Weekly Sermon

“We Must Work the Works of the One Who

Sent Me (While It Is Still Light).”

1Samuel 16: 1-13; Ephesians 5: 8-14; John 9: 1-41 

Biblical commentaries refer to John chapter 9, as John’s masterpiece, central to what all comes before it and after.  It’s the retelling of a beggar restored to sight in the context of the sightless Pharisees.  It best reveals John’s motifs of sightedness and spiritual empowerment versus blindness and spiritual bankruptcy; of those recreated by the light and those opposed to it.  It contrasts those outcast from society who come, some struggling painfully, to faith in Jesus as the Son of Man – the Messiah – with those who remain stubbornly faithless despite their intellectual prowess, theological knowledge, and social-economic status.  And it reminds us that nothing we can do puts us into the place where we can and of ourselves gain faith.

Within the context of John’s plan of the gospel setting, we also have to remember that this event takes place both on a Sabbath and a day or two after the Feast of Tabernacles.  Jesus went up to Jerusalem to observe the Feast of Tabernacles.  The Feast of Tabernacles was an eight-day period celebrating the pillar of light present amidst the Israelites in their desert wanderings towards the Promised Land, Canaan.  John communicated, to his congregation excommunicated from the synagogue as heretics, that Jesus was the light amidst this community of believers.

But, there are two truths that John underscores near the beginning of this periscope:  one, that Jesus is the source of eternal life for ALL who believe in him -- for ALL people – for the nameless disciples, the nameless Samaritan woman, and for the nameless, anonymous blind man; and, two, that Jesus is the creative dynamic of the God-head. 

It’s the “last and greatest day of the Festival” of Tabernacles, and Jesus has barely escaped stoning by some of the Pharisees.  John tells his community that “Jesus went forth out of the temple, hidden.”  And “Passing along, he saw a man blind from birth.”  And Jesus tells his disciples, “Neither this man sinned nor his parents, but [this is] so that the works of God might be manifested in him.”  John’s community and WE are now prepared to hear something dramatic in the ministry of Jesus occur.

We’re told that Jesus says, “It’s necessary for us to work the works of the One having sent me while it is day; when comes the night, no one can work.  When I am in the world, I AM the light of the world.”  Phos eimi tou kosmou.   “The light I AM of the world.”  Participate with me in my works and you will participate in the work of God, Jesus is saying.

“Having said these things,” John continues, “[Jesus] spat on the ground and made clay out of the spittle,” – as God had formed the earth out of clay – “and put his spittle on the eyes, and said to [the blind man]:  ‘Go and wash in the pool of Siloam (which is translated as having been sent).’  Therefore, he went, and washed, and returned, seeing.” 

“He returned, SEEING,” John emphasizes.  John thus indicates, subtly, that the man’s life is being molded into the life of a follower of Christ by GOD’s initiative through the ONE whom GOD sent.  The initiative to create is purely God’s; it’s never the blind man’s!  Grace to make us other than we are is always GOD’s work!

The blind man’s friends and neighbors – people with whom he had grown up – can’t recognize this newly created person; they are utterly puzzled, and they ask him:  “How were your eyes OPENED?”  And the  he answered them:  “The man named Jesus made clay and ANOINTED my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’  Going therefore and washing, I saw.”  Notice that they use the word opened – that word will continue to be used to describe this activity that the Jews can’t recognize as divine!  The man uses the word ANOINTED, at least recognizing that God was somehow in the middle of all this.

The man does not testify to anything other than to Jesus’ doing a healing.  In fact, he doesn’t know where to find Jesus.  Jesus should have been recognized as the Messiah by having given sight to the blind.  But, as John’s prologue says, “His own [people] did not comprehend this.”   Still, the man has been physically transformed.

The man’s neighbors and friends “led him to the Pharisees.”    The Pharisees decry Jesus as a person working the work of God because the 613 ordinances that interpret the Law of Moses prohibit making clay on the Sabbath, the day set aside for worship of God.  Upon asking the man what his opinion is, he responds that Jesus is a prophet.  Just like the Samaritan woman, for now, his testimony is limited.  The truth of who Jesus is has not been revealed.  The man’s spiritual awareness is not fully enlightened.

But, through the process of interrogation and investigation by the Temple elders, the man becomes consciously aware that those who are supposed to recognize or know godly activity do NOT; they are, in fact, ignorant of such. 

Once an outcast from Jewish society because of the Law, now this man is an outcast – literally, thrown out -- because of his testimony about Jesus before the synagogue.  This is just the situation of John’s community!

Jesus, John tells us, was informed somehow that the man has been thrown out of the Temple, and Jesus seeks the man out and finds him.  Jesus actively pursued the man to reveal something further to him.  Again, this is God’s initiative through the Christ!

“Do you believe in the Son of Man [the Messiah],” asks Jesus.  And the man answers, “Well, can you tell me, master, WHO he is so that I MAY believe in him?”  And John tells us that Jesus very directly states to the man:  “You have SEEN him and the one speaking with you now is that one.”  And we’re told that the man comprehends, in his whole being, who Jesus is.  “I believe, Lord,” he responds in faith; and, as the result of his faith, he worships Jesus. 

John has stated in the prologue:  “This one was in the beginning with God.  All things through him became, and without him became not one thing which has become.  In him, life was; and the light was the light of humanity.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness overtook it not.  It was the true light which enlightens every person, the light coming into the world.  In the world he was, and the world through him became.”

But, the prologue also states:  “The world knew him not.  To his own (chosen people) he came, and his own people received him not.”   The very leaders of the Temple, of the synagogues, were closed off to the light of the world.  They were NOT transformed.  “If you all had not been blind, you all would not have had sin.  But now you all say, ‘We see.’  Thus, your sin remains.” 

“Your sin abides with you,” the Greek says.  YOU choose to be closed-minded and ignorant, to have your souls tightly bound and restrained because of your willfulness, your self-centeredness, your self-inclination, your unwillingness to change to be other than you perceive yourself.  You refuse to choose LIFE.  You refuse to allow me to illuminate your spirit.  You push God’s extended Grace away.  You are filled with EGO – E.G.O., “Easing God Out”! 

Jesus could be speaking to the contemporary Church, referring to US as he did to the synagogue.   He could be making the point that there exist many people outside the Church who recognize God’s Grace and Mercy in the transforming work of God in their lives and in the lives of others.  Many of these folks don’t come into our doors and sit with us because, to paraphrase 1 Samuel, “WE look on the outward appearance, but they know that the LORD looks at the heart.” 

It’s really something, isn’t it, when those outside the Church witness to us about God’s Compassion and Mercy!  When they testify about how THEIR lives are changed because God through Grace illuminated their hearts and minds!  When THEY recount how THEY have been BROUGHT INTO FAITH!

It is refreshing.  Or should be!  It makes us realize once more that FAITH is not ours to give.  We come into FAITH because we accept the invitation by God’s Grace to walk through a doorway, into the life of God -- a LIFE that we can only comprehend through the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. 

Paul says early on in the Epistle to the church in Ephesus:  “[The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ] . . . destined us for adoption as [God’s] children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of [God’s Will], to the praise of [God’s] glorious Grace that [God] freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.   . . . I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints; and for this reason, I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.  I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know God, so that, with the eyes of your HEART enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which [God] has called you.  . . . For, by Grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is NOT your own doing; it is the gift of God – NOT the result of works, so that no one may boast.  For, we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus FOR good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our WAY OF LIFE.  . . . For, once you were darkness, but now in the Lord, you are light – for, the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.”

  How do we participate in the Light of the world?  How does the fruit of the Light manifest itself in our lives?  To what extent are we humble, peaceful, kind, gentle, steadfast, full of joy?  Or, are we irritable and discontent?

“WE,” Jesus told his FOLLOWERS, “MUST,” (he didn’t say SHOULD or OUGHT TO) – WE MUST work the works of the ONE WHO sent me!”

DO WE “work the works of the One Who sent Jesus?”  Who is this “WE”?  Are we – each one of us -- trying to “work the works of the One Who sent Christ Jesus” alone, without the Spirit of Christ illuminating us?  Or, like the Pharisees, do we even WANT to be enlightened?

Amen.