Courts - Believable

March 30 Psalm 23, *John 9.1-23, Courts – Believable  Pastor Jacqueline Hines

Like the man born blind who was healed in John’s gospel, many of us have challenges with our sight.  We have also experienced help and healing for our sight through corrective lenses, surgeries, eye drops, dark shades, guiding canines, wisdom for limited night vision, and good friends who provide all the help we will ever need.

Most of us are still tense at the thought of losing any part of our sight, but we are less afraid when we experience the goodness of God through help and a healing touch. The Lenten season calls us to trust in God’s love, rest in God’s presence, and to believe that God is working things out for the good of all. There is no way to trust, or rest, or believe without God’s supernatural help.

Supernatural healing happened for the man born blind in John’s gospel. He did not ask for healing. It just happened. Healing is like a river flowing in us and through us. We live in a world where health and wholeness are everywhere. It is God’s nature to shower us with healing love. We also live in a world where brokenness is everywhere, and healing love overcomes the world’s brokenness.

The disciples saw the man born blind as broken, and they immediately became interested in his case. They were ready to learn something important, something that mattered, so they asked Jesus questions since he was the master teacher. They wanted answers to life’s hardest questions. They wanted to know what happened to the blind man and why. Did he do something wrong? Did his parents do something wrong? Did he go to the wrong doctor?

Jesus indirectly responded to their implied accusations. He pointe them in the direction to see no matter what happens, God intervenes to get the glory. Jesus got busy focusing on glorifying God by doing the man some good. Jesus gave the disciples something else to stare at. He mixed dirt and saliva and put it on the man’s eyes. That must have meant that he trusted Jesus and Jesus trusted him. No one puts their saliva on you like that unless they know you, unless they are bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. No one puts dirt on you unless they are bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. No one sends you away to wash unless they care deeply about YOU!

Healing happens wherever we are busy focusing on what God focuses on, doing each other some good. No matter how broken our circumstances, God is still a healer. No matter how much we fear we have lost, God is sending someone to do us some good. Healing is everywhere. It is God’s nature to heal.

Buckminster Fuller was a brilliant architect and inventor in spite of physical challenges. He died in 1983. He was president of Mensa  - an organization that gathers the most intelligent people in the world. Mensa is the Latin word for “table” as in round table of intelligent people regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, age, politics, educational or social background. Fuller was expelled from Harvard, not once but twice. His intelligence was not the ordinary kind.

He was granted a patent for the geodesic dome in 1954. [slide #1] This one is from the Epcot Center in Walt Disney World Florida. Has anyone been there? The geodesic dome appealed to Fuller because it was extremely strong for its weight, it was stable, and a sphere encloses the greatest volume for the least surface area. These domes were once used in green houses as well as during the war, to provide early warnings of any sea-and-land invasions.

Fuller tells that his courage to be creative came from a situation in his childhood. When he was very small child, he lost his sight.  He went to bed one night able to see and awoke the next morning blind. Medical experts were not able to explain the cause of his horrific and sudden blindness. There was no reason for it. It just happened. For several years he was blind. Then, just as suddenly and as inexplicably as he had lost his sight, he regained it. Without any indication as to what was coming, one morning he woke up able to see again (sermons.com). The years of blindness challenged him to see God’s world and the many things that could be created if he used his God-given intelligence.

Good things happen. Terrible things happen. Whether good or terrible, we don’t need to know how it happens. We need only to see Jesus working good in the situation. We need to be eye-witnesses. We need to be able to testify that God is good and his mercy endures forever.  We need to watch and pray so that we can learn to do what we see Jesus doing. Our testimony needs to be believable so that others can trust in God’s love, rest in God’s presence, and believe that God is working the situation out for the good of all.

The disciples were judging the man who was born blind. They soon saw Jesus was not judging the man and his condition. They saw that Jesus was joining him, as if he mattered, as if her were very important.

The Pharisees were another story. They did not see Jesus as the disciples learned to see him. The Pharisees saw Jesus as a competitor, an enemy that needed to be tried, convicted, and eliminated. The Pharisees charged Jesus according to the law for healing on the Sabbath. It was illegal to do any work on the Sabbath.

Some of us know about illegal activity on the Sabbath. Who remembers the blue laws? They were set up by Pilgrims in the US colonies and continued up to the 1990’s.They were designed to set up stiff regulations against working, buying, selling, traveling, public entertainment, or sports on a Sunday. The original purpose was to honor God and encourage church attendance.  The scriptures, however, are not like some laws that become more politically rigid than religious. There are many, many ways to honor God. Jesus says the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, or as the Message version puts it - “The Sabbath was made to serve us; we weren’t made to serve the Sabbath. “

The colonial blue laws may have been called blue because they were written on blue paper or because they were so strict as to make people blue. In some stores, all the beer cans were covered with blue tarp on Sundays so they could not be seen for purchasing. We all have different ideas about how far is too far with government laws and religious laws. We debate every day about who should marry and who should not marry. Who should play bingo for money and who should not? Even today in Orthodox Judaism, according to domestic abuse advocate Marie Fortune, Rabbis wrestle with an old law that allows a man to divorce his wife, but the wife cannot divorce a husband without the husband’s permission. The original idea of the law was for a man to take responsibility to love his wife like Jesus loves the Church. Any interpretation of a law that allows less, allows abuse, and that’s not good.

The Pharisees refused to see the good Jesus was doing. They would not acknowledge or testify that God was good and his mercy endures forever. There is none so blind as those who will not see. They ignored God. The Pharisees would rather not see ANY man healed and helped, if it meant Jesus got the glory instead of them. They had a different agenda; they were up to no good.

Lent is a reminder to check our agendas, to be willing to get close enough to Jesus to hear his heartbeat, to go wherever we are sent to be washed – to church, to the poor, to a family member, to a neighbor near or far, to make a pledge, to start something new, to stop something old.

The man Jesus healed was told to GO to the pool of Siloam. [slide #2] The word Siloam means “sent.” Siloam was a pool developed 700 years before Jesus, King Hezekiah built it. He wanted to protect a water spring that was located just outside the protective Gates of Jerusalem. It was called the Spring of Gihon. The king built a secret water tunnel, hidden from the enemy. It was dug 1800 feet long through solid rock, an engineering marvel. The water from the spring was hidden as it flowed into the city into the pool of Siloam [slide #3]. Jesus sent the man to this awesome pool and his life was changed forever. Wherever Jesus sends us is awesome. Wherever Jesus sends us has special meaning and roots in something very important. Surely, the blind man trusted God’s love. He found rest for his soul in the presence of Jesus.  He believed everything would be alright, and he helped others to believe it too.

It’s not easy to believe. A young girl was suffering from anorexia. Her counselor assigned her the task of drinking a glass of milk, but she just could not bring herself to do it. AS she stared away as the milk lay on the table, the doctor walked in and asked her if she knew the story of Jesus healing a blind man after putting mud on his eyes. She said, “Yes.” “Do you believe it?” asked the doctor. She said, “Yes.” “Then drink your mud.” (Preachingtoday.com)

Amy Grant is an award-winning singer of Contemporary Gospel music. She has extraordinary gifts from God. It seemed so easy for her to record albums and go platinum. Her life appeared glamorous and perfect, but in the 80’s her marriage was shipwrecked when she discovered her husband’s cocaine addiction.

"For a few days,” she says, “ I just stayed in bed and mourned my life. The only hope I could seem to see was just junking it all, moving to Europe, and starting everything all over again. It was then my sister, in a last-ditch visit, marched up right beside my bed and said, Fine, go to Europe, leave it all behind, start your life again. But before you go, tell (my little girl) how you can sing that Jesus can help her through anything in her life, but that he couldn't help you.' "(sermons.com) Amy got up and began to put her life back together.

When our greatest fears become a living nightmare, we can trust, rest, and believe that God will be our healer. Amen.