“He Was There All Along”

Lately, the headlines have felt heavy.  The skies and the land of the Middle East are caught in the flames of war. Bombed oil facilities burn, sending thick black smoke into the sky. The smoke mixes with the rain and falls back down as black rain.

War does not only take human lives. It wounds the land, the water, the air, and even the living creatures that depend on them. Human blindness and arrogance are wounding the very world God created. Cities built over generations can become ruins in a moment.

Those who start wars rarely think they are doing wrong. They say they are waging war to protect peace. But beneath those words there is often a struggle for power, national interests, national honour, and an unshakable confidence in one’s own ideology.

Yet in the process, the suffering of others simply disappears from sight. People losing their homes. Families forced onto the streets. People lying awake at night, terrified as bombs fall from the sky. And even far from the battlefield, people around the world carry a growing sense of anxiety and unease. The devastation war brings is beyond words.

The world we live in is interconnected. A war that begins in one region can affect the global economy, politics, and even the environment. So, we pray for peace, particularly that those who lead may see the suffering their decisions bring.

In today’s readings, we encounter three people. A man who had been blind from birth. Samuel, whose eyes were open but who had not yet learned to see what God sees. And perhaps, in this story, we also encounter ourselves. Are we truly seeing what needs to be seen? Or are we among those who look, and yet fail to see?

God sees

The story begins with a moment we might easily rush past. As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth.” He saw him. The disciples saw him too, but their first question was why. “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents?” They were looking for a cause. A category. But Jesus stopped. Not a symptom, not a case study. A person thoroughly.

This kind of ‘seeing’, we get the same thing in the story of Samuel. Samuel came to the house of Jesse to find the next king. Jesse brought his sons out one by one, tall, strong, impressive. Surely this one. But each time God said no. Seven sons. Seven times, no.

“Are all your sons here?” Jesse hesitated. “Well, the youngest is out in the fields, looking after the sheep.” Not even in the room. Not considered worth calling. “Go and get him. That’s the one.”

And then God said something that cuts to the heart of both stories: “People look at the outward appearance. But the Lord looks at the heart.” God sees differently. God sees the one nobody thought to call. Sometimes the ones overlooked by everyone else turn out to be the very ones God has chosen.

We didn’t see

Then something strange happens. The man is healed. He can see for the first time in his life. His neighbours’ response? “Is this the same man? Or is it someone like him?”

Think about that. This man had lived among them his whole life. They passed him every day at the gate, by the road. They may have dropped a coin in his hand, helped him find his way. And yet, when the label was gone, they couldn’t recognise him. Because that’s all they had ever seen. Not him. His blindness. That was his identity to them. Blind man at the gate. And when the label disappeared, they were left with a stranger.

We know this feeling. Sometimes when we see someone, what comes to mind first is not the person themselves, but the story we carry about them. First impressions, once formed, are hard to shift. Even when someone has changed, the person in our eyes can remain exactly as they were. The man hadn’t changed. Their sight had never really reached him.

 They thought they could see

Then come the Pharisees. The religious leaders, the people who had devoted their lives to understanding God to be the first to celebrate. A man who was blind can now see. Surely this is a moment for joy.

But instead, they were unsettled. And they interrogate him. Once. Then again. They call his parents in. Then a third time. They are not looking for truth. They are looking for a way to make this go away.

Why? Because the miracle happened on the Sabbath. In their framework, that meant it couldn’t be from God. The rule was more important than the miracle. The category was more important than the person.

And yet, the man who had spent his whole life voiceless, suddenly finds his voice. Each time they press him, he becomes bolder. “I told you already. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”

There’s almost a defiance in his words, even a touch of humour. This man who had nothing, no status, no power, is standing before the most powerful religious authorities of his day, and he is not backing down.

And at the end, Jesus says the most confronting thing in the whole passage: “Those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”

The Pharisees catch on immediately. “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not have sin.

But now that you say ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” In other words, the real danger is not blindness, but the certainty that we can already see.

We all resemble the Pharisees in some way. The stronger our certainty that we are right, the harder it becomes to accept that there might be something we are missing. Lent is a season that invites us to be still to look honestly at ourselves, and to ask the questions we might otherwise avoid. What am I seeing? And what am I choosing not to see?

Through this Lenten journey, we have met many people. Nicodemus, who came to Jesus in the dead of night. The Samaritan woman, who met Jesus at the well. And today, three kinds of people. The neighbours who couldn’t recognise the man they’d known all their life.

The Pharisees, who were certain they, could see and couldn’t. And the man himself overlooked, reduced to a label, sitting by the road. And yet, through all those years of sitting there, unseen and unrecognised, he was not alone.

The psalm says,“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” The shepherd was there. In the valley. All along.

And that is reason enough to rejoice. Not because everything is fine. Not because the darkness is gone. But because even in the darkness, the shepherd sees. The shepherd does not look away.

When Jesus truly saw this man, something happened. The mud. The water. And a voice that had been silent his whole life, finally speaking, “I am the one. I was blind. But now I see.”

That is our story too. We have been seen by Christ. Jesus sent the man to wash in the Pool of Siloam and he came back seeing. Siloam means ‘sent.’ That is who we are as a church. Washed. Eyes opened. Sent- to stop, to look, to say to the ones the world walks past- you are here. I see you. You matter.