Lent 4A

LENT 4 A  March 26, 2017                                                 

SCRIPTURES   

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• 1 Samuel 16:1-13: God sends Samuel to find and anoint as king one of the sons of Jesse; " . . . the LORD does not see as mortals see."

• Psalm 23  

• Ephesians 5:8-14. "For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light."

• John 9:1-41. Jesus puts mud on the eyes of a man born blind and sends him to wash in the pool at Siloam. The blind man gains his sight.

SCRIPTURES (John 9:1-41)

-As a sign that he is the light, Jesus gives sight to a man born blind

-The increasing blindness of the Pharisees and the increasing sight of the blind man

-  Light is the great revealer.

-The Pharisees who may have had 20/20 vision can't see the truth. Jesus is the truth, in the flesh, and they were blind to it. But in the end the man born blind sees clearly. He can not only see Jesus, but he can see that Jesus is the Messiah.

-You wonder why Jesus put spit in the man's eyes? In essence that is what he did. The symbolic nature of that act would have been apparent to any Jewish believer in Christ. In the beginning the Father has taken the dust of the earth and with the breath of his mouth breathed life into the first human. In the same way the Son took the dust of the earth and repeated this act of God to bring sight to a blind man. It is also significant that the pool he washed in was named "Sent". After all Jesus had been "sent" to bring recovery of sight to the blind.

-he had 20/20 spiritual vision

-   The blind man-- not knowledge, but acknowledgment.

-We have to be willing to see with different eyes and hear with new ears the many ways God in Christ is manifesting God's

  self in our daily lives and the world. This will require that we rethink our notions of the nature of God in Christ and our identities as Christians.

-"Spiritual spectacles" Rev. Karl Travis

- It is the nature of light to guide.

-We cannot obtain faith by our own efforts or merit. but faith always remains a choice we make when we choose to trust in God and believe in what he reveals to us.  Faith is not and can never be an act coerced by God or others.

-And I suppose John 9 is about darkness too. At least in so far as the failure of the darkness is concerned. The failure of the darkness to comprehend (or "overpower") the light. David Roth

-Are we willing to be changed for the sake of faith? Are we willing to see things as they are, not as we wish them to be?

- The Community Church's Lost and Found.  Who's lost and who's found????

QUOTES

-Amazing Grace, "was blind but now I see."   Amazing indeed

- I read somewhere, "Stop acting so good and start being a Christian." Could that apply to the Pharisees in Jesus' day? Could it apply to some people today? Stoffregen

-  In a way the blind man "met Jesus for the first time."  (The name of book by Borg)

-What we see is determined by what is behind our eyes more than what is in front.  lindy

-"None so blind as those who will not see."

- And I said to the one who stood at the gate of the year, "Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown." And she replied, "Go out into the darkness and put your hand in the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way." Millie Louise Haskins, "God Knows," in Desert, 1908

-Some people have excellent eyesight but do not see further than their noses..

-One day a Christian and a Communist were sitting on a park bench watching the world go by. As they watched, a poor, drunken beggar walked by dressed in rags. The Communist pointed to the beggar and said, "Communism would put a new suit on that man!" To which the Christian responded, "Maybe so, but Jesus Christ can put a new man in that suit."

Some have sight yet choose to see only a fragment of the truth and love of Christ.

And some there are who have no physical sight yet who see brilliantly.

ILLUSTRATIONS

1.There is a moving account of finding the inner light in the autobiography of Jacques Lusseyran, who went blind at the age of seven. He records the discovery he made following the accident that cost him his physical sight:

At that time I still wanted to use my eyes. I followed their usual path. I looked in the direction where I was in the habit of seeing . . . finally, I realized I was looking the wrong way. I was looking too far off, and too much on the surface of things . . . I began to look more closely, not at things but the world closer to myself, looking from an inner place, to one further within, instead of clinging to the movement of sight toward the world outside. Immediately the substance of the universe drew together, redefined and peopled itself anew. I was aware of the radiance emanating from a place I knew nothing about, a place which might as well have been outside me as within . . . I felt indescribable relief, and happiness so great it almost made me laugh . . . Sighted people always talk about the night of blindness, and that seems to them quite natural. But there is no such night, for every waking hour and even in my dreams, I live in a stream of light. Without my eyes, light is much more stable than with them. I see the whole world in light, existing through it and because of it. (Jaques Lusseyran, And There Was Light, trans. Elizabeth Cameron, Little, Brown and Co., 1963.)

The one who was blind at birth met Jesus for the first time, received the gift of physical and spiritual sight, and learned how to live in a stream of inner light.

2. Told that he was farsighted, he asked his optometrist exactly what that meant. 

"Well, technically, the optometrist replied, "it means that you focus on infinity."

3.We all know what physical blindness is often a metaphor for a deeper malady. "I don't see what you're driving at," we may say. Or, "I can't imagine what she sees in him." Or, "He can't see what's right in front of his nose." 

HUMOR

-It has been suggested that the origins of denominations occurred when the healed blind men met each other. At first they were all excited about the miracle of sight that Jesus had given them, but as they talked about how Jesus had healed them, they began to discover some significant differences. For some, the healing came with simply a touch from Jesus (Mt 9:29; 20:34). Another proudly boasted that he had enough faith so that Jesus didn't have to touch him to perform the miracle (Mk 10:52). Another meekly exclaimed that Jesus not only touched him twice, but also "spit on his eyes" in order for him to see clearly (Mk 8:23). The final one really felt embarrassed to admit that even though a touch wasn't part of his healing, Jesus' "spit" wasn't enough. Jesus had mixed his saliva with dirt and put the mud on his eyes and then told him to go and wash in some pool of water (Jn 9:6-7). Since each one thought his healing was normal and better than the others, they divided into spittites and non-spittites; muddites and non-muddites; touchites and non-touchites. Denominationalism was born. Stoffregen

-Some people change their ways when they see the light, others only when they feel the heat.

- Parrot blindness:  A magician was performing on board a luxury liner and was constantly interrupted by a parrot someone had in the audience.  As luck would have it the ship had problems and sunk and the magician and the parrot ended up in the same life boat.  The parrot stirred at the man for two days until the magician said, "What are you stirring at me for?"  The parrot said, "I'm trying to figure out how you made the boat disappear."
 

CHILDREN-"To God Be the Glory," Charles Kirkpatrick, Sermons4kids.com.  A wonderful story about the hymn writer Fanny Crosby who was blind.  Wrote, Blessed Assurance, I am Thine O Lord, To God be the Glory, etc.  Fits in perfectly with this weeks scripture.

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PRAYER PHRASE

-Because You exist, we exist

 Because You love us, we are able to receive love and give love

 Because You search for us, we are never lost but found when we are willing to be found

 Because You forgive us, we are able to have new births

 Because You put you light with in us, we are able to know your wisdom and your truth

 Because You are a loving master, we are free to make choices of our own choosing. 

  Forgive us if we fail to accept your invitation to be a part of Your Kingdom and forgive us if we fail to accept it as a free gift.  Forgive us if we come to your Kingdom alone...without our brother, our neighbor or our enemy.  .......Lindy

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