Do You See?

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus and His disciples encountered a man who was blind from birth. Following the general Jewish mindset about such things, the disciples asked Jesus who had sinned to cause this, the blind man himself, or his parents.

To them, and to the Jews observing them, it seemed like a natural question. We know from the Scriptures that all dysfunction and calamity come about as a result of sin. Furthermore, the Lord says that He will punish the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. So the logical outflow is that if something bad befalls you, someone must have done something to merit it happening. Therefore, who sinned – the blind man or his parents?

This line of thinking is very tempting, not only to first-century Jews, but to everyone. Jesus confronts those who think this way when He addresses the situation of the Jews whose blood Pilate mingled with pagan sacrifices. Did they do something to deserve such a death and desecration? No one could point to special wickedness that caused that.

Likewise, when the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410, the pagans tried to blame the Christians for such a catastrophe, because the Christians had turned their backs on the civic gods and the emperor cult. However, the pagans neglected to acknowledge that their excesses and inefficiencies in governing the empire had left the city of Rome vulnerable to the marauding hordes from the north. St. Augustine adamantly asserts in his City of God that it was the fault of the pagans, rather than the Christians, and that the Christians were picking up the pieces.

If we fast-forward to our own day and age, this sort of speculation about the origin of disaster still abounds. According to various sources, 9/11 happened because America tolerates homosexuality, Hurricane Katrina happened because New Orleans was a debauched and evil city, and the earthquake in Haiti happened as punishment for the Haitians making a pact with the devil. If this is true, then why did so many faithful, God-fearing Christians perish in those catastrophes? Did God destroy the five faithful for the sake of the 100 wicked?

Perhaps the worst example of this sort of thinking in our day comes in the form of the Westboro Baptist Church from Kansas. These people think that every soldier who dies in combat is a victim of God's wrath upon America for our toleration of homosexuality. They believe that somehow a soldier's blood shed in battle does something about the sins committed here on home soil. Of course, this is dead wrong. Why some die and some live is known only to God, and we are simply called to repent, and called to pay respect to those who protect and defend us and our freedoms.

How can you or I point out which particular sins cause what? With regards to the blind man whom Jesus met, Jesus could have told them exactly what caused his blindness, but to what avail? Would that have changed anything? Whatever sin they did or did not do, he was already blind. Nothing that man or his parents could do would fix that.

The same thing holds true among us also. Consider a baby born with a congenital birth defect. What did that child do to deserve that, or what did her parents do? We cannot point to anything more specific than the common sinful nature that infects us all and corrupts our bodies as well as our souls. A baby born with a birth defect has not merited a life of suffering, but is afflicted with suffering for reasons known only to the One who created her.

Have you known someone with Alzheimer's Disease, or Huntington's Disease, or autism, or any other genetic disease? What does one do, specifically, to warrant being so afflicted? Sure, there are plenty of things scientists identify as contributing factors or predispositions, but who lives and who dies is up to the One who gives life and takes life. To borrow the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ours is not to question why, ours is but to do and die.

“It was not that this man sinned, or his parents...” says our Lord. The matter of whose sin caused this affliction was really irrelevant to what Jesus was to accomplish in and through this man. In significant fashion, this blind man was like Job, who was afflicted not because of his sin, but to test his faith in the Lord. In the case of Job, there was no sin to cause his affliction, but he was tested by hardship to determine the strength of his faith. Even though his friends tried to place blame here or there, and his wife told him to curse God and just die, Job sat firm in faith that the Lord would see him through, whatever harm betide him. And so Job knew that he would be relieved of his affliction, because the Lord would redeem him somehow, and so he said, “yet in my flesh I shall see God.”

Even though Job was bereft of his earthly goods and health, and the man was born blind, and the Visigoths sacked Rome, and the earthquake devastated Haiti, the people of God have seen in these and countless other calamities that the Lord lives, and blessed be the rock of our salvation. And in our flesh, we shall see God.

“It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Jesus says that bad things happen so that God may make Himself known to and through us. For the reaction to disaster must be repentance. A catastrophe shows that no matter how pious we are, no matter how prepared we think to be, no matter how advanced our planning or our engineering, we are woefully insufficient to effect any real change upon the forces of nature. Because of the sin which corrupts the cosmos, these things happen to us.

All we can do is give up our pride and admit that we are powerless before the earth itself, much less the creator of heaven and earth. We must throw down our idols of self-sufficiency and self-preservation and throw ourselves upon His mercy and grace. And finally, we must acknowledge that the Lord is God, and not we ourselves. It is He who gives us all we have, and all we have is His to give and to take away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Then, when we have been humbled before God, we see the glory of God. In the midst of devastation and destruction we see the good that the Lord works in mysterious ways. We experience the dependency which His grace creates in us. We see those who come to the knowledge of the truth in the face of their suffering. We believe that God works all things for good for those who love Him.

And of course we know that all suffering will come to an end. We pray for the end of suffering in this life, and sometimes our gracious Lord grants it. He grants that people be healed of their afflictions. He grants that the love of Christ moves Christians to help those in need. And He grants that all suffering will finally end when we pass from death to life, into the arms of our heavenly Father.

Jesus said, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” We know that Jesus is in the world, and so we know that He is still the light of the world. He is the light that shines in the darkness. He was lifted high upon the cross, that the whole world might see Him and come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved. The light of His grace and glory pierces the darkness of our sin-blinded eyes and makes us see. Set high on Calvary's holy mount, the cross of Christ shines for all to see, proclaiming the forgiveness of sins and the destruction of our darkness and despair. This is the light of the world, the light no darkness can overcome. The glory of Christ shines through the darkness of our own sufferings and sees us through.

So, the question to you and me becomes: Do you see? As Jesus spoke to the formerly blind man, so He speaks to you: “Do you believe in the Son of Man? You have seen Him and it is He who is speaking to you.” You have seen Him through the eyes of faith, when you behold His Body and Blood given for you for the forgiveness of your sins. It is He who is speaking to you when you hear the Word of God proclaimed to you. You have received your sight because Jesus has washed your eyes and has filled your vision with His light. You see because you see Him.

Therefore, we, like the blind man, must make known who it is who has healed us. We must declare to those who sit in darkness the One who is the Light of the World. We have seen and heard and touched and tasted, and so we must let our light so shine, that we may be bearers of the light that pierces the darkness. Let us walk forevermore as children of the light.

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.