The Fourth Sunday in Lent - March 15, 2026
John 9:1–7, 13–17, 34–39
Messiah - Christ
χριστός- המשיח
Yesterday’s sermon employed what I like to call a “close read” of the Biblical text and included “markups” on the text to highlight how it is working! I made the claim at the beginning that each of us has to be willing to confess in our daily lives that Jesus is the Christ - the Messiah, the anointed one from God, who has come to save you and me. Lent means spring in the northern hempisphere and we are going to Easter, celebrating the new life that Jesus gives. Just as spring brings new life to the outside world north of the equator, so Jesus brings new life through his resurrection to all who believe and trust in Him!
We noted that Jesus is passing by, having just come from the temple in Jerusalem. He sees a blind man—here the direction is important and reflects our life situation, too. Jesus sees the blind man. It’s not the other way around. His disciples ask a reason-based question, “Who sinned? This man or his parents?” In other words, why is he enduring this terrible disability? He must have done something wrong! He must have sinned!
Expecting a reasonable answer from Jesus, we get a totally different take—a non sequitur. Jesus says that neither this man nor his parents sinned, “…but that the works of God might be displayed in him!” In other words the everyday things of this life have a much bigger purpose than we normally think. The goal of all that happens in this life is to help people see Jesus as the Messiah - Christ, the anointed one. John then goes on to use very powerful terms that remind us of God’s creating in the beginning of the Bible. In verse six Jesus uses five words that hearken to his creative power and the account given in Genesis 1 and 2: “light,” “spat,” “ground,” “mud,” and “saliva.” All this down-to-earth talk points us to the new creation that Jesus has brought into the old creation world that we live in. Remember how the Apostle Paul puts it: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2Co 5:17). Jesus then sends the man to the pool of Siloam, the pool of Sent, powerfully foreshadowing what comes in v. 13ff: he is sent to confess Jesus before the Pharisees. In v.38 we finally hear the man confess Jesus!
The account ends with the recognition that all that happens in this life works for the distinction between those who see and those who don’t, seeing Jesus as the Messiah-Christ, or not!