St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday Sermon – Fourth Sunday in Lent – April 3, 2011
“Movement: Work of God!”
Text: John 9:3-5

Stop! Go! Start! Finish! Walk! Run! Hello! Good-bye! Off
to work! Off to school! Off you go on another trip!
Movement! It’s been said or it can be said, movement is a big
part of what life & living is all about.
In case you haven’t noticed, the society we live in has become a
very mobile society; meaning we see ourselves or our children or our
families or our neighbors moving around, moving out, moving away,
moving on, moving from, moving to, moving back, moving ahead, moving
up, moving forward.
On the other hand, even if some of us are not that mobile any
more, not that much into moving around or moving anywhere, still
there’s the kind of moving that has to do with movement in time, not
from here to there, but “before and after, then and now, years ago
and today, things going along and then suddenly.”
I think we all have those days, those moments, those times when we
say things like.
Once I saw the world like this; hopeless & unbearable; but now I
see it like this, blest & not so terrible.
Once I believed nothing could be done, nothing was going to
change; but now more than ever before I believe with God nothing is
impossible.
Once I was at a place in my life where I was blind to certain
things, didn’t see the glory of God shining around me, didn’t realize
how God was working to bring about a change for the better in me.
Now my eyes are open & now I see and I know!
When it comes to movement, personal improvement, before &
after, then & now, what a difference a good job, a good friend, a
good spouse, a good teacher, a good mentor can make opening our
eyes, increasing our vision, expanding our horizons, building our
confidence. Thank God for good jobs, good friends, good family, good
congregations, but most of all thank God for good insight. Thank God
for opening eyes; for giving us eyes to see things that we would be
blind to were it not for God’s Son Jesus, working in us that the
works of God might be displayed in us.
That’s what’s going on in the Gospel reading for this fourth Sun-
day in Lent. According to the apostle John’s carefully put together
account of the miracle of healing recorded in John 9, John describes
the before & after, the incredible, hard-to-believe movement from
darkness to light; from total blindness to fully restored sight, from
doubting to believing, for a man born blind.
Imagine and it’s hard for us who are so use to seeing the world
around us to imagine this, but imagine a man born blind, blind from

birth; no light in the man’s eyes, no colors to enjoy, no scenery
to appreciate, no hope of ever seeing, begging for a living but
not feeling sorry for himself, not suffering for the sins of his
parents, and not complaining about his blindness. Jesus sees the
man, approaches him, anoints the man’s eyes with a little mud, and
against all odds, the man is able to see.
Not that there is any kind of explanation or any particular
understanding of this miracle as reported by John that we need to
wrap our minds around, like how did it happen, why did it happen?
But value of this story is that it describes what happened. It’s a
story about the unthinkable, unimaginable, incredible movement &
improvement Jesus brings about in people who learn to know Him &
believe in Him.
We know for a fact life is full of unthinkable, unimaginable,
incredible things that happen all the time.
Unthinkable, unimaginable, that four college basketball teams whom
millions of people thought didn’t have a chance, didn’t have a prayer,
made it all the way to the Final Four.
Unthinkable, unimaginable, that not long ago the market price for
corn was bouncing back & forth for a while around an eye-opening
$6.00 a bushel, and as of yesterday was getting close to $7.
Unthinkable, unbelievable that Lake McConaughy out near Ogallala
just a few years ago was declared “almost empty” 30,40 feet below
normal but this year, this spring “Big Mac” is said to be full,
almost to over-flowing. Yes, there are reasons to explain it now,
but a few years ago, a full pool WAS pretty much unthinkable,
unimaginable. Few people thought they would live to see it in their
lifetime.
Is it unthinkable, unbelievable to see such movement & improvement
in the lives of Christians? Does what can happen to average
basketball teams, weak commodity prices, empty reservoirs, happen to
people too? I’m not thinking so much of “rags to riches” people-
stories or success stories of how “a lowly salesman becomes president
of a big company president”. I’m thinking of ordinary people, people
whose whose way of seeing things, whose appreciation for life and
worship and faith in God is constantly moving & improving; from
darkness to light, from nothing to something, from self-oriented to
other-oriented. New self! New life! New sight! Unthinkable!
Unimaginable! But it can and does happen!
As the story recorded by John in this Sunday’s Gospel reading gets
more & more interesting for John’s first century readers because John
tells how the story got more & more frustrating for the Jewish au-
thorities of Jesus’ day, John reports that a second time the leaders
of the local synagogue called the man who had been blind from birth
to come before them and they said to him, “Give glory to God. We
know that this man Jesus whom you speak of, whom you say healed you,

this Jesus is a sinner. He supposedly healed you on the Sabbath.”
The man answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I
do know, that though I was blind, now I see!”
And lest you or I think that that God working changes in people’s
lives results in people going off and living happily ever after;
that’s certainly not what I see happening here. With his sight fully
restored, the man born blind had a rougher road to walk than before.
For one thing, the man was not recognized by some of his neighbors.
Even sadder, His healing, his seeing, was not celebrated by his
neighbors. He was disowned by his own family who for reasons of
not wanting to go against the leaders of the synagogue kept their
distance. And in the end the man was excommunicated, kicked out of
his synagogue by the Pharisees of whom Jesus said though they could
see they were blind.
In the end, in the final scene of this amazing “unthinkable, un-
imaginable” story of movement & improvement & harassment, John reports
Jesus heard that the Jews had cast the man out, and having found him
alone & no doubt discouraged, Jesus said, “Do you believe in the Son
of Man?”
The man answered “And who is he, sir that I may believe in him?”
Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking
to you.”
Jesus identified Himself, gave the man the spiritual
insight to see Him as the Son of God, Son of Man.
The man said, “Lord, I believe” and he worshiped Jesus.
A thousand to one odds, ten thousand to one odds, that the man
born blind from birth was ever going see and it happened. The man
born blind didn’t beat the odds! Jesus worked the work of God.
That’s the point of this whole, long, unthinkable, unimaginable
story. Light comes to those who recognize that life is blindness
without Christ; darkness comes to those who without Christ claim to see.
What I said at the outset of this message I’ll say again, movement
& improvement in us for the glory of God & for the good of others
around is not up to us. Before & after, then & now, years ago and
today, is not up to us but is the work of God who in Jesus Christ
works while it is day, works day by day, works the unthinkable,
the unimaginable, works to make us His workmanship, new people, new
creation, new life, through Jesus’ Word & Sacraments.
In his book of daily devotions, “My Utmost for His Highest” Oswald
Chambers writes, “If the Spirit of God detects anything in you that
is wrong, the Spirit does not ask you to put it right; He welcomes you;

leads you to accept the light, and He will put it right.”

When what is wrong; what is dark; what is guilt, what is sinful,
what is flesh against Spirit is gone, it may seem unthinkable but it
is the most real thing imaginable.” (March 23 – p. 83)
“God will see that you have any number of opportunities to prove
to yourself the marvel of His grace.

An example Oswald Chambers gives is, you say to yourself, “You
know, if this had happened before, there would have been a spirit of
resentment in me, but now there isn’t!” In other words, before Jesus
worked God’s work of light & peace & forgiveness & freedom from the
past in you, you would have been seeing red, jumping to conclusions,
flesh struggling against Spirit, but now, “with Christ, in Christ,
through Christ, Christ’s Spirit leads you too to say, “I’m not for
sure, how it happened or when it happened; but this I know, though
I was blind, through I was in the dark, though I wasn’t seeing what
Jesus wanted me to see, now I see, now I know.
Unthinkable? Unimaginable? Unbelievable? Maybe so! But then
again, when it comes to the before & after of being a child of God;
when it comes to having our eyes opened by Jesus Himself; when it
comes to gaining spiritual insight through the working of God’s
Spirit; when it comes to demonstrating goodness, kindness, patience,
gentleness & self-control, I can assure you of this, “You will never
cease to be the most amazed person on earth at what God has done & is
doing for you on the inside.” (Ibid, p.83)
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound;
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found.
Was blind but now I see