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Reading:          John 9:1-41.

Text:                John 9:35 "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

The man in this story had begun the day as he had begun every other day that he could remember: sightless. In fact he had never seen because he was born blind but all was about to change and in more ways than one.

The events recorded for us in John chapter 9 really took place, this is an historical narrative. There was a real blind man who earned his living begging. His parents were still alive and they knew that their son had been born with this terrible handicap. He was a well-known figure in the community as he was often out in the public space with his begging bowl - but his notoriety was for all the wrong reasons: the commonly held view was that his blindness was directly linked to sin. Apparently opinion was divided over whether he was responsible himself or whether he is blind because of some sin in the life of his parents. Oh yes, people recognised him but none admired him. By the end of the day my how things were to have changed!

But at the same time this account is much more than a mere historical record. What we find the story of this blind man is a picture of what it means to become a Christian, a true follower of Jesus Christ.

Let us see then what we may learn from this passage of Holy Scripture.

As Jesus is walking along with his disciples they come upon a blind man. It appears that it is the disciples who draw Jesus attention to this man – but they do so in order to ask the theological question and apparently have no interest in the man himself. How different it is with Jesus! He answers his disciples' question but then immediately turns to do the blind man good. He is concerned with this poor man.

Surely, we should be encouraged by this. Here was this man who had no important standing in the community, who was dependent upon others helping him, and who had an otherwise bleak future stretching out ahead of him. He did not know Jesus and he had no claims upon him. And yet Jesus stopped to help him! Will he not do the same for you?

Jesus spat on the ground and made a little mud with his saliva. He then put some of this mud on the blind man's eyes – I wonder what he thought about that? How docile he is as the Lord Jesus does this most unusual thing! We read of no resistance, no argument, no questioning. When the Lord Jesus tells him what he must do we simply read that this man went and did what he was told.

The blind man heard what Jesus said and went away and did it:

v.7 "So he went and washed and came back seeing."

The sentence is so simple isn't it? And yet with just a few short words the total transformation of a man's life is described!

Here we have to do with no psychosomatic illness which might be addressed by a few positive thoughts. What we are confronted with here is the attribution of sight to a man who was never ever seen before. The change for him was enormous and the change was evident to all.

Those who knew him still recognised him – outwardly he still looked the same – and yet everything had changed about him, so much so that he seemed to them another man. The man who had just been healed insisted that he was indeed the man they thought he was. Then, in response to the questions, he went on to tell them just what Jesus had done for him:

Jn.9:11 “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.”

He didn't know much more than this and he didn't try to pretend that he did but my wasn't what he knew terrific!

The man who was formerly blind is about to find that involvement with Jesus Christ can be costly. Yes, he has received an enormously valuable gift at the hands of the Lord Jesus – he can see! But now he's about to find that others do not necessarily share in his joy and indeed are just about to make life difficult for him in a whole variety of new ways.

Now, I imagine, that as we consider the tremendous benefits that Jesus had just bestowed upon this man in giving him sight we may well be tempted to imagine that any negative reactions he might experience from others would appear utterly insignificant to him. But as we continue to consider the experiences of this man we must not fail to see the parallels in our own.

In the gospel of the free grace of our Lord Jesus Christ not only are we offered spiritual eyesight but spiritual life in exchange for eternal death! These blessings far exceed the temporal blessings of physical eyesight and yet are they valued by many in our society today? There is a price to be paid if you want to follow Jesus Christ and so many seem to think that the cost is simply too great. I hope that the cost does not seem exorbitant to you!

The man's problems come from three different sources:

A) friends and neighbours

B) establishment figures

C) family

Let's take a look at these in turn – they can still cause us problems today.

The first people that the blind man has dealings with after his healing are some of his neighbours. After a certain amount of discussion with them they take him off to see the religious authorities. It is not that they are necessarily "shopping" him rather it is more likely that they are taking him to the appropriate authorities for them to express an opinion on the matter. In a day when almost every event bore some religious overtone the Pharisees were the most natural group to turn to.

Having been quizzed first by his neighbours, now, the formerly blind man is about to be quizzed all over again but this time by the Pharisees. In the course of their investigations the Pharisees will not merely question him as to the facts but will challenge him as to his honesty in recounting them. The tone of the investigation moves from being relatively impartial at the outset to being more and more antagonistic. It will end with callous insults, condemnation and exclusion.

As the enquiry unfolds we learn something that we did not know before: the healing had taken place on the Sabbath. This fact troubles the Pharisees because in their eyes a man who performed such a healing on the Sabbath day was a lawbreaker and could in no way be understood to be sent from God. The law of Moses itself did not forbid this kind of miracle being performed on the Sabbath day but over the years the Pharisees had built up a whole oral tradition which went way beyond what God had originally spoken through Moses. Jesus was not guilty of breaking the law of Moses but he never saw himself bound by these unbiblical traditions.

Initially it seems as though the Pharisees do not know what to make of it all – some are tempted to look favourably upon a man who performs such a remarkable act while others can't see beyond their traditions. Their first attempt at finding a way out of the impasse is to be highly sceptical that the man actually was blind in the first place. They dismiss the man's own testimony and turn to his parents to see whether what they have to say will minimise the significance of the work that has been done. Perhaps this man had not been born blind in the first place.

The man's parents are happy to confirm his identity and his medical records but they really don't want to get involved any more than that. (The Jewish authorities were already beginning to put pressure upon those people who were sympathetic towards Jesus Christ and this couple was scared, so scared in fact that they refuse to support their son effectively leaving him on his own with the increasingly hostile authorities.) And so it is still true today in many parts of the world and at many different levels of society that if a man or a woman becomes involved with Jesus Christ other family members distance themselves from them. For some of you when you became interested in Jesus Christ you too had to face similar family tensions.

Having had the facts of this man's "blindness from birth" confirmed the Pharisees try a different tack. In urging him to "give glory to God" the Pharisees are effectively saying "come on now, tell us what really happened." They are still accusing this innocent man falsely and he is beginning to smell a rat. What had started out like an impartial enquiry now seems far more like a witch-hunt. The Pharisees are not really interested in finding out what did happen that are really looking for a way to discredit Jesus.

As the man who had been blind continued to respond to their questions about what Jesus had done for him he declares himself more and more openly for Jesus. His refusal to play ball with them is really beginning to get their goat. Earlier they had been content to call his honesty into question but now they move beyond casting aspersions on to his very character – they have not the slightest ounce of compassion for this man.

The Pharisees have already made up their minds. This man Jesus they know to be a sinner. And as for this formerly blind man well, who was he to lecture them? They were Moses disciples after all and he had been steeped in sin since the moment of his birth!

Perhaps the way in which this man challenged the Pharisees lacked a certain amount of wisdom – but what he said was true for all that. Many a young convert in the enthusiasm of his new spiritual life may have done the same down through the centuries – but truth was shared! You too should not be surprised if your honest endeavours to testify to what Jesus Christ has done for you are misinterpreted. If hostility and exclusion be your lot than comfort yourself with this – you are in good company!

Being a confessing disciple of Jesus Christ may be costly in terms of rejection, exclusion and separation etc. and the reality of this must be faced by everyone contemplating following the Lord Jesus. He told us elsewhere of the importance of counting the cost – this is merely one instance where the cost is shown to us.

While the cost is real it is not one that we have to meet alone. I want you to notice some more encouraging things about the Lord Jesus Christ.

·         He's not ignorant of what happens to those whose lives he has touched.

·         Nor is he indifferent to their struggles and trials

Having healed the man Jesus apparently had carried on his way with his disciples. Some time later he heard what had happened to the man and how he had been badly treated by the Pharisees. He does not say "oh dear, how sad!" but sets out to find this man. The man's parents may well have failed to stand by him – not so the Lord Jesus! What a lovely fulfilment of Psalm 27:10 this is. There we read:

"For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the LORD will take me in."

Jesus finds the man and has a question for him, it is the question of our text:

            "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

How important belief is in the Bible! John in particular underlines it again and again in his gospel record as you know only too well:

e.g.John 3:14-18"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God."

Or again:

John 20:31 "these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

Now this particular man had been well prepared by his miraculous healing: the more he thought of the one who had made him see the readier he was to believe him to be the Messiah. So now when Jesus speaks to him giving him more information, more light, he is ready and eager to respond. His response is impressive – he honours the Lord Jesus and worships him.

Is this how you have responded to the Lord Jesus Christ? As you have learned more and more about him have you been equally eager to place all of your trust in him? What an example this man leaves us! It is an example that is the norm for a person who truly comes into contact with Jesus Christ. You should ask yourself some very serious questions if this is not the norm for you.

There are some issues a translation here in this particular verse. Some of our translations include the words "Son of God" while others the words "Son of Man". Both titles are to be found in John's Gospel and in about equal measure. Both titles are used to describe our Lord Jesus Christ and faith is associated also with them both. Both titles are messianic. Whichever title was used in the question the question amounts to exactly the same thing:

Do you believe in the Messiah, the Christ?"

Earlier as the Pharisees investigated the report of the healing they made a big play of the fact that they were disciples of Moses because they knew that God had spoken through Moses. Because, in their opinion, the man who had been healed had become a disciple of Jesus they reviled him. In their eyes anyone then who spoke well of Jesus was a suspect character.

How ironic this turns out to be for in reality Moses wrote about this very same Jesus a fact which John in his gospel has already brought before his readers on a number of occasions. (Luke too in his gospel and again in the Acts of the Apostles makes exactly the same point.)

Jn.1:45 "Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”"

Jn.5:39 "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,"

Jn.5:45-47 "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"

As I close this evening let me ask you some questions:

Are you believing the Bible that speaks so clearly of Jesus Christ as the One God had promised to send into the world as her Redeemer and Saviour?

Are you actively trusting Jesus today?

Are you ready to pay the cost and to go on paying the cost of being reviled, rejected and isolated by those who simply do not understand and sadly all too often do not want to understand the truth?

Have you become like that man who although he was born blind came to see with such clarity the truth about the Lord Jesus? Or are you still stumbling along thinking all is well and that you see so well that you know it all? That is what those Pharisees were like and they refused to come with faith to the Lord Jesus. Jesus warned them solemnly that their guilt remained on them!

Amen.