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Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent – March 15, 2026
John 9:1-41
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
As every driver knows, there are areas behind your vehicle that you can’t see with your mirrors. Your rear-view mirror shows you a large swath of what is behind you. Your side mirrors show you another swath on either side. But there are areas that none of those mirrors cover. We call it those areas blind spots. Those blind spots are one of the most dangerous aspects of driving. People not checking their blind spots when they’re merging or changing lanes is one of the most common causes of serious accidents. Many newer cars now have sensors which light up when there’s someone in your blind spot, which is great – but they aren’t perfect. If someone is coming up fast behind you, it might not light up in time. And so, those blind spots can still be dangerous.
The phrase “blind spot” has also become an idiom referring to situations that have nothing to do with driving. We use it to describe someone’s inability or unwillingness to perceive something, perhaps because of a bias, or a deeply ingrained assumption, or a simply a lack of knowledge.
We have another long gospel reading this morning, and this one is particularly rich with themes. There are a number of different directions we could go with it. What I would like to focus on this time around is the problem of spiritual blind spots. There are people with some serious spiritual blind spots in this story, and these spiritual blind spots are dangerous – for them, and for us.
On the surface, this gospel reading is about a man who was born blind. He encounters Jesus, who has compassion on him, and restores his sight. But the great length of the rest of the reading tells us that there is much more to the story. This is much more than a healing story. This is about the spiritual blind spots which prevent the Pharisees from seeing who Jesus is.
When the Pharisees learned that this man’s sight had been restored, they launched an investigation. How can this be? Who could have done this? It certainly couldn’t be a godly man, for he mixed together spit and dirt and used it as a salve, and he did it on the sabbath. Technically, that’s work. That involved kneading. That involved practicing the healing arts. Both of these are no-no’s on the sabbath. So, there’s that. On the other hand, some argued, who could possibly restore eyesight to a blind man without the power of God? For many of these Pharisees, their self-righteousness as meticulous keepers of the sabbath gave them a huge blind spot, preventing them from seeing God at work in Jesus Christ.
Well, the Pharisees thought, maybe this guy wasn’t really blind in the first place. Maybe this was all a big hoax. So off they went like the keystone cops to interview the parents. The parents insisted that he was indeed blind from birth, and so the Pharisees were at another dead end. Now their cynicism, their skepticism, their doubts, gave them a huge blind spot, preventing them from seeing who Jesus truly was and what he was capable of.
These blind spots really come into focus when they went to the formerly blind man for a follow up interview. “What did he do?” they asked him. “How did he do it?” Where does this Jesus come from, anyway? And the formerly blind man replied, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.” What he’s saying is: Isn’t this ironic – you guys are supposed to be the religious experts, and you can’t see what is going on here. And yet, here I am, a guy who spent most of his life literally blind, and, to me, it is pretty plain to see!
This all came to a head when the investigation led them to Jesus himself. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” The Pharisees sensed that Jesus was talking about them, and so they shot back, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
This almost sounds like a riddle, doesn’t it? Jesus said he came so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Those who insist that they can see are really blind, while those who can see that they can’t see, can really see!
This riddle-like language is all about spiritual blind spots. The Pharisees have some big ones. Their self-righteousness created a blind spot. Their cynicism, skepticism, and doubt created a blind spot. Their stubbornness in insisting that they are the ones who have everything figured out created a blind spot. All these factors in their lives make it so that they cannot see Jesus for who he is. They cannot see what he is up to. They cannot see their need for him. They have these huge blind spots, and the most dangerous thing about them is that they don’t even know that they’re there.
There’s a scene from a movie which keeps coming to mind for me. I know we’re much closer to Easter than Christmas, but it is from a Christmas movie. There’s a scene in the movie “Elf” where Buddy the Elf hears his coworker singing in the locker room shower. Her voice is lovely and he is entranced, so he goes into the locker room, sitting on the counter just outside her shower. It sounds a little creepy, but his intentions are completely innocent. The charm of his character is his utter naiveté. He listens to her sing for a bit before he starts singing along with her. At this point she realizes there is a man in the locker room. She screams at him to get out, and Buddy covers his eyes and starts running blindly, away from the shower, and WHAM, at full speed he slams into a locker and falls to the floor.
I watch this movie pretty much every year, and this scene cracks me up every time. Yes, it might be true that I have the sense of humor of an eight-year-old boy, but here’s the thing: It is said that even the most absurd humor is funny to people because it has an element of truth to it. In fact, comedians and comedy writers will tell you it must have an element of truth in order to be funny. Oscar Wilde famously said that if you want to tell people the truth, you have to make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you. And I think this scene, as silly and juvenile as it is, points to a deeper, if uncomfortable truth about us, which is that we all have a tendency to run blindly, with the full force of someone who insists that they know what they’re doing, until we hit a hard, blunt surface. We have a tendency to run with blind confidence in ourselves until we inevitably hit a wall.
You see, we have some of the same blind spots as the Pharisees. There are times when we have the same sense of self-righteousness. There are times when we have the same cynicism, skepticism, and doubt. There are times when we have the same stubbornness, insisting that we have everything figured out. And these create for us these spiritual blind spots which prevent us from seeing the truth. They prevent us from seeing who Jesus truly is for us. They prevent us from seeing what he came to do for us. They prevent us from seeing our need for him. And these blind spots are dangerous! We run confidently, but blindly, through life until we hit a wall, until we crash out.
This story is told in order to open our eyes. This story is given to us so that we can get past these blind spots and see the truth more clearly.
To see clearly is to begin by acknowledging our own blindness. This isn’t a riddle, this is repentance. It is to admit the ways in which our self-righteousness and our skepticism and our stubbornness have gotten in the way of seeing and trusting and worshipping Jesus. To see clearly is, first of all, to confess our sin.
To see clearly is also to see Jesus as the formerly blind man saw him. It is to see not only our sin, but also our savior. It is to trust that Jesus has come from God to bring us forgiveness, life, and salvation. It is to have our eyes opened by Jesus to the truth – the truth about us, and the truth about him. It is to receive the gift of restoration from him, the gift of new eyes and a new life. It is to look upon Jesus with faith, and worship him as our Lord and God.
C. S. Lewis once wrote: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
This is a beautiful description of the Christian life. It is a beautiful description of what it means to live with the restored sight that faith in Jesus brings. Jesus opens our eyes in such a way that our blind spots are overcome and we can perceive him rightly, and with him, everything else.
Jesus opens our eyes to see that we really do need him. We really do need his forgiveness, and so we move from self-righteousness to humility.
Jesus opens our eyes to see that he really can help us. He overcomes our cynicism, moving us to hope. He overcomes our skepticism, moving us to trust. He overcomes our doubts, moving us to faithfully worship him.
Jesus opens our eyes to see that we don’t have it all figured out after all, but that it is okay. He has come to help us see him as the way, the truth, and the life. He has come to lead us into a new life of joyful discipleship, moving us from stubbornly following our own way to following him into what, as the Apostle Paul says, is good and right and true.
By his loving grace, Jesus touches your eyes today, so that every blind spot might be removed, and you would see clearly that he is the Lord of your life and the savior of your soul.
He comes to you once again to restore and sharpen your vision, so that with eyes of faith, you would see him rightly, and with him everything else.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church