4th Sunday of Lent, March 15, 2026
The Blind leading the Blind
The Rev. Rod Sprange, St. Andrew’s Woodhaven
I speak to you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen
This week, as I was thinking about the irony in today’s Gospel reading of the man born blind, I remembered a story about my blind uncle Ted. Uncle Ted had been blind since birth but had adapted to being sightless in a visual world. In the 1950’s we Londoners often suffered from terrible fogs and smogs. It could be so dense at times you could only see a few feet around and in front of you. One evening, Blind Uncle Ted was taking the bus home. The smog became so dense, that the driver announced he was going to have to stop because he couldn’t even see the curb, and wasn’t even sure where he was. Uncle Ted, with his white cane, got up and said, “I’ll walk in front of the bus, and lead you back to the depot, I know the way”. So there was blind Uncle Ted, walking in front of a red double Decker, leading the bus full of passengers on its route and back to the depot. Literally the blind leading the blind. And that’s really what today’s Gospel story is all about.
To fully appreciate this episode in Jesus’s earthly ministry we need to consider what has already happened in John’s version of the Gospel and what John’s ultimate goal is in writing it (good old context). One of the first of Jesus’s public actions, that John tells us about, is when Jesus went into the temple in Jerusalem, the heart of Jewish worship and sense of nationhood. Jesus literally turned everything upside down in the temple. Disrupting worship for the rest of the day. This action did not go down well with the priests or pharisees who wanted to know just who did he think he was? Great question.
By the time of today’s episode Jesus had won every argument the Pharisees tested him with. He had also gathered a large following and some people were starting to refer to him as the Messiah. For the chief priests and the Pharisees this seemed a very dangerous moment. They were fearful that Jesus would turn people away from their traditional teaching and leadership, and they were afraid he might provoke an uprising which would bring down the wrath of the Roman Empire. They saw Jesus as a threat to their authority, prestige, privilege and the fragile relationship they maintained with the Roman occupiers. They had already tried to arrest Jesus but had so far failed largely for fear of the people.
In answer to the question, who is this Jesus? John writes about a series of signs Jesus did that John hopes will lead us to come to believe that Jesus is truly the Son of God, and that in the resurrection God is bringing about a new creation.
With this background let’s revisit the story. Jesus and the disciples passed by a young man who earned his living by begging as he had been born blind. The disciples asked Jesus who had sinned, this man or his parents, for him to be born blind. Obviously, they thought, the blindness was the result of sin, but whose? Was it possible for someone to sin while still in the womb? It was a common belief among the Jews at the time, that if someone had a disease or suffered misfortune it was judgement for some sin they must have committed. In this case Jesus categorically says, “no one sinned, neither the man nor his parents”. However, he said that God will now use the man’s blindness to show HIs glory and reveal important truths. The truth that Jesus was the light of the world and was bringing the light of truth about God to the world. God makes use of our human brokenness, but often we don’t recognize that. We also often fail to recognize that sometimes it is in or through our brokenness where our greatest gifts lie. More about that later.
After saying no one sinned, Jesus demonstrated just what he meant, following a teaching with a concrete example. As was his pattern. He made mud from the ground by mixing it with some of his own saliva and spread it on the man’s eyes. He told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam which John wants us to know means ‘sent’. This is more than just the healing of one man’s blindness, it’s about giving the man a new purpose, he would become a witness for Christ. The young blind man went and did as Jesus had directed, when he came back he could see. He had been given the gift of physical sight. But that’s not the biggest gift he would receive that day.
When he had gotten back, a debate started among the neighbours, is this really the man that was blind from birth. They couldn’t be sure. Some said yes, some said no, he was just someone who looked like him. It seems there had been a change in the man - Jesus’s healing touch had changed him. It can change us too. But, the young man became frustrated with the argument and kept insisting “but look, It is me!” The neighbours asked him how it was that he could now see. Obviously many were still doubting. He told them how the man named Jesus had made mud, put it on his eyes and told him to go to Siloam and wash. After he had done that he could see. The people then wanted to know where to find Jesus. The man said he didn’t know. The answer to that question,’where can we find the man called Jesus?”, is what John’s whole Gospel is about.
The crowd wanted answers so they took the man to the pharisees, the ones who should know. The Pharisees quickly ignored the miracle and argued about whether or not Jesus was from God. They were stuck on a point of law. Jesus had performed the healing on the sabbath. Some argued that because he had broken the law of Moses by working on the sabbath, he must be a sinner. Others said, a sinner couldn’t heal someone who was born blind. They couldn’t agree so they asked the man, what he had to say about it. He answered that Jesus must be a prophet.
Eventually the consensus among the Pharisees was that the man couldn’t have been blind so they sent for his parents to testify. They interrogated the parents demanding to know, “Is this your son who you say was born blind, so how can he now see?” The parents were wary of the Pharisees, because they had already declared that anyone proclaiming Jesus to be the Messiah should be excommunicated from the synagogue. As the synagogue was at the centre of community life this would be devastating. So the parents were very careful how they answered the Pharisees questions.
The parents confirmed he was indeed their son and had been born blind, but as for how he could now see and who healed him, they just didn’t know. They told the pharisees to ask their son himself, he was old enough to speak on his own behalf. Their fear led them to abandon their son to the pharisees interrogation.
The pharisees called the man to testify again. A theological argument between the pharisees and the man unfolded. The Pharisees based their opinion on the assumption that healing on the sabbath was a sin, therefore the man Jesus couldn’t be from God. The man said he couldn’t judge whether or not Jesus was a sinner all he knew was that previously he was blind and now he could see. It was pretty simple. The pharisees asked the man to explain again how Jesus had given him his sight. The man was getting impatient with all the repeated questioning and in exasperation he asked them why they wanted to hear the story again, was it because they also wanted to become his disciples. The Pharisees thought he was saying he was now a disciple of Jesus. They said they were disciples of Moses but didn’t know where the man Jesus came from.
This is where the uneducated, illiterate young man clearly saw the truth, while the Pharisees were blinded by their stubborn rejection of Jesus and his signs. The man told these so called experts in the law of Moses, that he was astonished that they didn’t know who sent Jesus when he had healed the man’s blindness. He gave them a short theological lesson and concluded with the statement that “if this man were not from God he could do nothing”. The pharisees were furious with him and declared the young man was born entirely in sin and he had no right to be trying to teach them. At this they excommunicated him and threw him out of the synagogue.
The pharisees beliefs were entirely grounded in tradition. They were letting their fear and reliance solely on traditional interpretation of the law to blind them to the truth that was in front of their eyes. While they had physical sight they had become spiritually blind. At the same time, the persecution and the questioning, had led the young man to think deeply about what he had experienced and what it must mean. He had been given, not only physical sight, but spiritual insight too.
Jesus heard about the young man being thrown out of the synagogue and sought him out. Jesus asked him if he believed in the one who healed him. The man didn’t know he was talking to this person, because he was blind when Jesus put the mud on his eyes. He just knew Jesus by name, not by sight. He asked Jesus who the healer was. Jesus then revealed that he was the one and the young man said “Lord, I believe” and he worshipped Jesus. Here, believe means more than just believing Jesus is from God, it means the young man had put his whole trust in Jesus. And that’s what it means when we say the Creed together, “I believe in God…”. It means we are declaring that we put our whole trust in God and in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. The young man had graduated from being completely blind to being given back his physical sight and the gift of spiritual sight.
We need to recognize the danger that the Pharisees demonstrate, when we devise a rigid understanding of scripture and in particular the Gospel. Anglicanism has a model to follow, it’s known as the three legged stool. Put simply, It says there are three things we need to keep in balance: scripture, tradition and reason. The basis of our faith is scripture. But we are guided by tradition, that is how, scripture has traditionally been interpreted in the life of the church; but we have also been given reason and as we gain new knowledge, e.g. scientific we can use our intellectual ability to interpret scripture responsibly, evaluate tradition and help to understand the implications of new contexts.
The Pharisees were stuck in their traditional ways of interpreting scripture. The example in this story is that the Pharisees believed that the 4th commandment, “Remember the sabbath day and keep it Holy…you shall not do any work”, meant there should be absolutely no work done, not even healing a man’s blindness”. They couldn’t see that the miracle in front of them was establishing a new context and needed a new interpretation. It is a good lesson for us. Might we be blind to what God is doing in front of our own eyes and resisting what it means?
I think this story opens up other questions for us to consider this Lent.
- Where might my blind adherence to tradition get in the way of my being changed and reenergized in today’s world?
- Where am I blind to what another, perhaps unlikely person, can teach me?
- Am I missing seeing how God is using my brokenness, to equip me with gifts to use in furthering Christ’s mission?
I said earlier that it is in our brokenness that some of our greatest gifts lie. The reality is we often don’t recognize what we have been given. At other times, false modesty keeps us from acknowledging our gifts. We miss the opportunity to experience the sense of fulfilment that comes when we use those gifts to make a difference. The young man in John’s account gained his physical sight but also developed the gift of spiritual insight which allowed him to be sent to witness Christ.
How might we open our eyes spiritually to discern the special gifts God has entrusted to us and how God may be calling us to use them? Well, good news, next fall we are planning to offer a six week series where we will be able to spend time in discerning our own special gifts and assist in affirming the special gifts of others. The plan is to hold these sessions in the hall after coffee on Sundays beginning Sunday October 4th. We will share more about this over the summer.
Let us pray: Loving and gracious God, you sent Jesus to open the eye’s of the blind, give us sight where we are blind, and open our hearts to your call to serve Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.
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