Jesu Juva
“The End of the Blame
Game”
Text: John 9:1-41 (Isaiah
42:14-21; Ephesians 5:8-14)
Grace, mercy, and peace
to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ.
Amen.
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?”
On a certain level, that question is legitimate.
For the only reason there is any disease or handicap in the world today
is because of sin. And more specifically, it is because our
parents - our first parents, Adam and Eve - sinned and with their sin plunged
the world into sin. And all people ever since are born in sin and with sin.
But it can also be true in other ways. Sometimes
it is our own actions - sinful or not - bring about problems and have
consequences. If we stay out in the sun too long we can get skin cancer. Those
who drink too much can have liver problems, and smoking often causes lung
cancer or other breathing problems. Adultery causes marriages to fall apart.
Yes, sometimes we can say that our own sins have caused our
problems.
But not just that - sometimes it is the sins of
the parents that do cause problems for their children. Babies are born with
AIDS because of the promiscuity of their fathers. Mothers who use drugs while
pregnant can cause their children to be born with handicaps. Babies are born
addicted to drugs.
Yet while these things happen, we do not
always know why they happen. Some mothers who abuse drugs have healthy babies,
while other mothers who take great care during their pregnancies have babies
born with problems or handicaps. Smoking doesn’t always cause cancer. All these
things happen because of sin in the world, but there’s not always a direct
cause and effect relationship. Sometimes we just don’t know why things happen
as they do.
But still we want to know! Maybe
to assign blame. Perhaps to make ourselves feel better or feel
superior. Isn’t that why many are so fascinated when the sins of others are
revealed on television on in the media? How could they? What were they
thinking? I would never . . .
So what’s the dirt here, Jesus? Who gets the
blame?
But you know what? Blame doesn’t help. It
didn’t help our first parents when Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent
and they both blamed God! All blame did was pit them against one another and
against God. But it couldn’t get them out of the mess they were in, the sin
they were in, the death they were in. Us either. It doesn’t do any good to tell
the smoker dying of cancer or the mother mourning over her baby: I told you
so!
So Jesus doesn’t play that game. For while blame
doesn’t help, there is someone who can. Someone who
came not to be against us but to be for us. And that someone is the one
who came to that blind man that day.
And so Jesus says: “It was not that this
man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in
him.” Or in other words, Jesus says, it was a set up!
This man is going to be used for something
special. God is going to work in him and through him. His years of darkness are
going to be replaced with the joy of light. And not just
physical light, but the joy of seeing the light of the world.
The joy of seeing the Messiah. The
one who has come to break the power of sin and death, for this man and for all
people. Everyone could see the result of sin - Jesus wanted them to see Him
and in Him, the cure and solution to sin.
Which is why I think
Jesus heals this man as He does. Jesus could have just healed him with a word -
He’d healed that way before. But instead, He creates, He anoints. He
makes mud - breaking one of the Pharisees’ man-made-but-elevated-to-God-
And it works . . . sort of. He does get
their attention. There’s an investigation. But they are torn, divided. He has
to be a sinner, for He broke the Sabbath rules, but a sinner couldn’t do this!
It’s almost as if they have to blame somebody, but they don’t know who
to blame. Blame again. So finally they blame him, this poor man who only
knows that he used to be blind but can now see, and they cast him out
of the synagogue, out of fellowship with them.
They are a living example of what the prophet
Isaiah said: Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I
send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the Lord? He
sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not
hear. Their rules, their religion, had blinded them and deafened them.
They saw so much the sin and need in others that they became blind to the sin
and need in themselves. They stared so long and hard at their own piety that
they became blind to the good in others. They knew the words of their Bibles so
much that they forgot what those words meant. And so when Jesus came along –
the very fulfillment of those Scriptures, and the One they should have been
waiting for and excited to see – they were blind. They could not see what was
standing right before their faces.
But it’s not just them - there’s a
warning for us here too, lest we do the same thing and fall into the same
trap. That we so see the sin and need in others that we’re
blind to the sin and need in ourselves. That we become so proud of our
own piety that no one else can measure up. That we know the words of Scripture
but forget what they mean. Or maybe the biggest and most popular one today: that
we seek only to blame and not to repent. Stop it. Drop the pride, and
humble yourself in repentance. For who’s the sinner? Yes, you’re
the sinner!
So this man - talk about an up and down day! But
Jesus isn’t done with him yet. Hearing that those who should have helped him
instead tossed him, Jesus searches him out. This man couldn’t
come to Jesus - he still hadn’t seen Jesus; didn’t know who Jesus was, what He
looked like. So Jesus finds him. And He opens the man’s eyes once again and
enlightens His soul. The man sees Jesus, he sees His Saviour,
and he believes and worships Him.
And so too now for you. Jesus comes for you too.
For this is what Jesus told His disciples at the beginning of
this account, when they first asked Him about this man. He went on to
say: “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.”
There are two significant things there. First, He
says WE, not I. WE must work the works of him who sent me. Jesus AND the disciples. And then He also says: as
long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
This is the good news for you and me! For even
though Jesus is no longer walking on the earth in the flesh as He did that day
with the blind man, He is still in the world - only now it is in
His Word and Sacraments, and working through the ones that He sends. And
through these He is still coming to people locked in sin, locked in darkness,
locked in blame - to people like us! - and shining the
light of His forgiveness and love.
And so He is still washing and giving spiritual
eyes, now to those who are baptized. That we may not only see our sin and need,
but more than that and more important than that, see Him. See Him as He
wants to be seen - as your Saviour. As your sin- and blame-bearer, as your death-taker, on the cross.
That in answer to the question: Who’s the sinner? We say: Yes, I’m
the sinner, but my sin is on Him. And if it’s on Him it’s no longer on me. And
if it’s no longer on me, then I am forgiven. I am redeemed. I am set free.
And those are the words we continue to hear from Jesus today in the Absolution
- you are forgiven, you are free - and to which we say in response, like the
man-formerly-blind: Amen! Or yes, I believe.
And believing, then, as St. Paul said, walk
as children of light. Walk no longer like men born blind and still
blind, but as men born blind now able to see. Now enlightened
by the light of Christ, by the light of the world. Walking no longer in
the darkness of sin and indulging in those things we hope never come to light,
which would shame both us and our Lord - and then blaming others. But
doing and saying those things that are good and right and true; what is
pleasing to the Lord.
And chief among those things to do and say are
what you have come here today to do and say: to repent and receive the gift of
your Saviour’s forgiveness; to repent and receive the
gift of your Saviour’s Body and Blood. For this is to see yourself rightly, and your Saviour
rightly, and to speak rightly - no blame, just truth.
And then, thus forgiven and fed, enlightened and
set free, you are strengthened and free to live this life for others, walking
as children of light in a very dark world. A world which very
much needs the light. As more and more sin arises and more and more
darkness descends, and as more and more blame gets passed around, your word,
your life, speaks something different. Another way, a right
and true way. A way not of blame, but of a Saviour; of the one who came to overcome the darkness . . .
and did.
And so whatever is happening now, whatever joy or
sorrow, whatever trouble or trial, whatever triumph or tragedy, you live in the
light of His promise: that as these could not overcome Him, so they will not
overcome you. You have His promise of life, which is as true and sure as His
empty tomb. For in Him, that is the future of your tomb as well.
So ask not: Lord, who sinned, this man
or his parents, that he was born blind? but ask instead: Lord, who died, that this man and his
parents may live? That I may live. For that’s the question and the answer that makes all
the difference in the world.
In the Name of the Father
and of the (+) Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.