John 9

March 19, 2023 · Ben Hoyer · 27:11

A Lenten message on the healing of the man born blind in John 9, addressing the disciples' question of whose sin caused his blindness and Jesus' answer that it was not sin but an occasion for God's works to be displayed.

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The rest of us, we're going to look more deeply at that story. I think it's in John Captain 9. Yeah, it is. It's John Captain 9. Actually, what they give us for the gospel is all of John Captain 9, which is long. And if I'd done a better plan, I would have got our open friends who read this for us and I would mention them. It's a whole little story here.

It's actually a really in depth story. The gospel don't have in depth stories like this that much, where you get a whole box and forth from different groups of people. There are several different characters in it. There's a couple different themes. Settings where it takes place. And nobody records it quite as in depth as John does. And John, one of John's goals, John, he thinks that, we've got to tell you guys,

we went to DC this week and this may not be a school to you, but it's a super cool to you. We went to the Museum of the Bible. I couldn't get my whole family to go to the Museum of the Bible because most of them were not as interested as me in the Museum of the Bible. But while they're one of the coolest things I saw was the fragment of the gospel of John that dates to 150. Somebody wrote my hand in 150. I'm talking about 150. We think John John wrote the first copy of the gospel, sometimes between 90 and 100.

So, I mean, this story isn't the first copy of the gospel of John, but it's close. And it's not a fragment of the from John chapter 8 and chapter 8 before this. We think that also John saw the last thing that was written in our hand. John was definitely the youngest of the disciples and he lived the longest body. He died at Martin's desk just like the rest of them. And he wrote this gospel towards the end of the book.

He wrote the first three letters earlier, sent them out to the church in general. And then the gospel of John, he wrote very much. And he writes it with a couple of audiences in mind that are different than Matthew or Mark or Luke. And so he records a few different stories. He puts it in different order. And one of the things he wants to communicate is not only the reality, but also the divinity of Jesus. People are misunderstanding or having trouble being okay with the reality deeper than what they can understand.

They can even have both of them. Both of the divinity and the divinity intertwined. He talked about them, Mark, Luke, or Luke before sometimes. Sometimes, stuff doesn't remember. But John talked about the more he records his walk forward because he uses that authority about what we can see and who can see. And so we'll try and work through it here. I don't know if we'll get through all of it. But John talked about it as he passed by Jesus.

He taught a man's blind from birth. And the disciples asked him, Rabbi Houston, this man or his parents, that he was blind. And this was a debate among the Jewish community in the first century because they had that teaching member from back in like a vidicist where it says the sins of the father will be visited on the third and the fourth generation. And they had this notion that if you had been born blind, it was somebody before you had done something wrong.

So this was God's visiting punishment, you. And especially it would be a punishment because what he was going to do was a blind state in the first century in Israel. And so if you were maybe wealthy, you could find a way to just put him to the side and keep stating him. But if you wouldn't, you'd best need to do, put him out and let him bad. And hopefully he could come up with enough because he needed your kids to help generate your resources.

You know, to keep the whole family going. So a kid born blind from the beginning is a particular burden. Right? And sorry, how does the debate in the case of a fall? In Jesus' answer, it is not that this man's sin, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in the name. This is what I think that sometimes people read this and figure like the man's life is like an object lesson or something.

But no, it wasn't that he sinned or that his parents sinned and said it's the works of God will be stolen him. That somehow God had ordained for this young man to be born blind, lived his life up to the point blind, then happened into the path of Jesus in order that Jesus could demonstrate that he could help blind people. I don't think that's a Jesus' thing. I think it's a sin, sometimes balancing an object in the world.

It's not really anybody's fault. Sin or evil isn't like a Newtonian kind of pool game of cause and sex. It's not that linear. I was thinking about this and remembering a walk I took. I can't remember exactly where the block I was walking around with a friend, he was bummed because he and his wife had been climbing for years before.

They had given up that she could and then she did. She had a great experience. You can imagine then that before they were comfortable and could let their guy down to rob the baby. I can remember taking a walk with him and trying to figure out, try to look down the road and put them logic to the law.

There's no reason to clear it I've ever been about with truth. When I told him, there is no logic here. Sometimes bad things just kind of let it be bad. I'll stand here with you while that sucks. Something makes things just suck. Jesus is walking by the guy, born blind, and his disciples are like, let's put some logic to this.

Who's talking to it? Let's pin it on somebody so we can understand it because if we can understand it, we can avoid it. If we can avoid it, we can have some control. If we can have some control, having too bad stuff from happening to me. Sometimes it doesn't keep fitching, born blind. Sometimes bad things just happen. Sometimes things just suck.

Evil is not causing the fact of the situation. Sometimes bad things will happen. Sometimes bad things will happen and often. God might be just playing in him. So let's see. We must work the work of him who sent me while it is day.

Now you're coming with no one who can work. As long as I'm in the world, I'm in the light of the world. I'm in the black line. I haven't said these things you can expect on the ground and made mud with the lido. They talk about the lives of the world now now. Let's just put them in. Remember the very beginning of John's gospel? I'm going to read it. I don't quote it to you, John.

In the last minute of life, and that life was the light of man, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not over the planet. John's going to begin the time saying that Jesus is this light that has come into the world. If you've fallen into a really fun, interesting, fun for me, for you, maybe, word-setting on light in the first description. This is the first thing that God's indivis, brilliant, and imagination speaks into existence.

We still get figured out. When Moses speaks to God and message to another man, he speaks to the light and emanates from him. They come out in the presence of God. There is this light that also goes off and absorbs in him. John says that when Jesus comes down into the world, he brings within this life, this life that ends the light of man. Later when Jesus would walk up the mountain current figuration, he would hover off above the ground with motives and lies next to him.

And as we'll close, we'll do shining bright light finest when John gets the vision of revelation at the end. He says, the heavenly city will need no sons, because the sun and man sitting on the throne will give out all the light that it needs. And Jesus tells the love and looks sometimes things just suck, but right now there is light among the few, so let's do the work of the light. He says, sometimes things just suck. It's not out of it. The problem of evil is not a positive effect situation.

You're going to walk into places where sometimes things are just bound. There is just evil. And also, there is light. He says, while we're walking around the light, let's do the things in the light. Even though we encounter the darkness. This is an interesting dichotomy for those of us who have light and dark happening in a same time as the world that we walk around. And of course, Jesus is this whole embodiment of light, calm down into the water.

And what he's going to say is, in John's after one sense of light comes to the world, in John's after nine, he says, let's do the work of the light, while we have the light. And then just a few pages, if you want to go to the right, just a couple of pages from John's after nine to John's after 12. If you look at verse 35, he says it again, at John's after 12, verse 35.

So Jesus says to them, the light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, let's darkness over take you. The one who walks through the darkness does not know where it's going, where it says to, while you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become son of the light. Jesus comes, brings this like primordial life that John described as the light of the light, down into the world. They said, to the type of world they're walking around, it's like, hey, sometimes things are just bad.

We're walking around in a place where things can just cross sometimes, but we are carriers of the light. And so while we're walking around with the place, we might as well do the light through the things of the light. And then he says later in John's after 12, now you can be carriers of the light. I mean, metaphors are really nice because they're a step out of reality.

What on earth would doing the work of the light mean amongst the things of the darkness? Oh, glad you asked, this was back at town talking on me. Having said these things, he's back on the ground. And made mud with saliva.

I mean, it's interesting that this is how John remembers it. I was imagining how much fit it would take to make anything come out of mud at all, but here it is. So I'm on the ground and made mud with saliva. Then he's being known for demands, eyes. So maybe it's just a little bit. It's not like he covered up his eyes with mud. Maybe we'll just like, you know, put a little bit on there.

So, and then he said, in the north of the Mantaage's mud, instead of him go off to the pool and start going on with the stench. Not just when I said to the kids, because both of you go to the pool, so I won't know how accurate it is, but I like the idea that it's still there. Talk about stepping out of the metaphor into the reality, and we have mud and water. Go walk and pull something.

He went and walked and cleaned back the evening. The neighbors and those who have seen him before as a beggar were saying, is this not the man who used to fit and beg? Some thought it is. He said no, but he is like him. He kept on the man, so they said to him, then how were your eyes opened? He said, the man called Jesus, made mud and then went in my eyes and said to me, go to sign loan on the wall.

So I went and walked and received my sight. And they said to him, where is he? He was like, I don't know. This is a crazy story, right? Then they walked to the Pharisees, the man who had been formerly been blonde and now it was Sabbath day, when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. They don't like that because that's some work in the He made some money work on the Sabbath. They don't like that. The Pharisees and some of the Pharisees actually thought that the way they were going to get to the side of the

bed, it comes, it gets everybody in Israel to keep the Sabbath perfectly. It just runs. If everybody in Israel can keep the Sabbath perfectly just once in the Sabbath, so they are like vigilant about the Sabbath year. And the Messiah is not coming, so they must not be getting it, so I can imagine them continuing to evaluate what constitutes work because he's not coming. And so this father isn't in so. So the Pharisees began asking how he received the site and he said to them,

he put mud on my eyes and I walked and I see him. Some of the Pharisees said this man is not from God, or he does not keep the Sabbath. But other he said, fucking a man who is a sinner, he said, some, and knows the division among them to the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the age of the

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