Darkness to Dawn: Letting the Light of Christ Transform Our Tomorrow Part Three - Transforming Blindness to Vision

Artist: El Greco (1567)

Read John 9

"One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."

John 9:25 NRSV

There are probably few things harder in life than transforming from blindness to vision. Our physical body proves this, as we know that most of us begin life with perfect vision and spend the rest of our life inching toward blindness. However, the transformation from blindness to vision is an essential part of our faith journey as Christians. We have all sung the beautiful line in Amazing Grace declaring, “I once was blind but now I see,” but we also know full well that the vision with which we see is not always clear or easy to come by.

John’s story today is a great example. A man who is blind becomes a man with vision, while a group of Pharisees who have vision, are truly blind because they can’t see the work of God being done right under their noses. It is a story that should prompt all of us to stop in our tracks and wonder: Am I missing God at work in my midst right now?

Perhaps it is like that old joke of the man who is trapped in his house by a raging flood. The floodwaters rise and he prays for God to save him. Soon a man in a boat comes by and tries to rescue him but he says, “No thanks, I’m a praying man and God is going to save me.” The floodwaters rise more, the man prays more as he climbs onto his roof. A helicopter comes and drops down a rescue basket and yells for the man to climb in. “No thanks,” he yells back, “I’ve prayed to God, he will save me.” The floodwaters rise and the man is washed away to his death. When he gets to heaven he is ANGRY. He stomps up to God and shakes his fist yelling, “What just happened down there? I prayed for you to save me and you failed me.” To which God replied, “Man, I sent you a boat and a helicopter, what more did you want?”

Sometimes we get so caught up in our own idea of what God should and should not do that we are blinded to what God truly is doing. Sometimes we get caught up in our limited understanding or experience of God and we don’t let ourselves see God outside of what we already know.  Much like the Pharisees who could only see God as the Giver of Law, we often can’t see God as the light of the world, because our eyes are adjusted to the dimness of our spiritual blinders.

In John’s Gospel there are really two kinds of people: those who see and those who don’t. For John, seeing is believing and those who can’t see the truth of Jesus are blinded by misunderstanding and sometimes outright stubbornness. So, how do we embrace Christ in ways that transform us spiritually from blindness to vision? How do we make sure we are the man who once was blind, rather than the Pharisee who chooses to live in blindness? Scripture shows us three things we need to do in our life…

The first thing we need before we can see is to HEAR.

When Tim (my husband) received his first full time appointment as a United Methodist pastor he were in for quite the culture shock. He was born and raised in the city of Charlotte, NC so he had very little experience with the country life. They moved us to the middle of an Amish community in Hamptonville, NC so you can imagine how foreign this seemed to him.

I will never forget one day he left to take something to one of three small churches which was down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. After he had been gone for a while I hear his car come screeching into the driveway and he came running in the door yelling, “Get the girls! Hurry! Get in the car, I’ve seen a creature you won’t believe! You have to come see for yourself.”

Naturally I’m curious but he will not answer any questions until we are in the car and speeding back toward the church to see the “creature” he has discovered. So I began to question him as to what the “creature” looked like and this is what he said, “It has the hump of a camel, the ears of a goat, the face of a sheep, and the body of a cow.”  He didn’t understand why I burst out laughing at this description instead of having my curiosity peaked by it. The reason was, of course, that I was a country girl and I knew exactly what he had just described.

Tim had seen the “creature” which is own eyes but with no knowledge of the existence of such an animal he was lost as to how to identify it. On the other hand, I wasn’t there to SEE it, but by his description I could hear his description and know exactly what it was. My own eyesight only confirmed what I already knew: Tim had had his first encounter with a Brahman. 

Hearing can be a powerful witness.

Science has proven to us that those who are visually impaired often have a heightened sense of hearing. It is the body’s way of compensating for not being able to see danger. Even if one can’t see with their eyes, they can often hear enough to “see” what is happening around them.

We know from the story that the man gains his vision and goes on to be a powerful witness for Jesus. Notice, however, when he is giving testimony he still has never seen Jesus, he has only heard him. We know this because at the end when Jesus finds him he has to tell the man who he is.

Transforming from blindness to vision requires us to first hear what Jesus is saying to us. In John 10:4, Jesus goes on to say he is the shepherd and his sheep follow him because they recognize his voice. Of course we don’t recognize a voice we have only heard from one to two times. Recognition implies familiarity. We come to hear Jesus by spending time listening to him and getting to know his voice.

When we read scripture daily we learn to hear his voice in his teachings and interactions with others. When we devote ourselves to prayer we hear his whispers of love and acceptance and his murmurs of direction and guidance. We learn his voice when we surround ourselves with people who also recognize the shepherds voice and can help us hear when noise inside our own heads gets too much. We need prayer warriors and other faithful sheep to help us hear what Jesus is saying.

Once we have heard from Jesus, the transformation continues as we OBEY what we hear…

I would imagine that the blind beggar’s ears perked up when he heard a large group approaching. Maybe his excitement over a possible donation dimmed when he heard whispered of the dreaded question that had haunted him his whole life: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? (John 9:2)” It seems a ridiculous question today but then they had little understanding of the physiology of the body, so it was often assumed that a disability was a punishment from God. He had probably heard this question debated hundreds of time but I bet he had never before heard a Rabbi answer in the way of Jesus.

“Neither…he was born this way so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” Jesus goes on to make his startling confession, “I am the light of the world,” the one sent to do the work of God. Perhaps this is what prompts the man to obey what Jesus tells him next, even though it seems quite odd (John 9:6-7) – because he had never before had a Rabbi declare him innocent of a sinful past. Or perhaps because he had never before hear ANYONE say that he was useful for anything, but especially to be used by God.

Obediently he makes his way to the pool of Siloam and he enters the waters to wash the spit moistened mud pie off his face and suddenly his darkness is gone and light floods in. The man who was blind is now the man who can see.

The man who HEARS and OBEYS can now SEE, but we learn very quickly that those in the story we assumed could see are in fact quite blind as to what God has been doing in their midst.

What causes their spiritual blindness? How they “see” the man gives us a clue: To the Disciples he is the man who was born blind, to the neighbors he is the man who used to sit and beg, to the Pharisees he is the man who was formerly blind. Here before them stood a miracle – a man who could now see - but all they see is the man who once couldn’t.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the past that we can’t see that God is doing something new and beautiful right now. Being blinded to Jesus isn’t hard at all, we simply live looking backward – at who we’ve always been, what we’ve always done, where we’ve always gone - and we fail to see who God wants us to be, what God wants us to do and where God wants us to go.

This is the reason that Spiritual vision is so vital – we can’t live into God’s will without it. God wants us to see what we can become, who we can become, in light of the one sent to save us. What does that mean?

When John begins his Gospel he takes us back to the creation story with his opening words, “In the beginning…” it is a theme he returns to often and it is in today’s story as well. Jesus, reminiscent of God on the newly created earth, leans down and runs his fingers through the dust, he spits to create earthy clay and places it upon the mans eyes, from the waters, he rises, cleansed and reborn into a new life of new vision. Where once he could only hear Jesus, now he will see as well.

The voice of our shepherd invites us to become a whole new creation; that we might shed our spiritual blinders and step into the light of his healing hand to embrace a future of purpose and vision. 

Hear that Jesus is calling

Be obedient to that call

See all that God has in store for you.

Darkness to Dawn: Letting the Light of Christ Transform Our Tomorrow Part Two - Transforming Emptiness to Fulfillment

Woman at the Well iii

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Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he? They left the city and were on their way to meet him. John 4:28-30 NRS 

 Read John 4:5-42

Several years ago I hosted a party for a family member who asked that I include certain friends on the guest list. It was set up to be quite an informal event and I’m a pretty casual person so I was quite anxious to realize that there was a “prestigious” family on the list. They lived at the country club, came from “old money” and were the founding family of a national retail chain. I had been to their hometown and seen the mansion that this family had called home decades before. To say I was intimidated is an understatement. I began to second guess every detail of the party for fear I would embarrass the family member who I was intending to honor by seeming so “common” in front of this wealthy family.

The truth is, I could second-guess all I wanted I couldn’t afford to change anything about the party because I wasn’t wealthy. So the venue remained an old church fellowship hall, and by old I mean it was no longer used as a primary kitchen and therefore sat empty quite often. The wealthy family arrived and much to my surprise seemed quite normal. They didn’t show up in furs and diamonds; they were engaging and easy to talk to but I still remained on edge. When it came time to cut the cake the father of the family stood leaned against the kitchen counter which held the knife I would need so I asked him to hand it to me. As he took the knife out I worried – I hadn’t checked that drawer – this was an old kitchen in an old fellowship hall – what if there were mice droppings? – When was the last time this was washed? – What will he think if I use this knife! So, as he handed me the knife I sheepishly replied, “I might should go wash this first,” to which he proceeded to place the knife in the armpit of his shirt, wipe it off and say, “Na, it’ll do just fine.”

Sometimes the adage is true, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” especially when your own imagination designed the cover.

I wonder if we have done the same misfortune to the woman at the well as I did to our family friends in assuming she is something that she is not.  I am sure that at one point in our lives we have all heard this story of the woman at the well and concluded some unpleasant things about her. We need only know two things to lead us down the rabbit trail of assumption: She goes to the well in the middle of the day, thus avoiding the “normal” time and so we assume she is avoiding the other women because she is hated and cast out; And she is said to have five husbands and the man she is currently living with isn’t one of them so we assume she is morally loose and promiscuous which is why the other women of the town must shun her.

We make these assumptions and then we rejoice that Jesus came to save her from her life of sin and she takes on a new life of piety. There is only one problem with this assumption – the rest of the story doesn’t support it. There is no mention of sin, repentance, or wrongful living: there is simply a thirsty savior and a thirsty woman willing to cast aside all of their own assumptions and cultural norms and sit down to have a meaningful conversation about life and faith.

If we strip away the book cover we have designed for this scripture we might find an altogether different story than the one we assumed.

What are some things we learn about her? She is a Samaritan of great faith. She thinks theologically and responds to Jesus with thoughtful questions. She is a risk-taker, boldly taking the initiative to hold a deep conversation with a Jewish Rabbi, something unheard of in their day. She is curious and desires to know the proper place to worship, even if it means her tradition has been wrong. She faithfully awaits the coming of a Messiah and believes that with the coming of that savior the world will be changed. And yes, we learn that she has indeed had five husbands and the man she is currently with is not one of them, but lets stop for a moment and think about this.

In this ancient time we must remember that women were often no more than property. A woman was forced to rely on a man for a sense of identity and was subjected, in a sense, to being “owned” by her husband or her father or brother. A woman had little power in the marital relationship. The husband could divorce a woman for being barren, for example and she had no recourse. Or, if her husband died and had no heir, there was a law that stated she would be given to her husband’s brother, so that she would bear a child by him in her dead husband’s name. Sometimes that brother wouldn’t even marry her but she would still be considered to belong to him. Yes, we are told she had five husbands but we are not told why. It is very likely that this fact was something she had no control over – that there wasn’t an issue of morality but of legality that left her trapped in an isolating circumstance.

Perhaps this is why there is no mention of sin or a need to repent because she had done nothing wrong. Perhaps she came to the well in the middle of the day not because she was an outcast but simply because she was thirsty, or perhaps because the Spirit nudged her to do so, or because she tried to avoid the pity of the women who felt sorry for her. I think it explains a few things about the rest of the story. If the woman were truly morally questionable would the people have rushed out to see Jesus simply because this woman said she believed him? It would seem to me if a morally loose woman ran into town claiming she met a new man everyone would have rolled their eyes and said, “here she goes again.” Instead, they rush out to see if she has indeed found the Messiah she and the others have long waited for.

My point is this: Whatever the reason she has five husbands, Jesus doesn’t seem to care. He is about to tell her that he is the Messiah she yearns for; he simply wants to compassionately tell her first that he knows of her situation and it is not a hindrance to the water of life he is about to offer her.

Isn’t this really what all of us want from Jesus? Don’t we all desire that he might know our story, understand the places where we feel trapped and stagnant in simply existing in our pain and offer us an opportunity for things to change? When we are stuck in our circumstances and feel there is no way out we simply begin to live life by default – going through the normal routines with little passion or excitement; or maybe we go from place to place, relationship to relationship, with cup outstretched begging others to fill the thirsty places within us.

Maybe, like the woman, we don’t always understand at first what Jesus is really offering us. We think his offer is all about some future day of salvation, or a thirst to be quenched when we all get to heaven.  We are perched on the edge of a well saying, “someday Messiah will come and all this will get better,” and Jesus leans in and whispers, “I am he, and I am here right now, and you don’t have to wait for someday.”

The woman’s encounter with Jesus didn’t miraculously change her situation: she still went home to the man who wouldn’t marry her. However, her encounter did change everything about how she lived. Whereas the story begins with her solitude and painful awareness of the ways she was powerless over her own life, it ends with her becoming the city’s first Evangelist. Once she avoided people, suddenly she was seeking them out to save them. Once she was wondering around at noon looking to get water, suddenly she left her water jar in the dust and was out telling everyone who would listen that there was life-giving water that could end thirst now.

Her situation didn’t change but how she lived it sure did. This is the promise of Christ, the living water, a life transformed NOW in purpose, joy, and fulfillment.

Thanks be to God.

Darkness to Dawn: Letting the Light of Christ Transform Our Tomorrow Part One - Transforming Doubt to Wisdom

Nicodemus visiting Jesus by Henry Ossawa Tanner

1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." 3 Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." 4 Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" 5 Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, "You must be born from above.' 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." 9 Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" 10 Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.                John 3:1-17 (NRSV)

When I was a little girl, I loved going on car rides after dark. Early in the evening, before the shades were drawn, you could drive by houses and see the families inside going about their evening. I could see how the house was decorated and what the family looked like. I would sometimes wonder – do they have a better life than me? How would my life be different if I lived there? As I looked from the darkness into their lighted rooms I would wonder, “What might I be missing out on in not knowing this family?”

I wonder if Nicodemus stood outside the house of Jesus and peaked through the window wondering the same thing? Did he watch as Jesus sat and ate his dinner? Did he wait outside and look for some answers to who this man was and wonder, how would my life be different if I were in there with him? What might I be missing out on in not knowing this man?

Nicodemus was a man who had a lot going for him, but the problem when you have a lot going for you is you also have a lot to lose. He was a member of the Sanhedrin, which means he was a highly educated teacher and theologian of the Jewish faith. He was a leader at the Synagogue. Yet, here he stands in the darkness, waiting to make sure that no one is looking before he goes to knock on the door of the man that many of his colleagues call a fake. Nicodemus has a lot going for him but in the dark he knows, he also has a lot to lose.

The darkness of doubt can be a powerful thing. Sometimes we have to wonder which is more difficult: dealing with our own doubts or facing others who doubt us because of our choices or beliefs. Nicodemus has doubt about Jesus and yet seems to earnestly want to believe in him, but the fact that he comes under cover of darkness also tells us he fears the doubts of his peers. He comes seeking some assurance that Jesus is indeed sent from God, but we can’t help but notice he leaves still in the darkness of doubt.

“We know you are of God because of the signs you do,” Nicodemus says. But Jesus replies, the proof that I am of God isn’t in what I do, it is in who I am and you can’t understand that unless you are born anothen. Depending upon the translation of the bible you are reading, it may say born again/anew, or born from above. Seemingly two different things and yet the Greek word, anothen means both “again” and “above” at the same time. Nicodemus, however, focuses only on the born again meaning. He gets caught up in the literal or earthly meaning and thus takes off on a ridiculous discussion on how we can’t possibly reenter he womb as grown adults.

Jesus tries to explain the power of the Holy Spirit to give birth to a new life within us, yet Nicodemus struggles to grasp the idea. “How can these things be?” he asks. It is the last word he will have in this conversation and then he steps out into the darkness again. Nicodemus has hit a stumbling block that keeps many folks from knowing Jesus still today. The question “how can these things be” always seem to be on the lips of those who seek Jesus.

John Wesley, the father of The United Methodist Church, was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1728. For the next ten years he taught, preached, led small groups, was active in ministries to the poor and imprisoned, traveled to the new land of America and served as a priest in Savanna under General Oglethorpe, and made a large impression upon those who met him. His influence in those ten years was great. What very few people knew, however, was that John Wesley almost always had that same questions burning his lips as did Nicodemus – “How can these things be?”  For ten years, he proclaimed Christ as one who brought light into the dark places of life, the one who forgave our sins, who loved us with a grace than we could little fathom. He proclaimed all of these beliefs and yet in his heart he feared none of them were true for him. Wesley struggled with feeling unworthy of God’s love. He struggled to believe that he alone was good enough and so he worked harder trying to prove his worth. He would prove himself useful for great things for God’s kingdom, but his heart was tortured with the same dark doubt of Nicodemus. How can these things be?

It is easy for any of us to trip on this stumbling block of doubt. For some of us, the worry is we aren’t worthy enough, we haven’t been good enough, served enough, or perfected enough. For others, the worry is we don’t understand enough, reason enough, or have witnessed enough to have all the needed answers to overcome our doubts. Jesus shows us a few things in his discussion with Nicodemus that I think are most helpful in the midst of such doubts.

1. Don’t rely only on your own understanding (vs. 2, 11)

Nicodemus and his colleagues mainly relied upon their own understanding of God. It was an understanding with a great foundation built upon centuries of teachings, traditions, laws, and prophets. When he stated, “We know that you are from God,” he was implying, “We” should know because “we” know the things of God.

Jesus says, “Do you?” Because if you know I’m from God, why have you ignored my witness? Why are you only looking at the miracles but not listening to what I’m saying? Why are you not listening to my followers who know something of God as well based upon their experience with me?

Wesley was the son of a priest and a devout mother educated in the scriptures. He was trained at Oxford in a religious education. Wesley “knew” the things of God, but he did not know God in his heart. On his way to Georgia, his ship was caught in a severe storm and he realized he was terrified of dying. It created quite a crisis for him because he knew it meant he had no assurance in his own salvation.

There was no way for Wesley to understand his way out of this hole of doubt on his own. So he sought the help of others who he witnessed as having the assurance of salvation that he so desperately yearned for. He found his way to the Moravians and spent years learning from them about a faith that seemed quite different from the head knowledge of his Anglican roots. With the Moravians, he began to learn about a religion of the heart.

If you want to move from doubt to wisdom we have to be willing to seek understanding from outside of your own knowledge. Of course we choose carefully and with critical discernment, but we must be open to hearing the witness others proclaim of God to see if we can deepen what we know and experience of God.

2. Keep your eye on heavenly things (vs. 5-8)

Lest we get too caught up in the search for head knowledge of God, we must balance it with Jesus’ reminder to keep our eye on the things from above. Like a wind that blows yet we can’t see it, the Spirit is blowing in our lives. Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. If we keep our eyes focused for spiritual cues, we will see what the Spirit moves and nudges with a fresh breath of life and wisdom. If we remain watchful of the Holy Spirit around us, we will gain in the wisdom of faith as we see evidence all around us of God’s guiding hand.

Jesus goes on to tell Nicodemus that the Son of Man is the only one who has descended to earth so as to bring God closer to humanity in order to allow us to see God and know God better in this world.

Why would God do such an amazing thing? "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

There lies the third thing we must do to be transformed from doubt to wisdom:

3. Allow yourself to be loved by God.

Without the need to prove yourself first, without having all the answers, without reaching perfection – just allow yourself to be loved because God so loved you he sent his son to save you.

John Wesley was a priest for ten years doing some great things for God’s kingdom, but he was a man tortured with the feeling that no matter what he did, he wasn’t enough to be worthy of God’s love. He went through pits of darkness feeling inadequate and full of doubt. On May 24, 1738, everything changed for John Wesley. He describes that night in his journal: “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."

Folks, there probably isn’t a person alive that doesn’t doubt at times. Whether we doubt the legitimacy of God’s existence or the possibility of our own lovability, we all have doubts somewhere on that spectrum. What saddens me about Nicodemus’ story is that he never truly seems to come out of the darkness of his doubts. We will encounter him two more times in John’s Gospel. In Chapter 7, he speaks to the council and advocates for a fair trial for Jesus but stops short of defending his innocence. In his final appearance, he doesn’t speak at all, but he shows up to help Joseph of Arimathea bury the body of Jesus in a tomb. How sad it is that he never found the assurance of faith to step out into the light until headed to the cemetery.

Seek understanding

Keep your eyes focused on spiritual things

Know that you are loved

When we do this, we can have the blessed assurance of a faith that brings light into the darkness of doubt and illuminates the wisdom of truth: the Son of God was sent to love you – even you.