Light and Judgment: A Meditation on John 9 for the 4th Sunday in Lent

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin,

this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents:

but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day:

the night cometh, when no man can work.

As long as I am in the world,

I am the light of the world.

 

In this story recounted by St. John of a man blind from birth whom Jesus healed, it is interesting to note that both Jesus’ disciples and the Pharisees noted later in the chapter, had the same wrong impression of this blind man:  that his deformity was a judgment of his own sin.  Jesus corrected His disciples and taught them their assumption was false, and rather that this man’s malady was allowed to persist so that God’s good works might be made manifest in him.  While it is true that God sometimes punishes specific sins of individual people by visiting particular temporal consequences upon them, and that sometimes He visits the sins of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Him (cf. Exodus 20, and the giving of the 10 Commandments to Moses at Mt. Sinai,) not all calamity in this world is directly related to any individual’s sins.  Sometimes it is a general consequence of man’s fall into sin that each of us inherits a broken a body destined to die sooner or later, and sometimes specific calamities are allowed to occur so that God might make Himself known by His grace poured out in the midst of them.  In every instance, God is not the author of evil, but He is the only Almighty, Omniscient, and Righteous Judge in the universe, so however He allows things to play out in this world, He does so with a Wisdom beyond the reach of mortal men.  And when He comes into the world to teach mankind His will by His Word, He manifests Himself as the Light of the World which quickens everyone who hears and believes in Him.

 

It is an interesting coincidence that both Jesus’ disciples and the Pharisees rushed to judgment of the blind man in their own thoughts.  Of course, Jesus’ disciples asked Him for guidance, and their ignorance was alleviated.  The Pharisees on the other hand, abused the now healed blind man, even to the point of excommunicating him from the religious community.  Rather than checking their rush to judgment in the presence of an authentic miracle and seeking the wisdom of God, the Pharisees pressed their false logic to conclude that this healed man was “entirely born in sins,” and therefore an unworthy vessel to teach the Pharisees anything of value.  Jesus received the man he had healed, called him to faith, and then declared it was for judgment He had come into the world—that those who thought they could see would be shown for their true blindness, and those who acknowledged their blindness in repentance and faith would receive new sight.  John recorded Jesus’ teaching about light and darkness more than any of the other Gospel writers, perhaps because he perceived by inspiration that this focus of Jesus’ teaching was such a powerful and enduring image of what God was really doing among men.  The world was and remains a dark place in many quarters, where people consumed in judgement against each other perpetuate countless atrocities and miscarriages of justice against one another, while God continues to bring the light and wisdom of His grace and mercy through His Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.

 

And while the darkened minds of unbelieving people wound and devour each other with irrational calls for false justice against their fellow men, it is the Light of God which always produces true and honest judgment.  In the Light of God’s Word we see what true good and evil really are, what the demands of the Law inescapably impose upon every living soul in the cosmos.  The Light of God speaks Truth into the convolution of darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it, anymore than a room full of darkness can resist the light of even one small candle burning bright.  Light is always more powerful than darkness, because darkness is simply the absence of Light; when Light appears, those who embrace darkness by definition must flee away, closing their minds lest they be illuminated by the Truth they have rejected.  God’s Word always brings with it both mercy and judgment, grace and condemnation, because His Word always calls for faith.  It is not our choice that the Word of God comes to us, nor that He calls us into His marvelous Light and eternal life through His Only Begotten Son, but it is our choice what we do with that Word once it comes to us.  If we confess our ignorance and evil before God in faith and repentance, He will illumine us by His Word and Spirit, making us alive in Him by grace through faith.  But if we reject His Word, cling to our evil and flee further away from Him into darkness, then the Light of God becomes a declaration against us that we preferred the negation of darkness rather than His life-giving Light.  God’s Word never comes back void of the purpose for which it is sent, as it will always bring either life or death, depending on how it is received.

 

While at first this may seem terrifying, it is in reality a tremendous relief to all who meditate more deeply on it.  We are not responsible for bringing the Word of God down from heaven, nor are we responsible for the conversion of the world, or even of our own soul.  It is God who works salvation for everyone who will believe in Him, and it is God who establishes His incontrovertible Means of Grace to deliver that salvation to all.  We are not accountable for how God sends His Word into the world, nor for the decisions of other people who either accept or reject it.  We, like all people, are beggars in the darkness, upon whom the Light of God’s Eternal Word has dawned, bringing with it the promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation to everyone who will repent and believe in Jesus.  If God is satisfied to allow us to either accept or reject Him, to freely love or despise Him, suspending the Final Judgment until the last possible moment of the world so that the greatest number of His foreknown saints might be ushered into His Kingdom, why should we be tormenting ourselves about such things?  It is God who saved us by His Word, and His Gospel that has transformed us into His people, which is the same Means of Grace that He sends to all people in every time and place.  Ours is not to judge the people of the world who suffer under the curse of darkness, but to reflect the Light of Christ to them so that they might be saved by that Word just as we have been.  The judgement of the Law will come in its own inexorable time, and that is not for men to conduct; but the Gospel of the Lord’s Vicarious Atonement for the sins of the world, of His victory over sin, death, hell, and the devil, is ours to proclaim to every soul we meet.

 

To be sure, there is no Gospel without the Law, and our duty is to receive and live in the whole counsel of God revealed in Holy Scripture.  And even as we proclaim Law and Gospel to the whole world so that all might come to faith and repentance before the Light of God’s Eternal Word, we remember that it is not the Law which saves us, but the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ poured out to us through His Cross.  We are not called to judge the world, but we are called to surrender ourselves to the Judgment of God, where our sentence is paid by the shed Blood of our Savior King, and where all who live forever, live by grace through faith in Him alone.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.