Every culture has its remedies. Some of them
make sense. You know, those home remedies that
you've always heard about. But there are some
that make you stop and say, wait, what? Butter
on a burn. Onion syrup for coughs. Potato slices
for headaches. Cabbage leaves for swollen joints.
Peanut butter for bug bites. Mustard plasters
for chest colds. You know, there's times when
you've seen an infomercial, where you were sick
from work and you just had to know whether apple
cider vinegar could fix everything. Whether charcoal
could really detox your system better than your
kidneys and liver. And whether shoe inserts could
improve your circulation through the magic of
magnetism. Maybe you've even tried some of these
remedies before. For the record, ginger and the
little ear patches, those do seem to help out
with motion sickness, I promise. You see, some
things they work, but maybe some of them did
not. Somewhere along the way, someone has tried
these things and maybe became part of the wisdom
that got passed down. And if we're honest, some
of us still remember a parent or grandparent
insisting that one of these remedies would work.
The ancient world had its remedies too. Roman
writers like Pliny the Elder described the healing
power of saliva, especially for eye diseases.
Doesn't that just sound gross, just from the
beginning? But in his work, Natural History,
he records traditions that people believed saliva
could treat certain ailments. And he even mentions
that the saliva of a firstborn son was thought
to have special healing power. A concentrated
life force, if you will. The idea was that certain
people, in particular circumstances, could imbue
their saliva with restorative properties. Jewish
traditions preserved in the Babylonian Talmud
also mention saliva as a possible remedy for
some conditions, including... eye problems. While
the Talmud itself was compiled centuries later,
it preserves discussions that circulated among
Jewish teachers long before, even during the
time of Christ, discussions about the ways life,
breath, and bodily fluids could carry God's healing
energy. There were also debates about using saliva
on the Sabbath, showing that the act was familiar,
but also morally and religiously delicate. So
when Jesus spits on the ground and makes mud
to heal a blind man, the people watching would
not have thought using saliva was completely
strange. It was a known folk remedy, a practice
with precedent in both Jewish and Roman understanding
of healing. They had seen remedies like that
before, sometimes practical and sometimes mysterious.
What they were not prepared for was who was doing
it. and what it meant. Because when Jesus bends
down, spits on the ground, and He forms mud,
something deeper begins to echo through the story.
This is not merely some traveling medicine man
using common medicines or mind games to heal
simple infections, aches, pains. This was the
Word of God. who had been there from the beginning,
restoring what had never been there in this man's
life. Think back to the creation story from the
book of Genesis. God forms humanity from the
dust of the ground. Dust and breath. Earth and
life. And now Jesus is taking earth and moisture,
human and divine elements combined, and placing
it on the eyes of a man who has never seen. It
is not merely healing something that got broken.
It evokes creation itself. Think of a potter
sitting on a wheel. A lump of clay sits there
shapeless. But the potter's hands begin to form
it. Slowly, the clay becomes something new. But
when the potter sees something missing, he reshapes
the clay. Jesus doesn't just repair what is broken.
He creates what was missing. See, this is not
just a remedy. This is creation itself echoing
in a single act. Not merely repairing what was
broken, not simply giving back what had been
lost, but bringing into being something that
had never existed before. That's something God
does. The strange part here was not actually
the mud. The strange part was what the mud meant.
And that meaning sets the stage for the miracle
that we are about to see. It is here that Jesus
reveals a new kind of sight. A sight that does
more than open eyes. It opens hearts. In John
chapter 9, Jesus had encountered this man who
had been blind from birth. Not someone who lost
his sight later. Not someone whose eyes might
recover with some normal treatment. This man
had never seen a sunrise. Never seen his parents'
faces. Never seen the streets he walked every
day while begging. And the disciples asked the
kind of question that people often asked in that
time, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents
that he was born blind? They're trying to make
sense of suffering. If something's wrong, then
clearly someone must be responsible. They don't
want to imagine that bad things can happen to
good people. But Jesus refuses that framework.
This happens so that the works of God might be
displayed in Him. In other words, this moment
is not about blame. It's about the revelation
of God. It is about showing who Jesus is and
what He has come to do. Then Jesus performs the
miracle, spits on the ground, He makes the mud
and He places it on the man's eyes. He tells
him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. He sends
him to the pool, that means, sent. In the pool
that pointed them to the living water in the
wilderness, the mission of Jesus to bring life
becomes even clearer for this man. So the man
goes. And the man washes, and the man comes back
seen. For the first time in his life, light floods
into his world. Faces, movement, colors. Everything
that had once been darkness suddenly comes alive.
But here is something fascinating. The miracle
itself only takes a few verses. The rest of the
chapter is not about the miracle itself. It's
about how the people respond to it. Because when
God begins doing something new, it rarely fits
the categories that people already have prepared
for it. That is exactly what happens here. The
miracle happens on the Sabbath. To the religious
leaders, that raises legal questions. spitting
on the ground might disturb the soil, digging
it up, which was seen as work. Mixing mud could
be interpreted as kneading a dough, which was
treated as work. Applying a treatment might count
as performing medicine, which could be seen as
work. So they just kept focusing on, did Jesus
work on the Sabbath? Suddenly, the conversation
shifts away from the miracle and gets to the
rule book. Instead of asking the obvious question,
if He opened the man's eyes, then could Jesus
be the Messiah of God? Instead, they're saying,
did Jesus break our laws? They're staring directly
at a miracle, but they're asking the wrong question.
The Kingdom of God rarely fits the categories
we're prepared for. Not everyone wants to see
what God is doing. In fact, what happens next
is one of the strangest parts, because the miracle
is not celebrated. There are not people yelling
in the streets, Hooray, Jesus! It's investigated.
If you watch, the religious leaders begin investigating
the miracle like a courtroom trial. They question
the neighbors. They question the man. They question
the man's parents. they bring back the man again
for more questioning. But something becomes clear
as the conversation unfolds. They're not actually
searching for the truth of what happened. They
already decided the verdict. They know Jesus
cannot be from God because, in their minds, He
has broken the Sabbath. And when you've already
decided the verdict first, evidence just becomes
inconvenient. I'll give you an example. Some
museums have discovered something interesting
about their visitors. When people walk into a
museum, they often move quickly through the first
room. They just get past it. They assume that
the most important works must be deeper inside
the building. So they hurry past the entrance
gallery without really looking. And in fact,
some curators have even experimented with this.
They made place extremely valuable pieces right
near the entrance, sometimes even masterpieces,
and many visitors walk right past them. Not because
the artwork isn't beautiful, not because it isn't
valuable, but because they already decided the
important things must be somewhere else. So they
never really looked. Something very similar is
happening in John 9. The miracle is obvious.
But the leaders cannot accept the conclusion.
A miracle is standing right in front of them,
a man who could not see in his life can see.
But the religious leaders are so focused on where
they expect God to act, that they walk right
past what God is actually doing. And even when
the healed man stands right in front of them,
even when his parents confirm that he was born
blind, even when the miracle itself is undeniable.
rather than question their assumptions, they
push the evidence away. See, eventually, they
do something even more remarkable. Instead of
reconsidering their conclusions, they simply
throw the man out. The problem is removed. Yay!
The uncomfortable evidence is gone. When truth
becomes uncomfortable, the easiest solution is
to remove the testimony. And I'm sure none of
us have ever done anything like that before.
To be uncomfortable with something and then just
to find a way to ignore it. Psychologists sometimes
talk about confirmation bias where we naturally
notice the information that supports what we
already believe and we filter out the information
that challenges it. It's why two people can watch
the exact same news report and come away with
completely different conclusions. We see what
we're prepared to see. You know how it goes.
Something doesn't fit our expectations, so we
dismiss it. Something challenges the way we've
always thought, so we look for a reason to ignore
it. Sometimes we label the other side as wrong
just so we don't have to wrestle with what's
right in front of us. Sometimes we shout louder
or repeat the same phrases again so we can stop
interacting with the conversation. People loudly
yell about human rights, but then don't seem
to care about the unborn. Others yell loudly
about the unborn, but they don't seem to care
about what happens after birth. People yell loudly
about what's legal, but they don't seem to provide
legal opportunities for others. But others yell
loudly about the opportunities without caring
about personal responsibility. And then there
are some who yell about their own ministries
and fight against anything new. even while others
yell about new opportunities and forget how to
bless what was already happening when they got
there. It turns out that blindness is not only
a problem of the eyes, it can be a problem of
the heart. But while the experts argued, the
man who had been blind kept things surprisingly
simple. They asked him theological questions
he could not answer. Is Jesus a sinner? Where
does he come from? What authority does he have?
And the man finally responds with the most honest
testimony in the chapter, one thing I do know,
though I was blind, now I see. He does not pretend
to know everything. He simply speaks the truth
of what Christ has done for him. And in doing
so, the man who had never seen becomes the one
person in the story who actually sees clearly.
How often do we make our Christian testimony
so difficult to share because we want to get
caught up in arguments and technicalities that
keep us from seeing the people in front of us?
But the story does not end with the man being
thrown out. See, after the leaders cast him out,
something remarkable happens, that Jesus comes
looking for him. Let that sink in. This man has
lost everything familiar. His place in the synagogue,
therefore his place among his religious community.
His standing, that even if it was low on the
totem pole for being blind, he still had a place.
or even the protection of his parents who can't
seem to figure out how to deal with what happened
with their son, so it would be easier just to
disown him. Yet the one who gave him sight seeks
him out. And Jesus asks gently, Do you believe
in the Son of Man? The man's world had been dark
his entire life. Now standing before the light
of the world, he answers with nothing but the
truth of what he knows. I believe. And he worships
Him. The man lost his place in the world he knew,
but he found the one who gives life itself. Think
about what had happened. He found the Son of
God. Sometimes the first step towards seeing
clearly is losing what once made us comfortable.
Following Christ does not always make life easier.
Sometimes it makes life uncomfortable. Sometimes
it forces us to rethink assumptions we carried
for years. Sometimes it means letting go of things
we thought we understood about the world, about
faith, even about God. But in exchange, Christ
gives something greater. A new life. New sight.
A new way of seeing the world. Because the same
Christ who opened that man's eyes would soon
open the way to life through his cross and resurrection.
Christ does not come to make our old life work
better. He comes to give us a new one. At the
end of the story, Jesus says something striking.
For judgment I came into this world that those
who do not see may see and those who see may
become blind. The ultimate tragedy of the story
was not that the man was born blind. The real
tragedy was that some people still chose to remain
that way. The leaders were so certain of their
understanding that they could not recognize the
one standing right in front of them. The man
who had been blind simply trusted the man who
healed him. He did not have every answer. He
did not understand everything. But he knew one
thing. I was blind. Now I see. And that is the
invitation placed before us as well. Christ still
comes to open our eyes. He forgives the blindness
of our hearts. He frees us from the need to cling
to our old assumptions and comfortable ways of
seeing the world. But are you ready to let go
of those old assumptions and to look at what
God is doing right in front of you? And not just
in this congregation, but in your own experiences,
knowing that it might not be something you've
always been comfortable with. Because Jesus is
calling you, even now, into a life fuller than
anything you've ever known. But when He calls
us, the question is not whether everything fits
as is expected. The question is simpler. Will
we trust Him? Will we follow Him? Because the
same Christ who opened that man's eyes has already
done something even greater for us. Through His
cross and resurrection, He has opened the way
from darkness into life. And those who follow
Him discovered the same truth that changed that
man forever. I was blind. But now I see. Thanks
be to God.