Morning services have been cancelled at Trinity and St. John’s due to the winter weather. Please take the opportunity to make this day a blessed “snow Sabbath.” Enjoy the attached message, spend some quiet time and prayer, and enjoy some “down time” with God and your families. Stay safe!
Sunday, March 15, 2026, Fourth Sunday in Lent
“Conversations with Jesus: The Man Born Blind”
Scripture Readings: Psalm 142; Isaiah 42:14-21; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41
Service Order: Divine Service IV with Holy Communion, Lutheran Service Book
Hymns: “Blessed Jesus, at Your Word” #904; “Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound” #744; “God, Whose Almighty Word” LW #317
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
I have a question about our Christian faith this morning. Is this faith we have objective, or subjective? To explain what I’m after here, if something is subjective, that means it’s a matter of opinion. Subjective things are a matter of how you might feel about something on any given day. Subjective things are debatable, things you can’t really prove. Objective things, on the other hand, are grounded in reality; the sky is blue, the grass is green, rain is wet. An objective thing has an object, a physical thing you can point to and say (knock, knock) “This is real.” If something is objectively true, there’s no room for debate in it; it is what it is.
The philosophers and so-called experts in this kind of thing put our Christian faith, and all faith, in the subjective category; you believe what you believe, and someone else believes something else, and none of us are wrong. Because it’s just religion, right? We Christians would disagree. Our faith does have an object, one as solid as solid can be. Let’s take a look at the story of the man born blind in St. John’s Gospel, and I’ll show you what I mean.
What is objectively true at the beginning of the Gospel story? The man is definitely, positively blind; blind from birth, born without sight, no doubt about it. The disciples and the Pharisees and all the Jews had the idea that every human infirmity, including blindness, was the result of some particular sin. We can hardly blame the blind man himself for his condition, since he was born that way, but maybe his parents committed some sin that put a curse on him. That of course, is subjective. The disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned to cause this thing?” And Jesus answers, “It’s not his fault or his parent’s fault; it’s just an opportunity for God to show forth His glory.” And then Jesus proceeds to do just that.
What Jesus does for the blind man is objectively real, as real as mud and spit and a brand-new pair of eyeballs. And that Jesus is able to restore the man’s sight points to the objective, inescapable reality of who Jesus is, and that He truly is who He claims to be - “The Light of the World.” The man was blind, now he can see, and Jesus did it; that’s an objective fact that can’t be explained away.
How do those who have known the blind man all their lives respond to his healing? It’s objectively real. They’ve known the man all their lives; he’s the same blind man that used to have to sit and beg. Some people, when they look at an objective reality - in this case, Jesus doing an impossible thing for this man - do their best to try to explain it away; “No, it can’t be him; it only looks like him.” Because if this is real, what does it mean? So what seems to be true just can’t be true.
Those experts and psychologists call this phenomenon “cognitive dissonance,” which they define as “the mental discomfort a person experiences when what they want to believe doesn’t align with reality.” So, as I’ve read on some t-shirts and bumper stickers, “I reject your reality and substitute it for one of my own.” Subjective reality, changeable reality (which isn’t really reality at all) gives us wiggle room to bend reality to avoid an uncomfortable truth we do not wish to face. If the blind man is truly no longer blind, and Jesus is the cause of his healing, what reality must I confront, what life-long assumptions must I abandon, and more importantly, what do I have to change?
So, lacking a plausible explanation, they bring the formerly blind man to the Pharisees, the experts, to get their opinion on what’s happened; maybe they have an explanation for it. So now the Pharisees are also confronted with the fact, right before their eyes, of what Jesus has done: a man not only blind, but born without his sight, can now see. How do you explain a thing like that away? And what would it mean for the Pharisees to accept the reality staring them in the face? There goes their entire worldview and theological system, and their power structure, right out the window.
How do they respond? They respond with a “cognitively dissonant” brand of doubt and skepticism. This man Jesus must be a sinner, because He healed this man (supposedly) on the Sabbath, which is contrary to God’s Law; and if He’s a sinner, then this whole thing must be some kind of fake. They interrogate the poor man, assuming he or somebody else must be lying. They ask him about the man who healed him, and all he can say is, “He must be a prophet.”
The Pharisees, the Jews, still won’t believe it. They’re unwilling to accept the objective reality of the miracle, no matter how obvious it may be, because it will upend their own dearly held version of reality. So they seek to undermine and disprove it instead. They summon the ex-blind man’s parents, to accuse them of being sinners and liars. They’ve already decided Jesus must be a fraud, all His miracles notwithstanding, and that what He says isn’t true, and what He’s doing isn’t real. And they’ve declared that anyone who claims otherwise will be put out of the synagogue, disenfranchised, cut off from Israel. The devil still uses this tactic to great effect in the world around us. It’s the devil’s oldest temptation: “Did God really say…”. The devil hates God’s truth and wants it to die, because liar that he is, the truth would be the end of him. If the truth can be made to seem subjective, or deniable, or subject to interpretation, can there be any such thing as truth at all?
The Pharisees call the formerly blind man in again. “Give glory to God” is a phrase they use to put him under oath. “We know this man Jesus is a sinner; what say you?” He answers, “All I know is what I know. I once was blind, but now I see” (the objective fact of the thing again). They continue to badger him, looking for the answer they want to hear. “What did He do to you? How did he do it?” The formerly blind man’s answer is a courageous and beautiful thing: "I told you once already and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?" He’s throwing the truth, undeniable, objective, and real, right back at them.
They answer him with insults, because what else do they have? “We’re the Pharisees, the experts in the law, and you’re nothing but a beggar; what do you know? And this man Jesus, He’s a beggar, too. He has no theological education; He hasn’t been to one of our schools; nobody even knows where He comes from!” The formerly blind man answers, "Now isn’t that remarkable? You don't know where He comes from, yet He opened my eyes.” (Objective truth!) “We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." Their response, again to what should be obvious truth, is to curse him as a sinner and expel him from their synagogue.
The formerly blind man accepts the reality of what has happened to him with joy, and why shouldn’t he? He’s been truly and objectively blessed, and he’s willing to testify to the truth of it. And shouldn’t you and I be as well, for all the ways God has opened our eyes and blessed and healed us?
The Pharisees respond to a reality they are unwilling to accept, the same way the world around us still responds to this day, with doubt and mocking and outright denial, and often even worse. Should we be surprised when we receive the same treatment when we bear witness to what Christ has done for us? A subjective God who allows us to bend the truth any way we wish is one thing; a God of objective truth that you can’t get around is another. Real truth won’t win you a popularity contest.
Jesus, when He hears that the Pharisees have thrown the ex-blind man out of their synagogue, goes to find him. The man hadn’t seen Jesus face-to-face yet; the last time he saw Jesus, he was still blind. Now Jesus takes him all the way, first giving him new eyes to see the world with, and now opening the eyes of his heart to see truth with his spirit. Jesus asks him, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" And the man relies, "Who is he, sir? Tell me so that I may believe in him." Jesus answers, "You have now seen Him; in fact, He is the one speaking with you." And the man confesses, "Lord, I believe," and bends down to worship Him. The formerly blind man has the evidence of his healing – his brand-new set of eyes – and now also the knowledge of who it is who has healed him.
So, is our Christian faith subjective or objective? Is it a wish or a dream or only a nebulous hope? Or is our faith as real as mud and spit, as real as a cross and nails, and as real as the nail-scarred hands the disciples touched on Easter Day? The evidence our faith is based upon is clear enough, if one takes the time to examine the historical record. We have the blessed eyewitnesses, those holy apostles, who saw everything Jesus did, and wrote down everything they’d heard and seen, and were willing to die for the truth they knew. We have a blessed truth passed down for generations, now come down to us through this holy Christian Church, despite what all the doubters and deniers and tyrants of the world have done to try to destroy it. The tyrants and God-haters all die one by one, and we’re still here, ringing our bells, worshiping together, real as real can be.
And what about our Sacraments? Was Jesus just talking in metaphors, when He promised that when we pour water on some precious head, that person would be filled with the Holy Spirit and faith? Or was He speaking objective truth, and giving us a real and genuine blessing? When we come to the Lord’s Table, is it just hyperbole about the body and blood of Christ, or is the substance of Jesus, by the Word Jesus gave us, truly and objectively there? The world might say one thing, but we say another, because we believe in the reality of who Jesus is, and we believe what He says to be true.
I’m so glad our Church still uses and confesses the ancient Creeds, because the Creeds take us back to the objective facts of our faith - to a real Son of God, who became a real man, and died a real death on a real cross, and was objectively, truly, beyond-a-doubt raised from the dead. All at a real and particular time, in a real place - in Jerusalem, in the land of Israel, back in 33 AD. Does our faith require such evidence? No, it doesn’t. If someone stood up today and claimed to have found the bones of Jesus, I’d know that the experts are mistaken, and God is still true. But it’s good to know the facts are there, for those who wish to find them.
Jesus says at the end of our Gospel (no doubt directed at the Pharisees): "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind." The Pharisees heard Him say this and complained, “What? Are we blind, too?” I guess that depends on what you mean by blind. If you refuse to see what’s objectively true, what’s right before your eyes, I guess that would make a person blind as blind can be. That’s willful blindness, refusing to see or accept what God has said is true.
All people, scripturally speaking, are born “deaf and blind and dead,” and it’s only by the grace of God – as with the formerly blind man – that we can hear and see and live. For those who have yet to see, they need our patience, our personal witness, our love, and our prayers. You and I, by the grace of God, know “the truth that sets us free,” and we’re so blessed to be alive to tell it. May the truth we have to tell fall upon receptive ears, to the glory of God and the praise of His name. In Jesus’ name; Amen.
Rev. Larry Sheppard
Trinity Lutheran Church, Packwaukee, WI
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Oxford, WI
pastorshepp@gmail.com