Here’s mud in your eyes
John 9:1-7,13-17,34-39 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" 3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world." 6 Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. 7 "Go," he told him, "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. … 13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. "He put mud on my eyes," the man replied, "and I washed, and now I see." 16 Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath." But others asked, "How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?" So they were divided. 17 Finally they turned again to the blind man, "What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened." The man replied, "He is a prophet." … 34 To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out. 35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" 36 "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him." 37 Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you." 38 Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."
The London newspapers were filled with the story of the unlucky 13-year-old boy. This particular 13-year-old boy was struck by lightning 13 times at 1:13pm or in military time 13:13. This eerily happened on … you guessed it … on Friday the 13th.
One editor after another commented on the incredibly unlucky teenager who had so many 13s in his life.
Now I'm not going to say that getting hit by lightning is a good thing. It isn't. On the other hand, when I heard about the story, I thought “they've got it all wrong.” This boy isn't unlucky, he's incredibly blessed. Think about it. The boy was taken to the hospital – alive – and there he was treated for a minor burn to his shoulder, only as a precaution.
Did you get that? One burn and it was minor.
Now I've never figured the odds on the survival rate of lightning strikes, and I don't know where I'd look to find it, but I have to believe that anybody who walks away from a direct hit by lightning has to get down on his knees to thank the Lord for His deliverance.
In all probability, that kind of reverse thinking ought to be applied to many situations. Did you ever get a flat tire? How did you react? It was probably one of two ways. Either you got angry because of your bad luck, or you thanked the Lord He stopped you from forging ahead and getting involved in a situation which could have been far worse.
Which of those two paths you take will depends on how you see the Lord. Is He benevolent or malevolent? Is He there to bless you or out to get you? Is He a healing God or a punishing God? Is this just bad luck or karma or does God have an ultimate plan in place? Those were the same questions that the disciples asked Jesus one day as they were walking through Jerusalem. They come upon a man born blind. They asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
The disciples were deciding which path to take. Why did this happen? Was it a freak of nature, an accident, a genetic slip? Did someone sin? His parents or the man did something wrong that God was punishing him, right?
Wrong! Jesus says. Knowing how much our Lord loves us, God cannot be the kind of Supreme Being who is vicious enough to get a thrill out of zapping 13-year-old boys with bolts of lightning. Nor is He the kind of God who punishes sin with a mysterious blindness. Neither is He the kind of Divinity who just lets things happen by luck or chance.
In God’s plan there are no coincidences and there is no karma. The man was not born blind because of somebody’s sin. Nor was the man lying in Jesus’ path by accident. Both happened so that the work of God might be displayed in the life of this man who was doubly blind: he could not see Jesus physically or spiritually. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”
God doesn’t explain why bad things happen. Not does He have to. We just trust that He has a good and gracious plan. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Jesus said that God was making an object lesson out of this blind man. Jesus then underscores the point. He spits on the ground, makes mud, and anoints the blind man’s eyes with the mud. He tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. Here’s mud in your eyes. Jesus does what only the Creator can do, create and recreate humanity with mud. Adam was made by the hand of God and now the Master Potter Himself takes a bit of mud and fixes the son of Adam’s broken eyes.
This is a good illustration of how God works – the opposite of the way the world works and with a different perspective from what we normally have. The man can’t see already, and Jesus seems to make things worse by putting mud in his eyes. Is that any way to treat a blind man on the street? He washes his face in the Siloam pool and comes back seeing for the first time in his life. Here’s mud in your eyes.
Jesus then comments, “I am the light of the world.” In the beginning of John’s Gospel, we are told that the darkness tried to overcome the light, but could not. We are given a picture of that truth here later in John’s Gospel. And it may seem as if the darkness is overcoming the light in your life – by forces from outside your home and the struggles of sin within your own body. Perhaps it is the darkness of doubt and worry creeping in to steal your faith. Or maybe the darkness of depression and sadness to rob you of your joy. Or the darkness of anger and resentment to deprive your life of contentment. Maybe it is the darkness caused by a wayward child, an unbelieving spouse or the breakup of your marriage. Maybe it is the darkness of old age, cancer, arthritis and Alzheimer’s as the shadow of death creeps closer.
But the darkness cannot win. For your triumphant Savior has taken you into His nail-pierced hands, and will lead you through the dark Lenten valley of this sinful world and into the eternal Easter of heaven. You may not know the “whys,” you may not know the hows,” but you know that just as God was preserving that 13-year-old boy for something, as He was preserving that blind man for something, so God is preserving you for something great and miraculous and marvelous.
When word reached the Pharisees of this miraculous, marvelous healing, there was a sharp division among them. Some immediately rejected Jesus because He healed on the Sabbath. Jews were commanded to not work on the Sabbath day, work like making bricks. Apparently, making mud from saliva and dust was work. Others realized the magnitude of the work Jesus had done. The Pharisees were the ones who knew better, but were blinded by their traditions, laws and refusal to believe in the Savior walking in their own city.
Our God is a God of opposites and different perspectives. The blind are given sight and see Jesus for the first time. Those who see cannot see the Savior standing in front of them. The sick are healed. The healthy have no need of a doctor. The dead are raised. Those who think they are living are really dead in sin and unbelief.
This is why we begin our Lutheran worship with a confession of sins where we confess that we are blind and dead sinners. That apart from Christ we have no good in us. We cry out for mercy and our Savior has mercy. He gives sight and life in the forgiveness of our sins. He raises us from death to life. Jesus shines His light into the dark recesses of our soul and the murky underbelly of our world.
Now that we have been brought into the light, Paul encourages us to “Live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8). The difference between darkness and light is dramatic. The difference between what we were and what we are now should be equally so. They are as different as the nursery and the morgue!
As God opens our eyes He changes our perspective. Now we see that the bad things that happen to us, the suffering we have to deal with, the persecution and problems that are thrust upon us, are not bad luck, not karma, not some kind of divine punishment. They are God’s will. God is teaching, leading, healing, through the tough times. He is putting mud in our eyes so we can see. Those who think they have everything, in reality have nothing. But when we suffer, we see that God gives relief. Those who think they are OK have no need of a Savior. But when our poverty of sin drops us to our knees in repentance, that is where we see Christ’s love and forgiveness – on our knees at the Communion Rail. When the flood of troubles threatens to overwhelm us, we see that it is Christ’s baptismal waters that wash over us, giving us refreshment and a new life.
God allows us to be blind, so He may give us spiritual sight. He humbles us, so He may exalt us. He slays, so He may give life. So rejoice when this happens to you.
Have you ever been to a Little League game or a grade school basketball game and seen a parent go ballistic? As they curse the refs and berate the coaches, you just want to go up to them and say, “Hey, calm down! It’s OK. It’s just a game!”
In love, God lets us struggle and suffer sometimes so that we don't become too emotionally attached to this world. He wants us to realize that we're only camping here, just passing through. His master plan is to patch us up and keep us moving along, but then ultimately to recreate an entirely new universe, and to remake us as well.
So calm down, it’s just life. The better life in eternity is coming.
Our eyes may be failing here, but God is preparing us for the sight of the glories of heaven. Our hearing may be getting worse, but God is preparing us for the triumphant sounds of the saints and angels. Our knees and backs may be causing us pain, but God is preparing us to stroll down the golden streets of New Jerusalem. Our bank accounts may be low and our debts may be high, but God is preparing us to sit at the banquet feast of Lamb.
The bottom line is this: God is more concerned with getting us ready for heaven than alleviating our suffering today. He doesn’t care nearly as much about our comfort as He does our holiness and dependence upon Him. Yes, God will cause everything to work together for good for those who love Him, just as Romans 8:28 promises. But that doesn’t mean everything will work out for the best in this life. Far from it. But that doesn't matter. God works on the scale of the world to come.
Did you know that the phrase, “Here’s mud in your eye” is probably based on this Gospel story of Jesus and the blind man? The phrase has been around a long time and is used as a toast. It means the same as “Cheers!” It is a method of conveying healing and well-being, like that beverage that’s about to go down. It’s a way of saying that things will look better tomorrow.
And isn’t that what the Christian life is all about? Isn’t that what we learned from the Jesus healing the blind man? Our eyes are opened and we are granted sight and given a new perspective. Today might be tough, difficult or even just plain OK. But we know that tomorrow will always be better. And the eternity of tomorrows to follow will be even better yet. For thanks to our Savior Jesus, our real life lies ahead in the future. “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4: 17-18).
So, here’s mud in your eyes. Amen.
The London newspapers were filled with the story of the unlucky 13-year-old boy. This particular 13-year-old boy was struck by lightning 13 times at 1:13pm or in military time 13:13. This eerily happened on … you guessed it … on Friday the 13th.
One editor after another commented on the incredibly unlucky teenager who had so many 13s in his life.
Now I'm not going to say that getting hit by lightning is a good thing. It isn't. On the other hand, when I heard about the story, I thought “they've got it all wrong.” This boy isn't unlucky, he's incredibly blessed. Think about it. The boy was taken to the hospital – alive – and there he was treated for a minor burn to his shoulder, only as a precaution.
Did you get that? One burn and it was minor.
Now I've never figured the odds on the survival rate of lightning strikes, and I don't know where I'd look to find it, but I have to believe that anybody who walks away from a direct hit by lightning has to get down on his knees to thank the Lord for His deliverance.
In all probability, that kind of reverse thinking ought to be applied to many situations. Did you ever get a flat tire? How did you react? It was probably one of two ways. Either you got angry because of your bad luck, or you thanked the Lord He stopped you from forging ahead and getting involved in a situation which could have been far worse.
Which of those two paths you take will depends on how you see the Lord. Is He benevolent or malevolent? Is He there to bless you or out to get you? Is He a healing God or a punishing God? Is this just bad luck or karma or does God have an ultimate plan in place? Those were the same questions that the disciples asked Jesus one day as they were walking through Jerusalem. They come upon a man born blind. They asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
The disciples were deciding which path to take. Why did this happen? Was it a freak of nature, an accident, a genetic slip? Did someone sin? His parents or the man did something wrong that God was punishing him, right?
Wrong! Jesus says. Knowing how much our Lord loves us, God cannot be the kind of Supreme Being who is vicious enough to get a thrill out of zapping 13-year-old boys with bolts of lightning. Nor is He the kind of God who punishes sin with a mysterious blindness. Neither is He the kind of Divinity who just lets things happen by luck or chance.
In God’s plan there are no coincidences and there is no karma. The man was not born blind because of somebody’s sin. Nor was the man lying in Jesus’ path by accident. Both happened so that the work of God might be displayed in the life of this man who was doubly blind: he could not see Jesus physically or spiritually. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”
God doesn’t explain why bad things happen. Not does He have to. We just trust that He has a good and gracious plan. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Jesus said that God was making an object lesson out of this blind man. Jesus then underscores the point. He spits on the ground, makes mud, and anoints the blind man’s eyes with the mud. He tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. Here’s mud in your eyes. Jesus does what only the Creator can do, create and recreate humanity with mud. Adam was made by the hand of God and now the Master Potter Himself takes a bit of mud and fixes the son of Adam’s broken eyes.
This is a good illustration of how God works – the opposite of the way the world works and with a different perspective from what we normally have. The man can’t see already, and Jesus seems to make things worse by putting mud in his eyes. Is that any way to treat a blind man on the street? He washes his face in the Siloam pool and comes back seeing for the first time in his life. Here’s mud in your eyes.
Jesus then comments, “I am the light of the world.” In the beginning of John’s Gospel, we are told that the darkness tried to overcome the light, but could not. We are given a picture of that truth here later in John’s Gospel. And it may seem as if the darkness is overcoming the light in your life – by forces from outside your home and the struggles of sin within your own body. Perhaps it is the darkness of doubt and worry creeping in to steal your faith. Or maybe the darkness of depression and sadness to rob you of your joy. Or the darkness of anger and resentment to deprive your life of contentment. Maybe it is the darkness caused by a wayward child, an unbelieving spouse or the breakup of your marriage. Maybe it is the darkness of old age, cancer, arthritis and Alzheimer’s as the shadow of death creeps closer.
But the darkness cannot win. For your triumphant Savior has taken you into His nail-pierced hands, and will lead you through the dark Lenten valley of this sinful world and into the eternal Easter of heaven. You may not know the “whys,” you may not know the hows,” but you know that just as God was preserving that 13-year-old boy for something, as He was preserving that blind man for something, so God is preserving you for something great and miraculous and marvelous.
When word reached the Pharisees of this miraculous, marvelous healing, there was a sharp division among them. Some immediately rejected Jesus because He healed on the Sabbath. Jews were commanded to not work on the Sabbath day, work like making bricks. Apparently, making mud from saliva and dust was work. Others realized the magnitude of the work Jesus had done. The Pharisees were the ones who knew better, but were blinded by their traditions, laws and refusal to believe in the Savior walking in their own city.
Our God is a God of opposites and different perspectives. The blind are given sight and see Jesus for the first time. Those who see cannot see the Savior standing in front of them. The sick are healed. The healthy have no need of a doctor. The dead are raised. Those who think they are living are really dead in sin and unbelief.
This is why we begin our Lutheran worship with a confession of sins where we confess that we are blind and dead sinners. That apart from Christ we have no good in us. We cry out for mercy and our Savior has mercy. He gives sight and life in the forgiveness of our sins. He raises us from death to life. Jesus shines His light into the dark recesses of our soul and the murky underbelly of our world.
Now that we have been brought into the light, Paul encourages us to “Live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8). The difference between darkness and light is dramatic. The difference between what we were and what we are now should be equally so. They are as different as the nursery and the morgue!
As God opens our eyes He changes our perspective. Now we see that the bad things that happen to us, the suffering we have to deal with, the persecution and problems that are thrust upon us, are not bad luck, not karma, not some kind of divine punishment. They are God’s will. God is teaching, leading, healing, through the tough times. He is putting mud in our eyes so we can see. Those who think they have everything, in reality have nothing. But when we suffer, we see that God gives relief. Those who think they are OK have no need of a Savior. But when our poverty of sin drops us to our knees in repentance, that is where we see Christ’s love and forgiveness – on our knees at the Communion Rail. When the flood of troubles threatens to overwhelm us, we see that it is Christ’s baptismal waters that wash over us, giving us refreshment and a new life.
God allows us to be blind, so He may give us spiritual sight. He humbles us, so He may exalt us. He slays, so He may give life. So rejoice when this happens to you.
Have you ever been to a Little League game or a grade school basketball game and seen a parent go ballistic? As they curse the refs and berate the coaches, you just want to go up to them and say, “Hey, calm down! It’s OK. It’s just a game!”
In love, God lets us struggle and suffer sometimes so that we don't become too emotionally attached to this world. He wants us to realize that we're only camping here, just passing through. His master plan is to patch us up and keep us moving along, but then ultimately to recreate an entirely new universe, and to remake us as well.
So calm down, it’s just life. The better life in eternity is coming.
Our eyes may be failing here, but God is preparing us for the sight of the glories of heaven. Our hearing may be getting worse, but God is preparing us for the triumphant sounds of the saints and angels. Our knees and backs may be causing us pain, but God is preparing us to stroll down the golden streets of New Jerusalem. Our bank accounts may be low and our debts may be high, but God is preparing us to sit at the banquet feast of Lamb.
The bottom line is this: God is more concerned with getting us ready for heaven than alleviating our suffering today. He doesn’t care nearly as much about our comfort as He does our holiness and dependence upon Him. Yes, God will cause everything to work together for good for those who love Him, just as Romans 8:28 promises. But that doesn’t mean everything will work out for the best in this life. Far from it. But that doesn't matter. God works on the scale of the world to come.
Did you know that the phrase, “Here’s mud in your eye” is probably based on this Gospel story of Jesus and the blind man? The phrase has been around a long time and is used as a toast. It means the same as “Cheers!” It is a method of conveying healing and well-being, like that beverage that’s about to go down. It’s a way of saying that things will look better tomorrow.
And isn’t that what the Christian life is all about? Isn’t that what we learned from the Jesus healing the blind man? Our eyes are opened and we are granted sight and given a new perspective. Today might be tough, difficult or even just plain OK. But we know that tomorrow will always be better. And the eternity of tomorrows to follow will be even better yet. For thanks to our Savior Jesus, our real life lies ahead in the future. “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4: 17-18).
So, here’s mud in your eyes. Amen.
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