“Our Sin and God’s Grace Part 3: The Sin of Blindness” by the Rev. Dr. Don Wahlig, March 15, 2026, Year A / Lent 4 – Psalm 23 ¨ John 9:1-41
THEME: In Jesus Christ, God gives us spiritual insight to see with our heart the things that breaks Christ’s heart and to work for the things that make Christ rejoice.
Do you have a favorite Superhero?
When I was a kid, I was always fascinated by Superman. Like everybody else, I loved the fact that he was freakishly strong and could fly. But I was even more fascinated by his X-ray vision. I got to wondering this week how X-ray technology was discovered in the first place. I knew that the first Superman comics came out in the 1930s, so it had to be before that. But I was stunned to learn that X-rays were discovered back in 1895. Wilhelm Rontgen, a professor at the University of Wurzburg in Germany, was in his lab one day experimenting with cathode rays in a darkened room. He noticed something odd. A fluorescent screen across the room began to glow. Even when he covered the Cathode Ray tube with thick cardboard, it continued to glow. Clearly, some rays were not only escaping from the tube, but passing through other objects as well. He called these rays X-rays. For two straight days he experimented with other objects. He found that these X-rays, would pass through wood and paper, but not denser material like lead or bones. To document his discovery, Röntgen took a famous X-ray photograph of his wife's hand, clearly showing her finger bones and her wedding ring. When word of his discovery spread, it had a huge impact. In medicine, X-ray technology transformed the diagnosis of broken bones and kidney stones. It transformed the treatment of cancer, too.
It transformed the field of physics as well. For the first time, researchers could see and measure the internal structure of atoms and crystals. X-ray technology also captured the public imagination. It arrived at the height of the Victorian fascination with all things supernatural. The public quickly associated X-ray imaging as a way to see a spiritual world that existed just beyond ordinary human perception.
As I read this week’s story about Jesus giving sight to the man born blind, I saw that Jesus gave him the very same ability. The blind man was given not only physical sight, but spiritual insight. Through the eyes of faith, he came to see God’s providence in the person and power of Jesus. Ironically, when it comes to spiritual insight, everyone else in this story is blind. The others all have physical sight, but they remain spiritually sightless. They either cannot or will not confess the truth of what the formerly blind man experienced: that God himself, in the person of Jesus, intervened with grace and power to make him whole.
To be fair, the man himself is slow to understand the full significance of what has happened to him. In the reactions of his family, his friends, and the Pharisees, he sees the reflection of the magnitude of his own transformation. As he recognizes this, he also becomes increasingly aware of their willful refusal to confess that Jesus is the source of his sight. Through these interactions, his understanding of the person and power of Jesus grows. He first describes Jesus as merely a man who healed his eyesight. Then he calls Jesus a Prophet. Finally, face to face with Jesus, he recognizes that Jesus is much more than a prophet. He is the Lord to be worshiped. Jesus has given him the gift of spiritual insight. Like X-rays that enable us to see beyond what our eyes show us, he now sees not only with his eyes, but with his heart, as well.
Isn’t that how it is with all of us who walk this life of faith? Out of the abundance of God’s loving, providential grace, God interrupts and intervenes in our lives in utterly unexpected ways. He does it to draw us closer to him and others. Like the man born blind, we may be slow to realize the full extent of our transformation. But inevitably, we confront others who see it, but do not or will not recognize that it comes through Christ.
When we experience their resistance to see Christ as the source of our new life, we gain greater visual and spiritual clarity. Their opposition sharpens our vision. We see more clearly that it is Jesus – and Jesus alone – who makes us whole, and Jesus whom we are to worship and follow. This is the gift of spiritual insight. We learn to see others as Jesus sees us: with the eyes of our heart. As God says to Samuel as he searches for Israel’s next King among Jesse’s sons, “the Lord does not see as mortals see. They look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
Friends, that is how Jesus sees us. And that is how we learn to see the world. We learn that what breaks his heart, is what breaks our heart. What makes him rejoice, is what makes us rejoice. Few people have ever come to understand this transformation more clearly than John Newton. In just a few moments, we will sing the classic hymn, Amazing Grace. John Newton wrote the words that we will sing. They are not just any words. They are the story of how Jesus gave him spiritual insight to see with the eyes of his heart.
Some of you may know his story. Newton was born in London in 1725. His father was a ship captain. His mother was a devout Christian. His father was frequently away. In his absence, Newton grew into a rebellious and profane young man. Like his father, he became a ship captain. As is all too often the case when ambition overrides judgement, his desire to get rich outweighed his moral scruples. He decided to enter the lucrative slave trade. By his mid-20s, John Newton was regularly transporting slaves from West Africa to the horrific dock-side slave market in Charleston, South Carolina. If he ever had any ethical issues with this, he kept them to himself. But on one particular voyage, that began to change. Caught in a terrible storm off the coast of Ireland and fearing that all was lost, Newton called out to God in desperation – and God answered him, sparing him, his crew, and his ship.
That was the turning point in Newton’s life. He became a Christian. As his faith grew, Jesus gave him the gift of spiritual insight. When he began to see with the eyes of his heart as Jesus does, he eventually recognized the deep pain and abject misery caused by the slave trade. Convicted of his own sin, he left it behind, and pursued God’s call to ministry. On the eve of his 40th birthday, John Newton, former slave runner and profane profligate, was ordained an Anglican priest. Ain’t it funny how God works? Later in life, he described his conversion. He said “Although my memory is fading, I remember two things very clearly. I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great savior.” Finally, at the age of 63, Newton let the world know about the conversion that God worked in his heart, and the spiritual insight that Jesus gave him. He published a powerful pamphlet called “Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade.”
There he described – in detail – the horrific conditions of the slave ships he captained. Confessing and repenting of his sin, he said, “I hope it will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders." He sent copies of that pamphlet to every Member of Parliament. It quickly became a best-seller. Newton joined forces with William Wilberforce, and together they led the movement that eventually abolished the slave trade in England.
That was when he wrote these words:
Amazing grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now I'm found.
Was blind but now I see.
Like the apostle Paul, struck off his horse by the blinding light of Christ, John Newton was given a new life in Christ, and new vision to see as Christ sees, with the eyes of his heart. He saw clearly his own sin, sin that rendered him blind. With equal clarity, he saw the grace of God that enabled him to see as Jesus does. He saw what makes Christ weep, and what makes Christ rejoice. He followed Christ in trying to make this world more like the world to come.
Folks, we are in the heart of the season of Lent. This is the time for you and me to see and repent of our own sin, the sin that blinds us to the new life Christ wants for us and for all God’s children, especially those whom Jesus called the least and the lost. We don’t need X-ray technology to see it. We don’t need super powers to correct it. We do need to use the spiritual insight Christ gives us and to follow him where he leads us. The question is, will we?
May it be so.
