John 9:1-41 on February 15th, 2026
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
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We got a whole pew here that has to come up to the children's sermon next door. Grace Mercy and peace to you in the name of our Lord, our Savior Jesus the Christ, Amen. It was 480 years ago this week that the priest, the pastor, the professor, the church reformer, Martin Luther, lay dying. He had been invited to Islayben, the village of his birth, to settle a dispute between two noblemen over an inheritance. It shows you something about the integrity Luther had that he would be called to settle such a dispute. He was 62 years old and back in the 16th century making that trip in the wintertime from Wittenberg to Islayben must have been very difficult. He was not a well man at the start of the trip. He was not a well man when he came into Islayben. On February the 7th, he preached in the church of his baptism. He preached there again on February 14th. The sermon was short. People realized he was not well. Luther went to a home basically to bed to rest. He was in his dying days. A very good friend, Justice Jonas, a pastor came and sat at his side, heard his confession, spoke with him and recorded much of Luther's final hours, what he said, what he did, how he proclaimed Jesus as his savior and did not fear death. Now he committed his life to the care of God. And then in the early morning hours of February 18th, he slipped away. They found some of his writing from that week, what they consider his final words and what those words said, we are all beggars. This is most certainly true.
Jesus in our gospel lesson comes across a beggar, a man sitting in the dirt, wrapped in his cloak, unable to see from the time he was born. In the days of Jesus, such a melody would be questioned, why is this man born blind? What sin could he have had as an infant? What sin did his parents transfer over to him? And the disciples questioned Jesus about this. And you think, well, that's kind of hokey, except don't we do the same? Why am I sick? Why is God testing me? Why did I lose that pregnancy? What lesson does God want me to learn? Why am I being punished? We go through those same kinds of questions. So listen as Jesus says this, those misfortunes that we face are not God given, but God is with us. God is to be glorified. God can lift us from the depths so that his light may shine even in the darkest moment. That's what we've been doing from advent through Christmas, through epiphany, watching for God's light to sustain us in the darkest moments. For this blind man sitting there in the dirt, everything is darkness. So Jesus spits in the dust. He rubs his saliva and he makes a mud and he places it on the man's eyes and says, go and wash. And when the man follows those directions and the water washes away the mud, he sees.
The neighbors who saw this man as a beggar because after all there were no schools for the blind, no workshops to teach him a trade. He was totally dependent on the generosity and the mercy of others sitting there in the dirt. And once in a while somebody would go buy and give him something. And these neighbors now see this man walking about seeing and they start questioning who is this guy? Is this that person that impersonated a blind beggar? Was this just some con all those years? Is it really the man or is it somebody else what's going on here? And the man says, I am he, I am the blind man. How do you see? Because Jesus, this man named Jesus, made mud and put it on my eyes and told me to wash and now I say, I don't know. I did nothing except follow what he commanded me to do. Well the neighbors don't quite get it so they take him to the Pharisees. And the Pharisees look at the neighbors and probably like the neighbors. They look at this man and they can hardly see who he is. Because you know when we look at the people in the dirt, we don't really study them. Face them enough to get to know their stories, recognize them when they stand up among us. We keep them kind of a little distanced. So the Pharisees also want to know what it is, how this man came about getting his sight. And they question him. But the minute they learn what Jesus did, that he healed him on the Sabbath, forget the miracle. Because now we've moved to something else. He can't be of God. He's broken God's law. We know what it is to be of God. Do it the way we do it. And if you don't, you're evil.
Folks, we live at times where the same thing's happening. People have their understandings of God. They're so wanting to be righteous. That they don't give God any room. They've kind of boxed God in. And whether it's the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy or any of the other commandments, I like to think they're in our homes. I like to think they're written across our hearts. But not just as do's and don'ts that we used to fight to other people who's right and who's wrong. But as God's guiding focus to enlighten our ways to live in community with one another, the Pharisees were blind. Blind to God's spirit among them. Not dismissing the law, but expanding it to serve, to love, to include, to bring in and lift up, and make this world God's kingdom.