only see, sense, and feel what you touched, but now you can look up and see all around you.
In other words, the limited narrow world that he had touched and thought as a blind person was able to see a wider world through Jesus.
Do you have a problem?
Open your eyes of faith, not your small experiences.
You will experience the Lord who comes to you in a big way in a small world.
2. Go forward with boldness in faith.
Blind people thought that they would be happier if they opened their eyes.
That is why Jesus obeyed without excuses the strange orders to go to the place called Siloam and wash the mud made by spitting on it.
However, when he opens his eyes, hardship, not happiness, begins.
The Jews ask this man who has opened his eyes.
“Who do you think he is?”
“It is a prophet.”
We see this blind man, yet imperfect, confessing about Jesus.
Hearing this confession, the Jews try to investigate the case again from the beginning.
Why? Because they think of Jesus as a sinner.
So he calls his parents.
And I ask. “Tell me how your son came to see”
But parents are shivering in fear and telling their son to ask himself.
What were you afraid of?
Verse 22 says, “Whoever confessed that Jesus is the Christ has been excommunicated.”
What his parents were afraid of was expulsion.
What is exodus that makes you so afraid?
Expulsion is being expelled from the community.
Being excommunicated from the community is not just about being kicked out, it means that all activities, starting with economic activity, are stopped and the world's future is blocked.
Economic, social and interpersonal burial.
Just as his parents knew that they would face this expulsion if they confessed that Jesus was the Christ, their blind son must have been well aware of this.
However, the sight of this blind man who stood before the second Jew is so dignified and powerful.
Let's read verses 24 to 34 once.
The Jews try to make them confess that Jesus is a sinner along with their superiority, putting them at the forefront of being Moses' disciple, but they see their authority being threatened and disfigured in front of this blind man.
So the Jews severely reviled him for being blind (verse 28) and expelled him from school (verse 34).
Just as his parents were afraid of expulsion, they knew what exodus meant.
Forgetting the grace of Jesus and just saying what you said was right on the spot, he could avoid expulsion and live well in the world.
If you were just a little bit cowardly, you could live well in the community.
However, in verse 28, the image of this blind man facing Jesus appears as a disciple as reflected in the image of the Jews who had excommunicated him.
It was because he knew grace that he went boldly against the fear of expulsion, which was more fearful than having opened his eyes.
Have you experienced grace?
Among the many temptations in the world, have you ever been able to live comfortably with a little cowardice?
Have you ever had a hard time persevering without compromising on something that was not the will of the Lord because of grace?
But does the Lord leave those who were excommunicated like this?
Jesus comes to him and comforts him.
When he met Jesus, he confessed Jesus again in verse 38.
“Lord, I believe,” he bows.
The Greek word used here to mean to bow is ‘prosequine sen’, which means worship.
It is to confess the Lord as the Lord of our lives, not as a prophet, but as the Messiah, and show a life of worship.
Longing for your grace, please pray.
In it is the comfort of the Lord.
3. Open both eyes.
In order to properly understand and discriminate things or phenomena by shifting our perception, we must not ignore trivial things. Let's not forget that the great discoveries and inventions in history started with trivial things. Even a seemingly insignificant little thing, “Why?” And if you do not have a sense of problem and criticism, it means that you have reached a state of mental death.
We have to break out of the fixed frame of consciousness with the problem of “Is it good as it is now?”
This is an article from the book "It doesn't hurt to break stereotypes".
The Jewish Pharisees had their eyes open, but in Jesus' words, they were blind.
They are saying that the Lord will not be overlooked in the Day of Judgment.
It was because they could not see the inner side of their faith.
He knows what the Lord wants, but he stands as a blind man who refuses to see even though he sees because of the face of faith and because of what is seen.
We will have to look inward too.
As the Cambodian short-term mission team went on a short-term mission, there were some young people whose hearts were very shaken.
And it is true that even when we arrived there, it was difficult because of the weather, environment, and relationships.
In one area, it was also experienced in the same dormitory.
However, after a few days, the dormitory became a place of grace and joy for us, and a place we longed to go back to.
Why?
Same place...
Wherever you go you get grace, and wherever you go you won't receive grace.
Why?
When Jacob fled into the wilderness alone, leaving everything behind to escape the death of his brother Esau, all he could see was the wilderness of failure.
But that night he saw angels ascending and descending there.
He called the wilderness of failure Bethel, the house of God.
When Isaiah was weeping in despair and sorrow, he saw the Lord there. Sorrow has been turned into a calling.
We need to take another look inside ourselves and wash away the scales in our eyes that we think we see for ourselves.
Let me finish my speech.
A man was walking down a dark road.
He met a blind man walking down the street with a lamp.
“You are blind, so why are you walking around with a lamp? Curious about the blind man carrying a lamp and walking, he asked the blind man.
Then the blind man replied:
“Because when I walk with a lamp, other open-eyed people can see that I am walking.”
Because we are spiritually blind, we need the light of Christ revealed in John 1.
Just as blind people met the light today and became worshipers, we too must carry the lamp of Christ for each other.