Seeing Double

Good morning! Have you ever been blind in your life? Or have you ever tried acting blind in your life?

One activity during IPR sessions that I’ve experienced is called the “blind walk” where participants are paired with each other and are instructed to take turns playing blind while the other partner with the good sight leads the ‘blind’ around. With that activity, we were able to appreciate our sight more and also appreciate those who lead us to the right paths. Most often than not, one can only appreciate the sight that God has given to us when we experience blindness. You yourself can do that by trying to imagine going home after this worship service with your eyes shut. It’s definitely difficult, right?

According to the 2006 World Health Organization estimate, 40 to 45 million people are blind worldwide, and an additional 160 million individuals suffer from low vision. The three major causes are cataract, trachoma and glaucoma, accounting for over 70 percent of all cases of sightlessness. However, a few cases of this condition are congenital, which means one is already blind at birth.

In biblical times, blindness was also prevalent. Our gospel reading today in John chapter 9 is about a person who has congenital blindness – he was blind since birth. However, even though his story is pivotal to this passage, the central message is not about his blindness, but about the blindness and sin of those around him – of the religious teachers and authorities around him. As was Jesus’ style in effectively preaching about the good news and teaching the people about this, Jesus makes a very important point in using not only the blind man’s condition, but more especially the kind of blindness that afflicts even those who have good sight but questionable intentions.

“As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.’”

Then Jesus went on to heal the blind man, and indeed the work of God through his healing was displayed in his life as he witnessed to those around him the miracle he has experienced.

This would have been a very good ending to the story. But no, the story didn’t end there. It went on and through the Pharisees, the teachers and authorities of the law, the question was then refocused on sin. The question on who sinned and caused the man’s blindness—the blind man himself or the parents—was again raised. What’s worse was that these Pharisees went to the extent of saying that the one who sinned was Jesus because he healed the blind man on a Sabbath.

In our time today, we still hear a lot of those who believe that what caused one’s affliction is because of his or her sin or the sin of the parents. But we need to be reminded that all people—all of us have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. Not all afflictions therefore, not even most, can be blamed on the sin of the person who must bear that affliction, or - as in the case of a genetic defect or a birth accident like that of the man born blind must have had - upon the sin of the parents. I believe that that is not the way our loving, caring God works.

Of course some afflictions are obviously results of sin like becoming a mental case because of drug addiction and the drug trade, but many afflictions experienced by the people cannot be blamed on someone, nor should we go about blaming them on someone. For that is not what we are called to do.

As believers we are to look at Jesus, who, in our passage today, set the example for us to do, and that is for us not to bring judgment but healing to those who are afflicted. This is what Jesus is about: he has come to bring us relief from those things that afflict us — to give sight to the blind and to heal the lame, and to set free those who are oppressed and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord to those who are poor.

This is what God wants us to do with our lives, and this is what the cross is ultimately all about—to bring forgiveness and salvation to sinners, to show the love of God to those who, by any other standard, are unlovable.

Talking about blindness in our times today, I would like to classify them into two: first is the kind where one is afflicted with challenges or problems in one’s life. Are you suffering from a certain ailment or sickness that won’t easily go away, or are you burdened by a concern that disturbs you? Are you experiencing financial difficulties and are having a hard time making ends meet?

I intentionally selected the first hymn, “Blessed Assurance”, today for us to sing because this was written by Fanny Crosby, who has blind. When Fanny was six weeks old, she had an eye infection.  Her regular doctor was out of town, and a man posing as a doctor gave her the wrong treatment. Within a few days, she was totally blind.

If that happened to some people, I’m quite sure they would be very bitter and would probably spend a lifetime feeling sorry for themselves.  Fanny was never bitter and she never felt sorry for herself. Instead of being bitter and feeling sorry for herself,  instead of blaming the doctor for his “sin” against her and dwelling in darkness all her days, Fanny used the gifts that God had given her to write over 8,000 hymns and poems to praise and glorify God.

We might know who caused her blindness - but to Fanny knowing who caused her blindness didn’t matter.  Nor did it matter to her that she was blind - because in her mind she could see. She might not have been healed like that blind man in our passage today, but surely, through her affliction, the work of God is made known in her life. I hope that we can all be like Fanny Crosby. But sadly no, there are those whom I classify with a different kind of blindness.

Like the Pharisees in our story, there are those of us who only see and seek what’s good for our own selves. There are those who cannot see beyond themselves, who are myopic enough to be blind. These are the likes of those who engage in corrupt practices and steal from others. The ones like those who benefit from transactions like the aborted NBN-ZTE broadband deal, those who cannot be contented with what they have, those who like to play the blaming game instead of having the attitude of helping those who are poor and oppressed, those who turn their backs against the truth and cover their faces with lies. These blind men and women only do things that will benefit them and don’t care less about those who are in need. They come to their synagogues and yet don’t practice what they have learned there. These are the those who have blind hearts because of their sins.

This season of lent, we are continuously called to examine ourselves and see what blinds us these days.

However, we are to remember that while we were yet blind and sinners all, in God’s utmost love, God’s mercy and God’s amazing grace, Jesus died for all of us, not to judge us but to heal us of our blindness, to heal us of our afflictions, to bring salvation to all those who ask for it.

May the work of our almighty loving God be displayed in our lives. Amen.