Lessons from a Miracle of Mercy

Introduction

All right, I’m going to put you on the spot now. How many did not like school when you were growing up? Raise your hands. It’s all right. Join the club. My hand is up high. Now, having seen that show of hands, not liking school sometimes corresponds with our level of knowledge and intelligence later in life. Unfortunately, that’s the case because school is a place of learning, isn’t it? That’s where we go to learn, and your desire to learn and your interest in learning usually corresponds to your level of learning. There are a lot of things I didn’t like about school. But I recognize now that it was a place of learning. But you know, most of the things that I remember learning in school had very little to do with the traditional thought of school being a place to learn.

But there’s a lot of lessons I learned in school that are still with me today. From Mrs. Bridges the love of hearing a story told well. I learned from Mrs. Rogers. The love of reading a book. Having the characters in the book just come alive and seem so real. I remember learning from Coach Heaton that you could compete and train hard, but still have fun. I remember from Mr. Guthrie that you could be funny without it being at somebody else’s expense. And so school was a place of learning on so many different levels. I hope I learned something about science and math and English, but I learned so much more. And that’s really life, isn’t it? And that’s the scriptures as well. Would you turn with me to the Gospel of John chapter nine?

The scriptures are a place of learning. They’re a place of learning on at least two levels. Obviously, there’s didactic information in the scriptures. There’s teaching being done. We have records of sermons and epistles being written where the inspired speaker and writer is saying, you need to learn this. Take note of what’s being said. But there’s also so much learning that can be done in just observing. And as we go to John chapter nine, we have one of my favorite stories in all the gospel. It’s one story, one event that consumes this entire chapter. It’s the story of Jesus healing a blind man. Jesus will do some teaching, but really very little of what we would call classical teaching in John chapter 9. But there are so many lessons to be learned in and from Jesus, and lessons to be learned in and from the blind man.

It’s a long chapter. And so if you’ll indulge me, instead of reading this lengthy chapter, let’s just remember the story of what’s taking place. Jesus is with his disciples, and they pass by a man who was born blind. We’ll learn later on that he is old enough to speak for himself. He is at some level of adulthood. We’ll learn later in the story that he, unfortunately, like many other handicapped in the first century, was a beggar. He would have sat in a very prominent place along a road or a marketplace or close to the temple where there were a lot of traffic going by.

Jesus’ disciples had what we assume was maybe a common misconception in that day, and that is that God was punishing somebody directly because of this blindness. Because they said they asked Jesus, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind. Jesus destroys that misconception and says, Neither. But this is an occasion, Jesus will say, to demonstrate the power of God. I am the light of the world, Jesus would say. And after saying those words, he did something that was must have been strange to those disciples, strange to the blind man and still strange to us today. He spit in some clay and mud and made a muddy poultice and rubbed it on the blind man’s eyes. And told him to go to the pool of Saloam and wash.

And the blind man did just that. He went and washed and he came back seeing. Can you imagine? A grown man had never seen, had never seen people’s faces. Had never seen a sunrise or a sunset or a rainbow. He had heard the birds, but never saw where that song was coming from. Had never seen the glory of God’s temple in Jerusalem. But he came back from the pool of Saloon seeing everything. Don’t you imagine his head was on a swivel as he was just looking at everything? That’s what a bird looks like.

That’s what a tree. Somebody tried to describe it to me, but it looked nothing like that in my imagination. As he saw faces that he may be attached to voices and behaviors. There’s that mean, grouchy man who never gives me anything when I beg. And have said some very hateful things about me. But there’s that sweet lady who always stops and says a kind word and gives me what little money she might have in her purse. And she’s as beautiful as I thought she would be.

But others said, no, it can’t be him because he’s blind. And a blind man never regains his sight. And so they told the Pharisees what had happened, the self-appointed moral police of that day. And so they asked the blind man, what happened? You were blind, and now you’re not blind anymore. What happened? And he said at that moment, all that he knew. A man called Jesus put some mud in my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.

The Pharisees had some, again, self-imposed rules in addition to God’s rules about the Sabbath day, and so a debate broke out. Well, this man, speaking of Jesus, he can’t be from God, or he wouldn’t have done this great thing on the Sabbath day. But then others said, but how could he do this great thing if he wasn’t from God? And so they debated about that. And they said unto the blind man again, what do you say about Jesus? Maybe with this new evidence, he comes a little bit further in his faith, and he says, Well, he’s a prophet. In other words, he has to be from God. Because nobody can just heal a blind man with mud and spit. But they didn’t really believe, although they knew that he was born blind until they called his parents.

And the council asked them, What about this? What happened to your son? How is it that you say he was blind, but now he sees? Now I want you to think about these parents and what this day would have meant for them. Parents, you know that it doesn’t matter how old your children get, you still love them. You still worry about them. You still want the best for them. And in that day and in that culture, being born blind was a horrible thing. Above and beyond just the normal difficulties of being blind and what that would add to life. Especially in a day when there was no such thing as braille. There were no such thing as services and helps from the government or from charitable organizations to help someone out.

It would have just been a hardship. But sadly, and we must add so inappropriately so, it would have been a source of such shame. When you were blind, you had one profession. Begging. That’s all in that day you were qualified to do is to beg. Then as well as now, that carries a level of shame of having to beg. And not just beg, but if you’re going to be a successful beggar, you kind of have to be in a prominent area. That’s why you see so many today and standing in front of Walmart or Target or Publix. They’re there where the high traffic area is. And so not only was he a beggar, but everybody knew he was a beggar. And not only that, in that culture, again, inappropriate, but in that culture, it was assumed that you were a bad person.

If you were blind, God must really hate you. Or maybe it’s your parents who did something so scandalous. But now all of that is lifted. The shame is gone. The burden is gone. The happiest day of your life would have been when your son regained his side. They should have been singing from the rooftops. But instead, they still hang their head in shame. We don’t know. We don’t know what happened. Ask our son, he’s old enough. He’ll tell you. We know he was born blind, but we don’t want to say anything else. The text says that they acted that way because they were afraid. They were afraid of the Pharisees and the scribes, that they would be kicked out of the synagogue if they said anything positive about Jesus.

How horrible.

And they just say, well, just give God the glory because this man, Jesus, he’s a sinner. Because he did a miracle on the Sabbath day. And you gotta love just the common sense and the boldness of the blind man when he goes, hmm. It’s a funny thing that you can’t figure out what’s going on. We know that God doesn’t hear sinners. But this man, by the power of God, just opened my eyes. And as promised, they kicked him out of the synagogue. He was excommunicated from his Jewish community.

Jesus finds him. And he finds him and he says, Do you believe in the Son of God? And he says, if you tell me, I know you have to be from God, because no one could heal the blind unless God was with them. If you tell me, I’ll believe in him. And Jesus says, What must have been to his ears the most beautiful words? You have seen him. And it’s he who’s talking to you. The last statement after saying a man called Jesus, and after saying he’s a prophet, the last statement that was recorded that this blind man said was, Lord, I believe. Now Jesus did a little bit of teaching in what we normally think of teaching in that incident, but he did a whole lot of teaching.

1. Miracles Point to Heaven

Let’s look at some of the lessons that we learn from this miracle of mercy. Lessons we learn from Jesus, the miracle worker. We learn that miracles point. Signs, miracles and wonders. The word signs is used often of the miracles that Jesus and others perform. That means it’s a when you think of a sign, think of a road sign that’s pointing somewhere. And this road sign is pointing straight up to heaven. It’s a sign pointing to heaven, saying, Man cannot do this. That’s illustrated in our text. Look in John chapter 9. Begin reading with me in verse 28. Then they reviled him, that’s the Pharisees, reviled the blind man and said, You are his disciples. But we are Moses’ disciples, for we know that God spoke to Moses as for this fella, we do not know where he is from.

Speaking of Jesus. The man answered and said to them, Why, this is a marvelous thing that you do not know where he’s from, yet he opened my eyes. Now we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone’s a worshiper of God and does his will, he hears him. Since the world began, it’s been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. Let’s never forget the primary purpose of miracles was to put the stamp of God’s approval on the person performing the miracle. And then what they would say, following, has to come with the stamp of God’s approval on their message. And so we learn that from miracles, that this person is from God.

2. Miracles Show the Character of God

But the miracles also show us certain things. We learn about the character of God in miracles. The blind man and well reasoning people in that day recognized that this was a power, a power that only God could perform. But you know that power could have just as easily been demonstrated in reverse, couldn’t it? Jesus could have walked up to a person with 2020 vision and put mud in his eyes. And when he washed them, he’s now blind. And instead of raising people from the dead, he could have snapped his fingers and people would have dropped dead. Instead of feeding the 5,000, he could have made it possible with one swoop of his hands that people were unable to eat and starve to death. That would have just as much demonstrated the power that man cannot perform that only deity can.

Why positive miracles? Because they show the character of God. And by the way, there are some negative miracles in the scriptures, aren’t they? They too reveal the character of God. Look at one example of this in Mark chapter 1. What do we learn from these miracles? We learn the power of God is in that person performing the miracles, but we learn the character of God. Mark chapter 1, look beginning in verse 40. Now a leper came to Jesus. A leper came to him, imploring him, kneeling down to him and saying to him, If you are willing, you can make me clean.

3. Miracles Were an Occasion to Teach

Stretched out his hand and touched him and said, I am willing. Be cleansed. And so what do we learn from this miracle? We learn the character of God, the compassion. That God came to help people. Now that miracle, that miracle lesson needs to be taken to the next step. He didn’t come just to help people’s physical problems, but this illustrates that he came to help greater, deeper needs and problems, those which are spiritual. These miracles also were an occasion to teach.

You remember early in the chapter, he used this occasion of this blind man in his interaction with him to show that no, no. His blindness is not a direct result of his or his parents’ sin. No. He used this later in his interaction with the Pharisees at the end. Look what he says in John chapter 9. Go back there. He has that final interaction with the blind man, but he has a final interaction with those judgmental, hateful Pharisees. Verse 40. Look at the last two verses of our text, John 9. Then some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these words and said to him, Are we blind also? Because Jesus had just said, For judgment I have come into this world, and those who do not see may see, and those who see may be blind.

They heard that statement of that Jesus, and they seemed to think they knew he’s talking about us. Are we blind also? Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say, We see, therefore your sin remains. You see how Jesus used this occasion to teach? It probably sadly fell on deaf ears to these Pharisees. But he was saying if you could recognize your blindness, if you could accept that you are blind, then your eyes would be open. But now that you arrogantly say, Oh, I see, I’ve got this, I understand everything, you’re really blind. In fact, Jesus taught us in this story. We have the blind man, the blind man’s parents, his parents who were blinded by fear. We have the Pharisees who were blinded by prejudice.

4. The Importance of Simple Obedience

They’d already made up their mind. Don’t confuse us with the facts. And of all the people we read in this story, the only person who could see was the blind man. What a lesson Jesus teaches us in this miracle. But we don’t just learn from Jesus, we learn some lessons from the blind man. We learn the importance of simple obedience. One thing that strikes us about this story is that the blind man did what he was told. Jesus said, Go and wash. You might think, well, he had to wash, he had mud on his eyes. But he went where Jesus told him to go. Because Jesus told him to go. Why? Why did he just do what he was told to do? I’m going to tell you why.

Because he was blind. And he had nothing to lose. He was blind and he wanted to see.

5. The Importance of Reason

If lost people today could have that same response, Jesus tells us in the scriptures what to do to have our sins washed away. If we understood the deep need of our present spiritual condition, we wouldn’t argue, we wouldn’t debate, we wouldn’t say, well, what about this or that? That doesn’t reconcile with my idea of grace. We would just simply go and wash. Just do what we’re told. It’s as simple as that. We learn from this blind man the importance of reason. When you become a Christian, you’re not required to check your brains at the door. Christianity is a reasonable thing, a rational thing. Notice again how this man reasoned. When he’s first asked, what do you know about this? I know his name. Man called Jesus.

6. The Courage of This Man

But he hears them debating about healing and Sabbath days. And they say again, what about him? And he says, He’s a prophet. He has to be from God. Based upon, I’ve been listening to these debates and these arguments. One side makes no sense. One side has to be. He’s a prophet. Then when he’s presented with further evidence, the man who obviously is from God because he performed a miracle tells him, I am the Christ. I am the Son of God. Then he reasons and says, Lord, I believe. See how his faith increased as the evidence increased. That’s the way faith ought to be. It’s reasonable. And then lastly, we see the courage of this man. The boldness. Unlike his parents who cowered in fear and would not give God and Jesus the glory for the miracle that had been performed on the best day of their life.

He, with the threat of persecution, the threat of excommunication, just says. Just says what he believes and what he knows. And if we’re honest, he kind of does so a little bit with a smart electric attitude. And we can’t blame him. Why?

Conclusion

It’s the best day of my life. Every day of my life I woke up and went to sleep blind. But today I can see there’s nothing you can do to ruin this day. And again, we need to have a little bit of that moxie ourselves. I’m a child of God. No matter what happens in this life, I’m a child of God. No matter what happens in my death, I am a child of God. And you can’t do anything to ruin that day. Let’s have the obedience and the rationality and the courage of this blind man. Life is full of lessons. If we’ll just listen, if we’ll just observe and learn from them. If you’re not a Christian, let Jesus wash away your sins. He’s told you just as simply as he told this blind man what you need to do in order to be sent, saved, to be cleansed.

Why not do what he did? Why not grow in your faith and grow in your boldness to believe and proclaim who he is? If we can help you, if we can help you in your journey of faith and your lesson of faith in any way this morning, why not come right now? As together we stand and as we suffer.