March 22, 2026
"God Healed Our Blindness"
John 9:1-41
There are a lot of things we don’t understand in our world. I don’t think we will ever understand everything. But I’m glad and thankful that there are people who are interested in trying to figure things out in our world. I am thankful for the scientists who are engaged in finding cures for diseases. No one likes to be sick. If we can understand how diseases affect the body, perhaps we can find a cure for them. It’s possible, then, to bring relief to people who are suffering. This is wonderful.
But we still haven’t found cures to all the diseases that people experience. We still don’t understand how some diseases work. And we may never understand no matter how hard scientists try. Some of these diseases will remain beyond our scope of understanding.
This is the reality of our world, and there isn’t much we can do to change it. Humans will always be limited in their understanding of things. That’s just the way it will be. But this doesn’t stop humans from trying to figure things out.
In our gospel reading from John, we see that Jesus’ disciples didn’t understand why a man had been born blind. They seemed to have thought that they had the answer. They figured either he or his parents had sinned. That was the reason.
The disciples weren’t way off base here. The general understanding of the people at that time was that sin was behind all the bad that happened in the world to someone. The disciples had gotten that understanding from the Old Testament. Whenever something bad happened to the Israelites, it was always because they had sinned and incurred God’s wrath. The bad that happened to them was the result of their disobedience to God.
So, it isn’t surprising that Jesus’ disciples believed that sin was the cause of this man’s blindness. What the disciples wanted to know was who was specifically responsible for his blindness.
As it turned out, the disciples were wrong in their assumption. It wasn’t because of a specific sin that he or his parents had committed that had caused him to be born blind. The reason he was born blind was so that God’s glory and power might be revealed. This was Jesus’ answer to His disciples’ question. Neither the man born blind nor his parents had committed a specific sin to warrant the man’s blindness.
It appears that the disciples were quick to judge the man and his parents. They must have done something wrong for this to have happened. But that wasn’t the case. I’m sure the man and his parents had sinned in their lifetime, but it wasn’t their sin that had caused the blindness. The disciples were hasty in placing blame on the man and his parents.
This is a good lesson for us to not be quick to judge others when we see something bad happen to someone. We shouldn’t assume that he/she specifically did something to bring the bad upon themselves. That’s not always the case.
Don’t misunderstand what is being said here. There are instances where the bad that happens to a person is a direct result of a sin he/she has committed. That does happen. But that is not always the case. And so, we shouldn’t be quick to assume that the bad that has happened to a person is of his/her doing. That’s just not true all the time. We need to think before we judge.
Now, I don’t want us to get the idea that sin had no part in the man’s blindness. It did. The man was born in a sinful world where things don’t always go right. The world has been cursed because of sin. That’s why we have bad things happen in our world. The man’s blindness came about because he was born in a sinful world. Had he been born in a perfect, sinless world this wouldn’t have happened to him. He wouldn’t have been born blind.
This explains why things go wrong in our world today and why we don’t understand all things. Our world has been cursed because of sin.
But there is hope. Jesus is that hope. He came to bring light into our world. To those who are blind He came to give sight.
This was what happened to the man born blind. For years, he saw nothing but darkness. He had no idea what the world looked like around him. He had to beg to survive. That’s what he did day after day. That was his life for many years until Jesus had come into his life. Jesus gave the man his sight. No longer did the man have to sit and beg. He would live a normal life. Jesus had changed the man’s life in a way that the man never imagined. Jesus’ healing this man was certainly a demonstration of the power of God. With God all things are possible.
But this wasn’t all that Jesus did for this man. He gave him his spiritual sight as well. Before this time, the man hadn’t known that Jesus was the Savior of the world. He had been blind in this respect. But Jesus took away his blindness by telling this man that He was the Son of man, the Messiah who was sent by God. When Jesus told the man this, the man believed.
Jesus certainly changed the life of this man, both in a physical and spiritual sense. This man was no longer blind. He could see the physical world around him, and he could see the truth of Jesus Christ. Jesus had completely changed this man’s entire life.
This is what Jesus meant when He told the disciples that this man was born blind so that God’s power might be made plain for all to see. And it certainly was when He healed this man.
Jesus wanted to get across to the man and to all the people who had witnessed this miracle that God does not disappoint. God does great things. It’s not a waste of time to follow Him, to believe in Him. He can do all things. Most importantly, though, He can save people from eternal death.
Jesus has saved us from eternal death. I hope we really believe this. We have been hearing this for many, many years now. I hope the truth that Jesus has delivered us from eternal death deeply resonates with us. We are no longer blind when it comes to what God has in store for us. God has given us sight, in this respect. We aren’t in the dark when it comes to what is going to happen to us down the road. God has opened our eyes to the reality of eternal life. What a blessing!
Not everyone can see their future. They are still walking in darkness. They are still blind. They may be able to see the physical world around them, but they certainly can’t see the blessing of eternal life. There are many such people in our world today.
But we have been blessed in that our eyes have been opened. Jesus came into our lives and gave us a future. And all this happened when we weren’t even looking for it. God decided to save us.
It appears that’s what happened to the man born blind. Jesus just came up to him and healed him. Our text doesn’t mention that the man had asked Jesus to heal him. He might have been begging for money at the time. Our text does mention that the man sat and begged. But it appears that he hadn’t asked Jesus to give him his sight. Jesus simply came into this man’s life and changed it considerably.
We can say the same. Jesus came into our lives and changed them substantially. I hope we realize this. I hope we don’t take the fact that we can see for granted.
I think when we stop and think about the vision we have in Christ, we are thankful. It’s just that too many things in life cause us to look elsewhere. We need to be reminded that God has given us our spiritual sight, and because He has, we will one day behold the sight of eternal life.
I pray that the Holy Spirit will keep our sight focused on Jesus. I pray that He doesn’t allow anything to get in the way of our vision or block our view of Christ. We can’t go wrong if our eyes are focused on Him.