“THE TEACHER WHO CAME TO SAVE?”

JOHN 9:1-38

 

[9:1] As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.   (Then)

[6]…he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud

[7] and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

[8] The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”

[9] Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.”

[10] So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?”

[11] He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.”

[12] They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”            

[13] They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

[14] Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

[15] So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”

[16] Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.

[17] So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”

[18] The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight

[19] and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”

[20] His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind.

[21] But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.”

[22] (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.)

[23] Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

[24] So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.”

[25] He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

[26] They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

[27] He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”

 [28] And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

[29] We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”

[30] The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.

[31] We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.

[32] Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.

[33] If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

[34] They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.

[35] Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

[36] He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”

[37] Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.”

[38] He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

Life is full of embarrassing moments; moments when you say to yourself, “I wish I hadn’t done that.”  Willard Scott the former weatherman for The Today Show had one of those moments when he was twelve years old.   It happened while he was sitting in church.  He describes the embarrassing moment in his autobiography, The Joy Of Living.   It was a Communion Sunday and “I was trying to get the last bit of juice out of the bottom of the cup with my tongue, when all of a sudden the suction grabbed hold and my tongue got stuck in the cup!  I tried desperately to pull that doggone cup off, but it wouldn’t budge.  Then before I could make another attempt, the pastor asked everyone in the church to hold hands…and sing ‘Blest Be the Tie That Binds.”   Well, I was the one in a bind.  Here I was with this cup on my tongue, and the people next to me had grabbed my hands.  Just when it seemed like I was about to be discovered, I had what I can only regard as a divine inspiration.  I sucked the whole cup into my mouth and held it there until the hymn was over.  Then, while no one was looking, I reached in and pulled it off my tongue.” 

 

Now be honest.  You’ve all had moments like that.  I bet you can remember a moment when you said to yourself “I wish I hadn’t done that.” Sometimes you say it after you’ve done something silly and unfortunately, sometimes you say it after you’ve done something sinful.    Maybe you say it after pride gets the best of you and you judge someone unfairly.  Or anger gets the best of you and you say something hurtful.  Or greed gets the best of you and you turn your back on someone who needs your help.

 

So what do you do what when you do something that you shouldn’t have done.  The best thing you can do, of course, is turn to Jesus.  Here’s a question for you though.  Which Jesus do you turn to?  Do you turn to the Jesus who came to teach you right from wrong?  Or do you turn to the Jesus who came to save you from the wrongs that litter your life?

 

Simply put is Jesus a teacher or is he your Savior? That question is so important it’s the reason why Jesus went back to see that blind man a second time.  In order to see that you have to go back and look at something the blind man said when the Pharisees were interrogating him.  They said, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?”  In response to that question he said, “He is a prophet.”   Now a prophet was a teacher.  A prophet was someone who had a direct pipeline to God and was there to teach you right from wrong.  The prophets, after all, were the ones who were notorious for saying “Thus says the Lord.”  So, as far as the blind man was concerned Jesus was a teacher.

 

The problem though is that Jesus wasn’t just a teacher.  Jesus was and is and always will be the Savior who came to take away the sins of the world.  He didn’t just come to teach us right from wrong.  He came to take away the wrongs that fill your heart with sorrow, guilt and shame.   That’s why he went back to see the man a second time.

 

You see, the first time Jesus saw the man he healed him of his physical blindness.  The second time Jesus saw the man he healed him of his spiritual blindness. Listen again to what John tells us.

 

Jesus said to the man, , “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”

Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.”

He said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him.”

 

Jesus isn’t just a teacher. He’s the Savior who came to take away the sins of the world. Would you say that he’s your Savior?  Or would that make you a little uncomfortable?   It makes some people uncomfortable because it sounds a little too evangelical.  However, I think there’s another reason why it makes some people uncomfortable.

 

It makes some people uncomfortable because in order to say that Jesus is your Savior you have to do something that people don’t like to do these days.  You have to admit that you need to be saved.  You have to admit that you do sin from time to time because you’re weak and vulnerable and needy.  People don’t like to do that though.  These days it’s all about being cool, calm and collected.  You want everyone to think that you’re  savvy, smart and sophisticated.  So, if you’re like most people, you do everything you can to hide your faults and our failures, your mistakes and the sinful things that you’ve done.

 

In some ways we’re all a little like the man who got drunk one night and tried to hide it from his wife.  Fortunately, for the man, his wife was asleep when he walked through the front door.   The man was a little unsteady on his feet though. So, he got down on his hands and knees and quietly crawled up the stairs.  When he got to the top of the stairs he went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror.  What he saw through his bloodshot eyes were a few cuts and bruises from a drunken brawl earlier in the evening.  So, he carefully bandaged them up and then crawled into bed convinced that he’d put one over on his wife.  The next morning though he woke up to find his wife standing there with a scowl on her face.  “You were drunk last night weren’t you?”  “No I wasn’t,” the husband said.  “Yes you were,” the wife insisted. Again the man said, “No, I wasn’t. Honest!”  “Well,” the wife said “if you weren’t drunk then would you mind telling me who put all those band-aids on the bathroom mirror?”

 

If Jesus really is your Savior it means you can’t play those games.  It means you have to admit that you’re weak and because of that you sometimes do the wrong thing.  You have to admit that you’re vulnerable and because of that you sometimes give in to temptation.  You have to admit that you’re needy and that you really need the love of Christ to save your from yourself.   You have to do what writer G.K. Chesterton did many years ago after he read an editorial in the newspaper.  The editorial asked the question “What’s wrong with the world?”   So, Chesterton sat down and wrote a letter to the editor.  In response to the question “What’s wrong with the world,” he wrote, “I am.”