Blinded by the Light of the World

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 23 and John 9: 1-41 Sermon Title: Blinded by the Light of the World Preached on March 19, 2023 Has anyone here ever dreamed of having his own fire truck? On Monday morning, I pulled into the parking lot, and there was an antique fire truck parked in the church parking lot. I got out of my car, took a picture, and thought to myself, “How amazing is this? Someone left a fire truck in our parking lot!” Only here’s the thing: There it was, an antique fire truck, but I don’t think everyone noticed it, or, if she did, she stayed in her car and just looked, without getting out to make a big deal of it. It was parked in the lot where a lot of preschool parents line up to drop off their kids, and I can imagine many of the preschoolers noticing the fire truck. Surely, they wanted to get out to climb on it and couldn’t because I can also imagine that many of the parents who were dropping their preschoolers off had other things on their minds. I want you to know that the only reason I dedicated so much attention to the fire truck was because I don’t have a preschooler in the car anymore. Back when I did, I didn’t have time for fire trucks. I wasn’t getting enough sleep, I was always rushing to get to work, feeling like I was mediocre at everything. I felt mediocre at my job because every other week I had a kid home sick, so I couldn’t dedicate as much time as I felt like I should to work. I felt mediocre at exercise because I always had middle-of-the-night wake-up duty, and after staying up late to rock a sick or scared baby, I couldn’t always make myself get up early to go on a run. I even felt mediocre in marriage because for that season of life, Sara and I were more like nannies or drivers than husband and wife. However, today, with 11- and 13-year-old daughters, I’m getting plenty of sleep, I have time to notice the world around me, and with older kids at home, I love seeing little kids and stopping to talk with them. My favorite part of my weekday is 12:00. I’m on my way out to lunch, and I walk through the gathering area out there. All the preschool kids are lined up ready for pick-up. Little Kate Callahan sometimes stops me. One day, she noticed that I had cut myself. “What happened to your face, Mr. Joe?” she asked me. “I’ve been shaving for years now, but sometimes I still cut myself shaving,” I explained. One of her classmates, Colt Carden, said, “My daddy shaves with a mirror. Do you have a mirror to shave with, Mr. Joe?” I told him that I’d think about getting one and walked away with a smile on my face because the light just shines so brightly in those kids, but we must slow down to notice it. We don’t always have time to slow down. We are all sometimes too busy to slow down. None of us has enough time to notice the whole world around him. Our minds are focused on other things. There are plenty of things in this world to worry about. There are some seasons of life when it feels like all we can do is tread water, hardly aware of the world around us. Sometimes the light shines, and we are blinded by it, rather than rejoicing in it. That’s the theme in our second Scripture lesson from the Gospel of John. It was a long Scripture lesson. In case you got lost in it, allow me to briefly summarize: Jesus healed a man of his blindness, but this miracle made the religious authorities of the day anxious because he healed the man on the Sabbath. In those days, you didn’t work on the Sabbath. Everything was closed. Everyone rested. A healing sounded like work to the religious authorities, so they tried to crack down on Jesus, who didn’t observe the rules and customs of the day, and they went after the formerly blind boy’s parents. When they went after them, his parents felt attacked. They didn’t want to get into trouble, so they told the religious authorities to ask their son about it. “What can you tell us about the man who healed you?” they asked him. The boy who had been blind said, “One thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see.” That seems to me to be the main thing, yet the religious authorities didn’t see it that way. They looked right over the miracle as though they were blinded by it, so Jesus said to them, “I came into this world so that those who are blind might see, and those who think they can see would know that they are blind.” The religious authorities, “heard him say this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’” This is a wonderful question for anyone to ask him or herself, “Surely, I’m not blind, am I?” Of course, I am. We all are. When I was a father of two preschoolers, I was at least 50% blind. I had to be to survive. You can’t go walking around like Mr. Rogers at the pencil plant, leisurely taking it all in and appreciating every detail if you have diapers to change, two kids to get to preschool, a job to do, and a spouse to take out to dinner at least once or twice a month, bere’s the word I have for you today: If you are going to be 50% blind, don’t be blind to the miracles. Don’t be blinded by the Light of the World. Don’t be blind to the good all around you. That’s what happened to the religious authorities. They were blinded by the Light of the World. The miracle overwhelmed them, so they went back to analyzing the intricacies of the Sabbath laws. They huddled up and started saying to each other, “He was working on the Sabbath.” “Can you believe it?” “Isn’t it horrible?” “He should have more respect.” No! All that they were worried about is beside the point. If you have the choice between paying attention to Sabbath laws or a blind man receiving his sight, always pay more attention to the miracle rather than the Sabbath law. Pay more attention to the laughter than the pain. Spend more time discussing the light than the social conventions. Parents, you don’t always have the bandwidth to live up to the standards set by society, so drop what is unessential and rely on His grace so that you see what matters most and don’t worry so much about all the other stuff. That’s what I want you to hear this morning. We’re all running on these hamster wheels in this life. Someone was asked to describe what it was like when her second child was born. She said, “Well, it was like I was treading water in a pool while holding a baby. Then someone handed me another one.” If life is that overwhelming, like treading water while holding two babies, stop worrying about how you look in your bathing suit. Let go of somethings to hold others more tightly. Be blind to the insignificant and pay attention to what matters. Let go of paying attention to what’s happening in Washington, D.C. to pay more attention to the people in your neighborhood. Notice that a fire truck is parked in the parking lot and stop worrying about where your rich friends went on vacation. We all get distracted by the main thing, but don’t be blinded by the Light of the World. Focus on the light and don’t worry so much about all the shadows. Do you know what I mean by that? Focus on the miracle. Listen for the good news. Don’t sweat the small stuff. The worst thing that happens in this Scripture lesson is what happens to the boy’s parents. Did you hear what the disciples asked Jesus? “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Don’t you know they had been asking each other that question since the day he was born? Whose fault is this? Whose side has the genes that did it: yours or mine? Parents can test for this kind of thing now, and I wonder if that’s good or bad information to have because while we want to know whose fault it is, having the right person to blame is not the main thing. Don’t be blinded by the Light of the World. See Him. Trust Him. Follow Him. Amen.