We played “Pat-a-Cake” in church on Sunday. Then, we tried it with our eyes closed. Then, we “tried harder.” We learned three valuable lessons: 1. Blindness is not OK. 2. But yelling at blind people doesn’t help. And in fact, 3. “Trying harder,” while blind, actually makes things worse. John 9:1-5, “As [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed [might shine] in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’” Why would anyone be born blind? Scripture is clear that we all suffer the sins of our ancestors, but it’s also clear that we don’t inherit guilt. “Each one shall be put to death for his own sins (Deut. 24:16).” “Little ones... have no knowledge of Good or evil” (Deut. 1:39); they haven’t yet taken the fruit from the tree. Why would anyone blame the blind? That’s easy. It makes us feel better about ourselves (for a moment). It gives us a sense of control (We think we can choose differently.) And in this way, we don’t have to feel sorrow for them (“It was their choice; ‘Free Will,’” we say.) Why would anyone choose to be blind — for sometimes we do? At the turn of the last century, many who had been born blind but received the newly perfected cataract surgery chose to return to blindness, for seeing was just too confusing. Ray Charles went blind after watching his brother drown. My wife once told me that she gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a man who died; she had forgotten that she’d done so and seems to have forgotten this once again. Would you blame her? If you choose to go blind, you choose to “NOT see the light.” And you choose not to see the light because you don’t see that the light is The Good. All you see is death, guilt, confusion, and injustice. And so, your strategy is to close your eyes. Your strategy is to save yourself with blindness. This is why we don’t like pictures of the bombed-out remains of the Gaza strip, aborted babies, blind men begging, or a naked man beaten and nailed to a tree.... Have you ever seen that picture? John 3:19, “This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light...” We don’t love the light for we have chosen darkness and perhaps because we haven’t yet seen just how good the Light (The Good) actually is. In Scripture, “the Good” (tob in Hebrew) is that which everyone most naturally and fully desires. It’s like we all see Good Friday and then shut our eyes before Easter. We know about the good... (enough to see that what we have done is bad). We know about the good, but we have NOT known the Good until we see that the Good knows us and does not condemn us... That’s how good he is! We all took His life on the tree, but when we see that He always gives His life on the tree, we see the Good and are drawn to the Good, for we were made for the Good. He is “our Helper.” Maximus the Confessor (~600 A.D.) taught that we each have a “natural will” that is naturally drawn to God, and a “deliberative will” that can stray from God but only because it is blinded to the Truth — blinded by a lie. “There is blindness far worse than mine,” wrote Helen Keller, “those who have no vision.” Those who can see and choose not to see, for they can’t see “the Good.” Sin is blindness, and to commit a sin is to act out of that blindness. The disciples failed to see “the Good” in the blind man; they had the worst form of blindness — they were blind to their own blindness. “As you did it unto the least of these...” said the Light of the World, “you did it to me.” Perhaps He isn’t telling us to try harder but asking each one of us to ask some questions: Am I blind? Was I born blind? And if so, whose fault is that? Jesus heals the blind man with spit and dirt (we’ll discuss this next week.) Then, the rest of the chapter reads like a comedy sketch. The neighbors, the Jews, the parents, the Pharisees — all are terribly confused (even frightened), all except the blind man and Jesus. John 9:35, “Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him [Everyone is blind to Jesus except the blind man— the formerly blind man!], and it is he who is speaking to you.” 38 He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind [If you saw that you don’t see], you would have no sin; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. If Jesus were to help these men see that they don’t see, he would’ve healed them of blindness and saved them from their sin. So . . . are you blind? Were you born blind? And if so, who’s to blame? Do you see the Light of the World? If Jesus says, “I am the Light of the world” not “a light of the world,” He is NOT only implying that He’s God but that He is the only light of the world. We swim in light, don’t we? If He says, “I am the Life,” not “a life,” He’s not only implying that He’s God, but that He’s the Life in anything that lives, including your own. If He says, “God alone is good,” He’s saying that the goodness in everything that’s anything is God, and therefore the only thing that any of us truly desire. I once had a “Damascus Road” experience; it was as if God blinded me to all that I thought I knew in the morning and opened the eyes of my heart in the evening. I “saw” (I had a vision) that He is the Good, the Beauty, the Truth, the Life, the Light in everything that’s anything, and everywhere and everywhen, He is constantly saying, “I love you.” And then it stopped... or He stopped it. But I began to see that I don’t see; I’m blind. John had a similar experience on the Mount of Transfiguration and the Island of Patmos. So did Saul of Tarsus on the Road to Damascus. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees, and God literally blinded him —he saw that he didn’t see and became the Apostle of Grace. Once, he was even transported to Eden. But you don’t have to have the same “experience.” Actually, “blessed are those who haven’t seen and yet believe.” You have seen Goodness, Beauty, Truth, Light, and Love. But you have also not seen Goodness, Beauty, Truth, Light, and Love... whenever you wanted to. You’ve seen the Light... but “shining” in the darkness. That’s when and where it shines, and we begin to fall in love with the Light. Yes, we are blind. And yes, we were born blind. On the 6th day of creation, Adam couldn’t find his Helper, who was right there with him. And so, Adam was alone, which was not good — which is evil... before “the fall.” Adam was blind to his own blindness. So, God (his Helper) put Adam to sleep and began to make a Helper fit for Adam; He began to make Himself fit for us, even Body Broken and Blood Shed. Eve is not Adam’s Helper. God is Adam’s Helper (“ezer” in Hebrew). It turns out that we are all Eve, and God in Flesh is our Helper. It turns out that we are all the Bride of Christ, and Jesus is our Husband. But we don’t wake to this reality until “not knowing what we do,” we take His life on the tree and return to discover that He’s always given His Life on the Tree. Our Husband is absolute and relentless Love; He is the Beauty, Truth, Life, and Love that surrounds us every day. He is the Light shining in your darkness. He is romancing all people unto himself. So, Yes: You are Blind. Yes: You were born blind. And whose fault is that? Jesus doesn’t blame the blind man. He doesn’t even blame the Pharisees who lead everyone to take His life on the tree. He knows what we will do, but He doesn’t blame us as if we knew what we were doing. He cries out, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” They’re blind. And who’s fault is that? In Chapter 12, John will explain: “They could not believe,” for as Isaiah says, “He (God or Isaiah) has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts.” In John 12, Jesus has just stated, “When I am lifted up from the earth (speaking of His cross) I will draw all people to myself.” Then John explains that Isaiah (in 738 B.C.) saw Jesus “high and lifted up,” and he heard the angels cry, “the whole earth is filled with His glory.” Isaiah feels utterly lost, blinded, until his lips are touched with a coal from the altar, and he hears the Lord say, “Who will go for me?” Isaiah volunteers, and the Lord tells Isaiah to “blind their eyes.” He is literally to preach Israel down to a stump. Then the Lord says, “The Holy Seed is it’s stump.” We know that Isaiah preaches that a suffering servant will open the eyes of the blind and unite all flesh in himself as a symphony of praise to our Creator. The Suffering Servant is the Promised Seed and the root of the tree . . . It must be the cross, the Tree of Knowledge that becomes the Tree of Life. And it’s all God’s fault, yet God has no fault — and so in the End, we’ll see that no one is to blame. You can blame the man on the tree, but He doesn’t blame you. You can take His life, but then you’ll see that He gives His Life, and He is the Light shining in your own darkness. Helen Keller once placed her fingers on the lips and throat of a man singing “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” As a tear ran down her cheek, she responded, “I was there!” Helen Keller was blind, and yet she knew far better than most: Christ was in her, and so she was in Christ. She has His Glory. She is His Bride. And now she knows and sees all things in the Light. If we only saw that we don’t see…we would see. And #1, we’d stop yelling at blind people, for #2, we’d have compassion on sinners, and #3 we’d preach the Gospel — not a threat, but good news: “He doesn’t condemn you; He has forgiven you.” God said to Isaiah, preach Israel down to a stump. The Cross is the Tree. The Bread and Wine are the stump that is a Seed. We place the Light of the World in our darkness and let it shine. Once you’ve truly seen Jesus, you will see all things and know that “All things have become new.”