Fourth Sunday in Lent

1 Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5: 8-14
John 9: 1-41
Attoway Kimberlin Lutheran Parish
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Year A
April 3, 2011

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Nobody believed him that he was healed and they threw him out of the temple. Nobody believed him. How strange is this? A man is healed and instead of celebrating the wonderful miracle that occurred, the leaders question him and eventually put him out of the temple because he told the truth.

The truth. What exactly is the truth? Is the truth only what we want to hear? Does the truth chose who or what it may hurt? Can the truth lie or say only what we want it to say? What makes something true? What gives truth relevancy?

I recently read a news article about Richard Nixon’s presidential Library now feature an exhibit on the notorious Watergate Scandal. The library only received the Watergate papers, tapes, and videos four years ago after Nixon’s foundation turned over the papers to the National Archives. The Library’s director felt he had a responsibility to portray this part of Nixon’s presidency. He had a responsibility to tell the truth even though it meant casting our 37th president in a bad light.

What was once the smallest exhibit in the library is now the largest - leaving mixed emotions with Nixon loyalists and every day men and women visiting library. The truth, in this case, hurts. It hurts our nation because we see a leader cast in a bad light but in the same regards, the truth serves as a powerful witness to the mistakes of our past. We are fortunate because this truth can change our future. It can open our eyes to corruption that can come forth even when the best intentions are in mind.

What about the truth in Japan’s nuclear disaster? It is hard to get a straight answer from any government or news agency. What is the truth in this situation? Leaders are torn between disclosing to much information and not enough. Too much information and people panic and possibly leave the country - leaving fewer and fewer people to rebuild the 3rd largest economy in the world. In the same notion, not enough information and people wonder what is being hidden? Leaders are constantly having to weigh the anticipated results of their decisions. Even with the best intentions in mind, sometime mistakes can happen.

Maybe then, we need to look at leaders of the temple with the same attitude and/or mindset - give these leaders the benefit of doubt that they only had the best intentions in this story. The leaders of the temple were charged with a great responsibility. They controlled a massive amount of goods brought in every day by people offering a sacrifice and distribute the food and goods back out to the people. They had to follow the prayers prescribed by the Law of Moses, teaching and answering questions from the people, and insure general order in the temple or face the wrath of the Roman government.

General order was extremely important. Rome did not want an uprising on their hands. Rome needed to worry about their enemies on the outside and conquering kingdoms so that they could grow their government and power. If an uprising would occur within their boarders, they would swing the sword first and ask questions later. They did not have time nor the resources to deal with a long, drawn out conflict within their borders. The temple leaders knew this - they knew the best way to keep Rome off their backs was to keep their people quiet and happy.

But you can’t keep your people quiet and happy if you have a man going around and healing people, teaching people that the rich and powerful will pulled down while the lowly are lifted up, and performing miracles such as creating bread and fish. Jesus is like the superman of warriors - able to heal injured soldiers and feed them. Think what this could do for the people’s morale? Jesus could be their answer to remove the Roman oppression. Jesus could be their ticket to freedom. Jesus could be the one who brings down everything the leaders of temple worked so hard to maintain.

The leaders needed to know what happened to this blind man so that they react properly. They needed to know what this Jesus could really do so that he could be silenced. They needed the truth but in reality, they were not ready for what they heard.

“What do you say about him?”1 “A prophet,” the blind man replies. “He must have never been blind. Bring in his parents.” “...This is our son, and he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes.”2 They call the blind man back and ask if Jesus is a sinner. “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”3 Where does he come from? Where does he get his powers? “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”4 “You try to teach us even though you were born in sin? Get out.”

The truth for the leaders was not easy to hear. Their status quo was being challenged by one man with strange powers - with a different message and a large following of people. The leaders were not ready and the people praying to God to send them a savior were not ready. They are not ready for a “Superman” from Nazareth. They are not ready to for a man to witness God’s love and mercy first to the poor and then to the world by hanging on a cross. The truth is not easy for anyone to swallow and it remains hard for us to swallow as well.

We are all blind in a way. We are asked to identify Jesus, but like this blind man, we have never seen his face. We only speak the truth - for once I was blind, now I see. This is what ministry is all about. We go out into the world and say that I have never seen the man who healed me; I know he is greater than myself and is here to heal you as well. Our very faith relies on never seeing Jesus but still believing all the more that he is our savior and that he touched each and every one in this room. It was through our baptism that we now can see - through God coming down to us this sacrament, through the water infused with God’s word. We are share in one common mission, proclaim that though I have never seen this man, he has healed me as my blindness and restored me back to be a child of God.

Let us never forget, that despite the fact Jesus did heal this man of his blindness, it is events, such as a this event, that ultimately led to Jesus death. The people were not ready for Jesus’s message and so they crucified the one sent by God. The truth is not always easy to hear and so the question remains, “CAN YOU HANDLE THE TRUTH?”

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


1 John 9:17
2 John 9: 20b
3 John 9: 25
4 John 9: 30-33