Blind

 This week's verses are John 9:35-41:

Jesus heard that they had put him out, and upon finding him, He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered by saying, “And who is He, Sir, that I may believe in Him?” Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you.” And he said, “I believe, Lord.” And he worshiped Him. And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Those who were with Him from the Pharisees heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now that you maintain, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

In these verses, Jesus has tracked down a guy he had healed of blindness, who was kicked out of the synagogue for talking about it. Jesus reveals himself to him, and the (formerly) blind man "sees" him for who he is.

Jesus then takes a strange turn and says "For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." Jesus, who embodies grace, came into the world for judgment? And judgment helps people to see?

The Pharisees overhear this conversation and ask if he was calling them blind. So Jesus explains: People who know they can't see do not have sin, but people who think they have it all figured out do. The Pharisees definitely fell into the category of people who thought they had it all figured out. The name basically means "the selected ones."

We don't often think of Jesus as having come into the world to judge it. We do begrudgingly acknowledge it being described in the book of Revelation, where Jesus comes back to do just that. But we don't consider that maybe he has started it already, even way back in these verses. It's part of his purpose, but it's hard for us to accept it. When we know we've done wrong, judgment is scary.

But he also says that it's so that those who do not see may see. When God declares something to be wrong, we learn something. When he ends our sin, we see his power. When we are vindicated, we see his loyal love.

And yet he also says that he comes so that those who see may become blind. He is talking about the religious leaders of his day, who had worked out a complex and self-consistent theology to explain everything. In being who he is, in doing things like favoring a blind man, delivering him from his affliction, and defending him against the cruelty of his community, he breaks down their conventions. He pops up outside of the box they set aside for him. They realize then that things aren't as simple as they first thought. They realize they don't see all there is to see.

So, when Jesus comes into the world to judge it, it's a judgment that sets us free, while locking up that which oppresses us. But it's also a holy Clue Bat up side the head for those of us who have our eyes closed imagining how great we are. We should be excited and eager, but also a little bit afraid. (Unless we're sure we see all there is to see already.)

Do you ever decide someone is wrong before hearing them out? Do you ever listen to a sermon and immediately check out because you've heard a sermon on those verses before? Do you ever look down on other Christian denominations, past or present, as though you were set apart with a much purer blend of theology than they had? Then you should be a bit more afraid, because that's the situation the Pharisees found themselves in.

And this is especially dangerous for those of us who grew up Christian, or have been Christian for awhile, or had a little Bible school, or have simply done a lot of Christian reading and/or podcast/YouTube consumption. The more we learn, and the more experience we have, the more we become accustomed to being right, or at least being told that we're right. So it's easier to dismiss things that stand out than to have the humility to look at them objectively.

But maybe you're in the opposite boat, where you realize just how much you don't know about God and Christianity and life in general. It's not necessarily a bad place to be. When Jesus tracked down the ex-blind man, even after having done a miracle to restore his sight, the man had no idea about who he was or any of that stuff. There's still time to learn, and believe, and worship.

Better to know you're blind, or maybe just starting to see, than to pretend you can see when you really can't.