See and Believe - Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent (March 15, 2026)

Scripture Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1–13 | Psalm 23 | Ephesians 5:8–14 | ​John 9:1–41

“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.’” (John 9:39).
 
As part of my Lenten practice this year, I’ve given up looking at the news… at least until after lunchtime. I know it might not sound like much of a challenge, but it has been. It’s been hard not to look at the headlines each morning… wondering what new crisis or catastrophe is playing out in our world… feeling the strong urge to scroll past story after story, in a vain search for that small sense of control that’s supposed to comes from ‘being in the know’… and instead, to try and leave the world in God’s hands for a few hours. I know it’s not much, but for me it’s at least a small step forward in faith.  
 
These days, as we look around, we can see a lot of dark and scary scenes playing out before our eyes… in our wider world of course, as old and new wars and conflicts rage on… but maybe we also see troubles and sources of suffering a bit closer to home too. People around us, and maybe even some of us, are facing times of intense difficulty, despair, and isolation… searching for some relief, or even just a way to make sense of their experiences. 
 
Of course, in dark times it’s natural for us to ask difficult questions, and to search for answers… to focus on finding a way to make sense of our lives, and our all too often tragic world. 
 
And people have landed on a whole spectrum of responses… of ways to understand why things often seem so wrong: from believing that everything in life, including suffering, is just random, and there’s nothing we can do about it… to believing that everything in life, including our suffering, is destined to happen. That it’s all been specifically planned out or determined by God ahead of time, for some mysterious purpose. And because we know that God is good and just, when something bad does happens, then it must be someone’s fault, right? They must have done something wrong to deserve their rough circumstances… punishment for sins, known or unknown.
 
Sorting through these kinds of questions is sometimes called the ‘Problem of Evil’… an age old philosophical dilemma trying to make sense of how God can be good and all powerful, while evil still exists and persists in His world. These are the kinds of questions that aren’t just asked by those in ivory towers or university classrooms… but by all sorts of ordinary folks… by those found in hospital beds, or emergency shelters… in broken relationships… and in church pews… really anywhere that suffering can be seen.
 
And the Holy Scriptures are not blind to these questions, and to the issues that they raise… but they are also not bound to the types of answers that philosophers tend to offer either. 
 
And that’s because the Scriptures are not focused on answering philosophical problems, or even answering our questions, as pressing as they might be. They have their own important work to do: they are focused on helping us come to see the One who meets us in the midst of our darkened world, and who opens our eyes and our hearts and our minds to the light and the life of His saving love.
 
The Holy Scriptures point us to Jesus. They invite us to see ourselves and our stories… both the joys and the tragedies… all in the light of God’s good work through Him… bearing witness to what Jesus has done, and is doing despite the world’s darkness, to reveal God’s rescuing love.
 
Our Gospel reading today, John Chapter 9 in its entirety, is a powerful story that begins with the disciples’ close encounter with someone else’s suffering, and with their own attempt to make sense of it. They see a man who was born blind, and ask Jesus about the source of his suffering: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). Who caused all this? Whose sin earned this man a lifetime of being unable to see?
 
Like many of us, the disciples want to know how to account for what seems like a complete tragedy. They want to understand and grasp the reasons behind the misery and pain they see around them.
 
But as the story unfolds, what comes to light is less of an explanation for evil, and more of an invitation to see God at work… and to believe in the One He has sent to save us.
 
In response to their question, Jesus offers something surprising: not an answer, but a solution. John 9:3-7, “Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.”
 
Neither this man’s nor his parents’ sin… but so that God’s works might be revealed in him. In other words, ‘It’s not about who caused his suffering… but watch and see what God is going to do about it!’ And right there, Jesus brings God’s healing mercies to this man, opening his eyes for the first time after a lifetime of blindness. But far from being the end of the story, this miracle was just the beginning.
 
The rest of the Chapter follows what happens after, as both the man who can now see, and everyone else around him is forced to wrestle with what God has done in his life… either drawing closer to faith in Jesus, or becoming more and more entrenched in their rejection of Him. Were they witnessing a genuine miracle of God, which would serve to confirm Jesus as God’s faithful messenger and servant? Or was this all a trick? A clever deception that needed to be exposed for all to see?
 
As the story keeps moving forward, Jesus steps out of view, and the man who had been blind but who now can see takes centre stage, as first the crowds, and then the religious leaders of his community argue and debate… trying to make sense of how this amazingly good thing could have happened. And so, the healed man is essentially on trial, being pressed to explain his story to their satisfaction, and reject the One who had opened His eyes. But the more the man is pressured, the more he comes to see and believe the truth about Jesus, the One who had given him sight, no matter what others may do or say.
 
In contrast, the Pharisees find themselves unable… or at least unwilling to see God’s mercy and grace at work in this man’s miraculous healing. They were so committed to their own perspective, their own preconceptions about Jesus… about people like this man who had been born blind… about themselves as those who were supposed to be ‘in the know’… and about how the Living God was supposed to work in the world… that despite all the growing evidence, they choose to reject not just the miracle, and the healed man… but the One who had done this great work. The truth was right there, but they chose not to see and believe it.
 
After the man’s inquisition, comes the climax of the story: the man is kicked out of his community… ostracized and facing isolation and rejection for his commitment to the truth. But even though his story has taken on a new dark turn, Jesus sees him. Jesus seeks him out, and He invites the man to believe in Him even more… to come to see and believe not only in Christ’s power to heal his eyesight, but to know up close and personally the depths of God’s saving love. To look on the face of His merciful Saviour, who first saw him suffering and blind, and rather than walk by, or explain his pain away, reached out in love to set him free.
 
John Chapter 9 is a powerful narrative in its own right… but we know it’s a part of a much larger story, one that the man who had been born blind could not possibly have seen or even imagined at the time: the story of the Living God looking with compassion on our suffering world, and working to confront the evil at work in it… the dark forces working to tear His beloved creation apart… through the work of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was sent to save the world by suffering for it. 
 
This is the story of the cross: how Jesus doesn’t shy away from all of our tragedies and pain, but instead steps right into the deepest darkness of our world. At the cross, He endures the complete rejection of His people, of those He came to save. He faced all the questions and interrogations of those fully determined to defame and deny Him. And instead of desperately trying to prove Himself, or to avoid the agony of the grim fate they had planned for Him, Jesus entrusted His life into the hands of His loving Father… knowing full well He was laying down His life… choosing to suffer and to die to save us sinners… who time and again refuse to see and believe. 
 
But while many may still look at the cross, and see there only tragedy and defeat, we are invited to see there God’s greatest work to undo evil, once and for all. We are invited to see the cross of Jesus, and to believe both in God’s merciful love for us sinners… but also in the power of His love to rescue us from the hold of sin and death. We are invited to see the cross of Christ and believe in the rest of the story… in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which opens our eyes to God’s redeeming love still at work even now… able to transform even our world’s tragedies and saddest stories into signs of His New Life coming to light.
 
Because of Christ’s death and resurrection… because He chose to faithfully endure the cross, and enter the grave… and rise again… we can see the Living God hard at work… not busy blaming us for our sins, but hard at work setting us free from them! We can see He’s not eager to arraign and condemn us… He’s preoccupied with arranging our pardon and peace! Looking at us with eyes full of compassion and love… seeking out and saving the lost.
 
The cross points us, not to abstract answers, but to our Saviour… to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to our crucified and risen King… calling us to place our faith in Him, and in His holy work on our behalf. 
 
How will we respond to this calling? Will we draw near to our Saviour in faith… as He gradually opens our eyes more and more to the depths of His saving love, for us and our world? Or will we draw back… and seek instead to find our security and solace elsewhere… focusing our attention on finding the answers that fit with our own preconceptions, or searching for someone to blame…  shutting our eyes to the grace and the mercy of God revealed in the face of Jesus?

When we find ourselves facing days of darkness, and experience real tragedies that we struggle to understand or explain… may we look to the cross, and see there the work of our merciful Saviour, and trust in His love for us no matter how hard things may get. May we see the cross and believe that through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is always with us… that our great Shepherd will lead us both to green pastures and through all of life’s dark valleys… entrusting ourselves and our world into His healing hands, eager to join Him in the good works of His Kingdom… and knowing that even if we can’t yet see how all the suffering and darkness around us will come to an end, that God really is at work and one day He will bring about that day of joy that will last forever. Amen.