Vision Test
Commentary
Samuel was clearly impressed by what he saw. But the question is, what could he actually see?
When Samuel arrives at the home of Jesse of Bethlehem to find the next king of Israel, the narrator reports that Samuel “looked on Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD's anointed is now before the LORD.’” Eliab must have really been something to look at. But then, it seems, so was the forbidden fruit (see Genesis 3:6) and the glorious sight with which the devil tempted Jesus (see Matthew 4:8).
And so, the Lord had to correct his prophet. "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature,” the Lord said to Samuel, “because I have rejected him.” “Rejected sounds strong and negative to us, and we aren’t given any explanation for what Eliab’s shortcomings were. But it does remind one of the old truism that “looks can be deceiving.”
But then the Lord added another layer to Samuel’s understanding. And, interestingly, it was not further insight into Eliab, but rather insight into Samuel — and, by extension, the rest of us. God explained to his prophet, “The LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart."
Mortals look on the outward appearance. Who can deny that? When my wife and I are trying to figure out if I know the person she had a conversation with at church, she says things like, “She was wearing a red top.” “He was balding.” “She was tallish.” “He was heavy-set.” And so on. We haven’t yet tried to identify a person to one another by saying, “He’s the one with the really good heart!” That may, indeed, be the most significant characteristic of certain people, but it is not what we see first.
In the 1957 movie Desk Set the Spencer Tracy character presents the Katherine Hepburn character with a brief quiz, and he begins with this observation: "Uh, often when we meet people for the first time, some physical characteristic strikes us.” Then he asks, “What is the first thing you notice in a person?" And she replies, “Whether the person is male or female.”1
Both characters make the point. “Mortals...look on the outward appearance.” Indeed, we do.
Now that’s natural enough, I suppose. But it is different from God, and we need to remember that. He sees things that we do not. And what he sees is of much more significance than our height, weight, and blemishes.
1 Samuel 16:1-13
I love the Bible. I would say that I love the whole Bible. But I am human, of course, and as such my loves are not uniform. So, I will concede that I love some books of the Bible better than others, and I find few books as compelling and fascinating to read as the books of Samuel.
We don’t know, of course, the names of all the authors and editors who contributed to our present canon. I am struck again and again, however, by the wise and effortless storytelling technique of so many of the Old Testament authors. They paint scenes that are pregnant with insight, yet they trust the reader or hearer to discover it all for himself or herself. The author does not beat us over the head with takeaways, commentaries, or conclusions. He simply tells the story, and leaves us to be challenged, fascinated, and edified by it. And that is certainly the case with this crucial passage from 1 Samuel.
The passage begins in a startling way. "How long will you grieve over Saul?” the Lord asks Samuel, for “I have rejected him from being king over Israel.” No room for sentimental indecisiveness here. The Lord has moved on from Saul, and Samuel needs to, as well.
The tone and content remind me of Jesus’ matter-of-fact instructions to his disciples with respect to the cities that reject them and their message. “Any place that does not receive you or listen to you,” he said, “as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them” (Mark 6:11 NASB). I am prompted to wonder what counterparts there may be in my life. What do I cling to that the Lord has insisted I leave behind? What does he want me to move on from, for he is moving on from it?
And so, the Lord instructs Samuel to set off for the home of Jesse of Bethlehem, where he will anoint the next king of Israel, the man who will succeed Saul. This, too, is a fascinating detail, for it shows us where the real power and authority reside in ancient Israel. We think of kings as sovereigns but see that it’s the prophet who is actually the king-maker. Furthermore, the prophet’s anointing at God’s direction serves as a kind of emblem of divine ordination. It turns out that the next king is, at this time, only a boy. And we discover as we read that a lot of years and events will pass before he takes the throne. Yet still we sense that it is a settled matter from this moment on. God has ordained it. It is, like his promises, certain and sure.
Samuel’s response to the Lord’s assignment is also fascinating. "How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” We are surprised by Samuel’s fear, for we have seen him go toe-to-toe with King Saul. We have seen Samuel condemn Saul to his face. We have observed the prophet seem bold and fearless in his dealings with the king, yet here he is reluctant to obey God, frightened by the king’s possible reaction.
Interestingly, no reassurance comes from God. We do not hear him say, “Oh, don’t worry about that, Samuel, for Saul won’t know,” or “he won’t try to kill you,” or “I’ll protect you.” No, none of that. Samuel’s fear seems to go un-responded to. The Lord simply continues to give detailed instructions.
The power of the prophet in ancient Israel, meanwhile, is further evidenced by the response of the Bethlehem elders. So far as we know, Samuel is an old man who has come alone. He is not a young man in the prime of his strength and ambition, riding ominously toward the city with a detachment of soldiers in tow. No, he’s an old man who comes alone, yet the elders worry, "Do you come peaceably?”
Then comes the parade of sons. Evidently Jesse had eight sons, and seven of them were on hand to present to the prophet Samuel. And if it had been up to the prophet Samuel only, it seems that Eliab of Bethlehem would have been anointed as the second king of Israel.
Samuel was favorably impressed by what he saw. But what he could see, of course, was only superficial, and so the Lord had to correct his prophet. We’ll give more consideration of this part of the story as part of our treatment of the larger collection of passages for this week.
Eventually, it seems, Jesse has run out of sons, and the Lord has not given Samuel the green light to anoint any of them. Are there any more sons? Oh, yes, there is the youngest, but he has been relegated to tending the sheep. He was not even invited to this occasion with the prophet. We’ll give some more thought to that theme below.
And so, the whole event is put on pause while they fetch the overlooked son. He is brought before Samuel, and now the Lord indicates, “This is the one.” And Samuel completes his errand: he anoints David son of Jesse of Bethlehem to be king of Israel.
Finally, the writer concludes the passage with the skill of a great storyteller. Samuel exits stage left, while we are clued into the fact that the narrative is about David now. “The spirit of the LORD,” we read, “came mightily upon David from that day forward.” The Lord has clearly moved on to David, and beginning with this episode the story does, too.
Ephesians 5:8-14
Our epistle reading is brief, and it is readily apparent what theme dominates the passage. Paul is expressing certain truths to the Ephesian Christians in terms of “light” and “dark.” And our endeavor here is to capture those truths that Paul shares in rapid succession.
Because the imagery is so dualistic, we might do well to get out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. With two columns before you, label the one “light” and the other “darkness.” And then jot down in the appropriate column what you learn from Paul about each.
The first thing to be noted — and a most extraordinary thing it is! — is that “you” have moved from one column to the other. As we work our way through the passage, we will begin to sense how remarkable that is. For things seem to be innately “of darkness” or “of the light.” We don’t sense much capacity for fluidity between the two realms. Yet Paul’s starting place is the assertion that “once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.” Only when we recognize (as Paul reasons elsewhere) that light has no fellowship with darkness (2 Corinthians 6:14) will we see how dramatic this claim of our salvation is.
The next thing to be noted is the association of the Lord with the light. We should recognize that as thematic throughout all of Scripture, from beginning to end. Light is the first recorded word and act of God in Scripture (Genesis 1:3), and in the new Jerusalem we read that the Lord himself will be its light (Revelation 21:23). In the same spirit, John writes, “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5 NASB). And one senses in several of Jesus’ judgment teachings that to be in darkness is to be cut off from God (e.g., Matthew 25:30).
Next, we discover that we have a choice — indeed, an obligation — to “live as children of light.” There is a jersey to don each day. There is a side to be on. And inasmuch as we know which side is God’s side, we are urged to live accordingly. Paul says that “the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true,” and therein we find our standard, our guidelines.
The exhortation to “try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord” is a sermon all its own. Our default setting, of course, is to live with an eye on what is pleasing to us. From a young age, we cry and whine and fuss in pursuit of what is pleasing to us, and that instinct remains a part of our fallen nature. Then, as we grow up, we become more aware of what is pleasing to other people. And, for better and for worse, we make constant calculations about trying to please at least some of those that are around us. But are we so expert in knowing and doing what is pleasing to the Lord? That is where we will find our peace, our purpose, and our liberty. And Paul urges us to “try to find out what is pleasing to (him).”
Two verses earlier, Paul spoke of “the fruit of the light.” Now he turns to “the unfruitful works of darkness.” He does not enumerate them, but perhaps they are self-evident to anyone of whom it can be said, “Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.”
Interestingly, Paul extends the metaphor of light and darkness a bit further now. He calls upon the person who is light to “expose” the works of darkness. He alludes to the shameful things people do in secrecy and notes how light exposes things. It is reminiscent of Jesus’ somber declaration: “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19 NASB).
Finally, Paul concludes the passage with a dramatic exhortation: "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
It’s a fascinating series of statements. The interchanging of sleep and death is familiar from other places in Scripture. What is striking in this case, however, is that both states are treated as voluntary. The responsibility is on the individual to awake from sleep and to rise from the dead. Clearly, then, this is a different sort of death. It is, if you will, a self-imposed death. Thus, we are called to rise and leave that death behind. And when we emerge from our darkness, then we will find Christ’s light shining on us.
As an aside, this implied ordo salutis may trouble some of the more theologically sensitive people in your pews. After all, doesn’t Christ’s light shine on us first? Isn’t he the one who awakens us from our sleep? Isn’t he the one who enables us to rise from the dead?
In answer, I am reminded of Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. It is not the only way, of course, that Jesus illustrates our moving from lost to found, but it is one of the ways. And in that cherished parable, the son does have to make the move toward home. When he does, as we know well, the father runs to meet him, and grace takes over. But the point is that at least part of our salvation is the move we make toward God, and that in turn puts us in the position where “Christ will shine on you.”
John 9:1-41
The lectionary does us no favor by assigning us such a long Gospel lection. It is impossible to do justice to this entire passage in a single sermon, let alone marrying it to other passages, as well. And we are left to select just a few pearls from the marvelous story of this healing, while necessarily leaving many treasures buried there.
First, I am struck by Jesus’ quick dismissal of a prevailing misunderstanding of his day. The disciples’ initial question represented some of the conventional wisdom of the time: namely, that a malady or handicap was because of some sin. And, in this case, the disciples just assumed that sin was the underlying cause of the blindness, but wondered only whose sin it was.
That Jesus corrected the misunderstanding suggests to me that he was not a prisoner of his time. He was not limited in his thinking and understanding in the way that his contemporaries were. Therefore, when he does not correct in other places what we would also consider antiquated understandings — for example, attributing some conditions to demons — suggests his endorsement of those diagnoses.
I take Jesus, then, to be the reliable arbiter between generations. We have, as one writer puts it, a “modern chauvinism” that presumes we know better than every previous generation. Jesus knew better than his generation. But perhaps he also knew better than ours.
Second, I am struck by Jesus’ qualifying statement: “as long as I am in the world.” We are familiar with his declaration — “I am the light of the world” — from earlier in the Gospel (John 8:12). But here that claim is modified in a significant way. It is specifically for as long as he is in the world that he is the light of the world. But we recognize from the larger contour of John’s Gospel that Jesus is not always “in the world.” Rather, he came into the world, and then he later returned to his Father. This, it seems to me, makes more significant his statement to his disciples elsewhere that “you are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14).
Third, I am struck by the difference between this blind man’s experience and that of others, like Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52). The more typical experience, it seems to me, is that Jesus heals people on the spot. In a few instances like this one, however, the healing occurs away from Jesus. And in the specific case of a person who is blind, that makes an enormous difference, for it begs the question of whether the individual saw Jesus or not. In other words, when Bartimaeus was healed, we might presume that the very first thing he saw would have been Jesus’ face. This blind man who is healed in John 9, by contrast, is some distance from Jesus by the time he can see, and so he would not have known what Jesus looked like until Jesus comes around to find him at the end of the story. In this respect, you and I are more like the blind man in John 9 than most of the other characters in the Gospels. We are the beneficiaries of Jesus’ work without the benefit of seeing him. “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed” (John 20:29 NASB).
Fourth, I am reminded of our common idiom that says, “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” That saying could be the caption below the picture of the Jewish leaders in this pericope. They interview, they question, they challenge, they press for answers, and yet still they refuse to acknowledge the truth about Jesus. All the arrows point to him. All the testimony and evidence prove him. Yet they are determined to cling to their own narrative that doubts, condemns, and rejects him. And they are not alone.
Finally, the story makes a great point of the fact that this blind man was born blind. This is not an ancient case of cataracts or glaucoma or some such. This blindness did not develop. The man did not lose his sight: he never had it. And in this regard, he becomes a kind of metaphor for us in our salvation. Our starting place is blindness. That is, our starting place is sin. We are born “dead in our transgressions.” And that is the hopeless state in which we remain unless Christ comes and intervenes — opens our eyes, raises us up.
Physically, a great many people might in our world have had to say, “I once could see, but now I’m blind.” Spiritually, on the other hand, the testimony that we sing is: “Twas blind, but now I see.”2
Application
Our Old Testament lection calls into question Samuel’s eyesight. Our Gospel lection, then, picks up that theme and runs with it. There is a man who is physically blind, which is straightforward enough. But then we turn to the implication that people who are naturally sighted may still be blind. It’s a spiritual condition, you see. It’s a different sort of darkness. And our brief excerpt from Paul also speaks of spiritual darkness.
And we are challenged this week to take a kind of vision test.
In a standard vision test, we are often diagnosed as either nearsighted or farsighted. In other words, there are some things that we see rather clearly, but other things that are blurry to us. Samuel, we might say, was ‘superficially-sighted.’
Perhaps the same phenomenon is true for us spiritually. Perhaps our spiritual vision is stronger in some areas and weaker in others. Perhaps we suffer from an inability to see some things clearly — a form of spiritual blindness.
Here are some suggested questions we might ask and elaborate on this week as we encourage our people to take a vision test.
Do you see evidence of God at work in your life?
Do you see evidence of God at work in other people?
Do you see evidence of God at work in the world around you?
Do you tend first to notice a person’s vices or a person’s virtues?
Do you see the Lord clearly enough to be able to rejoice in him always? (Philippians 4:4)
Do you recognize temptation before you succumb to it?
Do you see problems or possibilities?
Do you see what God’s will looks like in heaven so that you can pray for it to be done so on earth? (Matthew 6:10)
Do you see “those that are with us” or “those that are with them”? (2 Kings 6:16)
Do you tend to focus on a person’s appearance, or do you try to see their heart? (1 Samuel 16:7)
Do you see mostly your sins or God’s grace?
Alternative Application(s)
1 Samuel 16:1-13 — “The Last Place You Look”
How many times have we heard it — or perhaps even said it! After a great search for something that was lost, when we finally come upon it, we exclaim, “It’s always in the last place you look!”
Two different truths are contained in that phrase. The one is so obvious as to be nearly meaningless. But the other is more subtle and may speak to how we interact with the will and work of God.
On the one hand, to say that a lost something is always found in the last place you look is to be master of the obvious. It is found in the last place you look by definition. For only a certain sort of fool would keep looking in still other places having already found the lost item. And so, in this case, the statement is a ridiculous one.
On the other hand, what we sometimes mean when we say “it’s always in the last place you look” is that the lost thing was found in the last place that we had to look. It was only discovered at the very end of the search, you see. And the phenomenon being acknowledged here is that lost things are often found in unexpected places. It was in the last place I looked, you see, because it was in the last place I expected to find it.
In this latter case, then, the problem may reside in our expectations. Perhaps the reason we couldn’t find the confounded thing was because we didn’t know enough to look in the right place. We looked in the places that made sense to us, but our “sense” may have been the great obstacle to finding the desired item.
This is where a spiritual principle and a biblical pattern appear on the scene. It is exemplified in the episode recalled in our Old Testament lection, but it is certainly not limited to that scene. In this case, you see, the next king of Israel was found “in the last place you look.”
Jesse had eight sons, but only seven of them were presented to Samuel. That seems to be a rather strange oversight. What does it tell us about David? What does it reveal about his role and his estimation within his own family? It isn’t much later that we see him being ridiculed and belittled by his older brother (1 Samuel 17:28). And it may be revealing, too, that whenever he is frustrated by his nephews, who are prominent in his military and political coalition, he refers to them disparagingly as “sons of Zeruiah” (e.g., 2 Samuel 3:39, 16:10, 19:22) Thus he identifies them not by their own names but by his sister’s name.
Could it be that a boy who would become a towering figure in the history of the world was overlooked and underestimated in his own home and family? Does a symbol representing Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Caesar, Henry V, or Napoleon still fly on the flag of a modern state? Yet the star of David persists, three-thousand years after he lived and died.
Ah, but when Samuel came to Jesse’s house to find the next king of Israel, all of David’s brothers were presented to the prophet, while David was relegated to the fields. The next king of Israel was in the last place they looked, you see. They looked first in age, in strength, in stature.
Paul said that “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27 KJV). We mustn’t look for the work of God in expected places, therefore. For then we will only find him in the last places we look — like a manger and a cross.
1 (http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/d/desk-set-script-transcript-...)
2 John Newton, “Amazing Grace” (UMH #378)
When Samuel arrives at the home of Jesse of Bethlehem to find the next king of Israel, the narrator reports that Samuel “looked on Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD's anointed is now before the LORD.’” Eliab must have really been something to look at. But then, it seems, so was the forbidden fruit (see Genesis 3:6) and the glorious sight with which the devil tempted Jesus (see Matthew 4:8).
And so, the Lord had to correct his prophet. "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature,” the Lord said to Samuel, “because I have rejected him.” “Rejected sounds strong and negative to us, and we aren’t given any explanation for what Eliab’s shortcomings were. But it does remind one of the old truism that “looks can be deceiving.”
But then the Lord added another layer to Samuel’s understanding. And, interestingly, it was not further insight into Eliab, but rather insight into Samuel — and, by extension, the rest of us. God explained to his prophet, “The LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart."
Mortals look on the outward appearance. Who can deny that? When my wife and I are trying to figure out if I know the person she had a conversation with at church, she says things like, “She was wearing a red top.” “He was balding.” “She was tallish.” “He was heavy-set.” And so on. We haven’t yet tried to identify a person to one another by saying, “He’s the one with the really good heart!” That may, indeed, be the most significant characteristic of certain people, but it is not what we see first.
In the 1957 movie Desk Set the Spencer Tracy character presents the Katherine Hepburn character with a brief quiz, and he begins with this observation: "Uh, often when we meet people for the first time, some physical characteristic strikes us.” Then he asks, “What is the first thing you notice in a person?" And she replies, “Whether the person is male or female.”1
Both characters make the point. “Mortals...look on the outward appearance.” Indeed, we do.
Now that’s natural enough, I suppose. But it is different from God, and we need to remember that. He sees things that we do not. And what he sees is of much more significance than our height, weight, and blemishes.
1 Samuel 16:1-13
I love the Bible. I would say that I love the whole Bible. But I am human, of course, and as such my loves are not uniform. So, I will concede that I love some books of the Bible better than others, and I find few books as compelling and fascinating to read as the books of Samuel.
We don’t know, of course, the names of all the authors and editors who contributed to our present canon. I am struck again and again, however, by the wise and effortless storytelling technique of so many of the Old Testament authors. They paint scenes that are pregnant with insight, yet they trust the reader or hearer to discover it all for himself or herself. The author does not beat us over the head with takeaways, commentaries, or conclusions. He simply tells the story, and leaves us to be challenged, fascinated, and edified by it. And that is certainly the case with this crucial passage from 1 Samuel.
The passage begins in a startling way. "How long will you grieve over Saul?” the Lord asks Samuel, for “I have rejected him from being king over Israel.” No room for sentimental indecisiveness here. The Lord has moved on from Saul, and Samuel needs to, as well.
The tone and content remind me of Jesus’ matter-of-fact instructions to his disciples with respect to the cities that reject them and their message. “Any place that does not receive you or listen to you,” he said, “as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them” (Mark 6:11 NASB). I am prompted to wonder what counterparts there may be in my life. What do I cling to that the Lord has insisted I leave behind? What does he want me to move on from, for he is moving on from it?
And so, the Lord instructs Samuel to set off for the home of Jesse of Bethlehem, where he will anoint the next king of Israel, the man who will succeed Saul. This, too, is a fascinating detail, for it shows us where the real power and authority reside in ancient Israel. We think of kings as sovereigns but see that it’s the prophet who is actually the king-maker. Furthermore, the prophet’s anointing at God’s direction serves as a kind of emblem of divine ordination. It turns out that the next king is, at this time, only a boy. And we discover as we read that a lot of years and events will pass before he takes the throne. Yet still we sense that it is a settled matter from this moment on. God has ordained it. It is, like his promises, certain and sure.
Samuel’s response to the Lord’s assignment is also fascinating. "How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” We are surprised by Samuel’s fear, for we have seen him go toe-to-toe with King Saul. We have seen Samuel condemn Saul to his face. We have observed the prophet seem bold and fearless in his dealings with the king, yet here he is reluctant to obey God, frightened by the king’s possible reaction.
Interestingly, no reassurance comes from God. We do not hear him say, “Oh, don’t worry about that, Samuel, for Saul won’t know,” or “he won’t try to kill you,” or “I’ll protect you.” No, none of that. Samuel’s fear seems to go un-responded to. The Lord simply continues to give detailed instructions.
The power of the prophet in ancient Israel, meanwhile, is further evidenced by the response of the Bethlehem elders. So far as we know, Samuel is an old man who has come alone. He is not a young man in the prime of his strength and ambition, riding ominously toward the city with a detachment of soldiers in tow. No, he’s an old man who comes alone, yet the elders worry, "Do you come peaceably?”
Then comes the parade of sons. Evidently Jesse had eight sons, and seven of them were on hand to present to the prophet Samuel. And if it had been up to the prophet Samuel only, it seems that Eliab of Bethlehem would have been anointed as the second king of Israel.
Samuel was favorably impressed by what he saw. But what he could see, of course, was only superficial, and so the Lord had to correct his prophet. We’ll give more consideration of this part of the story as part of our treatment of the larger collection of passages for this week.
Eventually, it seems, Jesse has run out of sons, and the Lord has not given Samuel the green light to anoint any of them. Are there any more sons? Oh, yes, there is the youngest, but he has been relegated to tending the sheep. He was not even invited to this occasion with the prophet. We’ll give some more thought to that theme below.
And so, the whole event is put on pause while they fetch the overlooked son. He is brought before Samuel, and now the Lord indicates, “This is the one.” And Samuel completes his errand: he anoints David son of Jesse of Bethlehem to be king of Israel.
Finally, the writer concludes the passage with the skill of a great storyteller. Samuel exits stage left, while we are clued into the fact that the narrative is about David now. “The spirit of the LORD,” we read, “came mightily upon David from that day forward.” The Lord has clearly moved on to David, and beginning with this episode the story does, too.
Ephesians 5:8-14
Our epistle reading is brief, and it is readily apparent what theme dominates the passage. Paul is expressing certain truths to the Ephesian Christians in terms of “light” and “dark.” And our endeavor here is to capture those truths that Paul shares in rapid succession.
Because the imagery is so dualistic, we might do well to get out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. With two columns before you, label the one “light” and the other “darkness.” And then jot down in the appropriate column what you learn from Paul about each.
The first thing to be noted — and a most extraordinary thing it is! — is that “you” have moved from one column to the other. As we work our way through the passage, we will begin to sense how remarkable that is. For things seem to be innately “of darkness” or “of the light.” We don’t sense much capacity for fluidity between the two realms. Yet Paul’s starting place is the assertion that “once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.” Only when we recognize (as Paul reasons elsewhere) that light has no fellowship with darkness (2 Corinthians 6:14) will we see how dramatic this claim of our salvation is.
The next thing to be noted is the association of the Lord with the light. We should recognize that as thematic throughout all of Scripture, from beginning to end. Light is the first recorded word and act of God in Scripture (Genesis 1:3), and in the new Jerusalem we read that the Lord himself will be its light (Revelation 21:23). In the same spirit, John writes, “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5 NASB). And one senses in several of Jesus’ judgment teachings that to be in darkness is to be cut off from God (e.g., Matthew 25:30).
Next, we discover that we have a choice — indeed, an obligation — to “live as children of light.” There is a jersey to don each day. There is a side to be on. And inasmuch as we know which side is God’s side, we are urged to live accordingly. Paul says that “the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true,” and therein we find our standard, our guidelines.
The exhortation to “try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord” is a sermon all its own. Our default setting, of course, is to live with an eye on what is pleasing to us. From a young age, we cry and whine and fuss in pursuit of what is pleasing to us, and that instinct remains a part of our fallen nature. Then, as we grow up, we become more aware of what is pleasing to other people. And, for better and for worse, we make constant calculations about trying to please at least some of those that are around us. But are we so expert in knowing and doing what is pleasing to the Lord? That is where we will find our peace, our purpose, and our liberty. And Paul urges us to “try to find out what is pleasing to (him).”
Two verses earlier, Paul spoke of “the fruit of the light.” Now he turns to “the unfruitful works of darkness.” He does not enumerate them, but perhaps they are self-evident to anyone of whom it can be said, “Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.”
Interestingly, Paul extends the metaphor of light and darkness a bit further now. He calls upon the person who is light to “expose” the works of darkness. He alludes to the shameful things people do in secrecy and notes how light exposes things. It is reminiscent of Jesus’ somber declaration: “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19 NASB).
Finally, Paul concludes the passage with a dramatic exhortation: "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
It’s a fascinating series of statements. The interchanging of sleep and death is familiar from other places in Scripture. What is striking in this case, however, is that both states are treated as voluntary. The responsibility is on the individual to awake from sleep and to rise from the dead. Clearly, then, this is a different sort of death. It is, if you will, a self-imposed death. Thus, we are called to rise and leave that death behind. And when we emerge from our darkness, then we will find Christ’s light shining on us.
As an aside, this implied ordo salutis may trouble some of the more theologically sensitive people in your pews. After all, doesn’t Christ’s light shine on us first? Isn’t he the one who awakens us from our sleep? Isn’t he the one who enables us to rise from the dead?
In answer, I am reminded of Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. It is not the only way, of course, that Jesus illustrates our moving from lost to found, but it is one of the ways. And in that cherished parable, the son does have to make the move toward home. When he does, as we know well, the father runs to meet him, and grace takes over. But the point is that at least part of our salvation is the move we make toward God, and that in turn puts us in the position where “Christ will shine on you.”
John 9:1-41
The lectionary does us no favor by assigning us such a long Gospel lection. It is impossible to do justice to this entire passage in a single sermon, let alone marrying it to other passages, as well. And we are left to select just a few pearls from the marvelous story of this healing, while necessarily leaving many treasures buried there.
First, I am struck by Jesus’ quick dismissal of a prevailing misunderstanding of his day. The disciples’ initial question represented some of the conventional wisdom of the time: namely, that a malady or handicap was because of some sin. And, in this case, the disciples just assumed that sin was the underlying cause of the blindness, but wondered only whose sin it was.
That Jesus corrected the misunderstanding suggests to me that he was not a prisoner of his time. He was not limited in his thinking and understanding in the way that his contemporaries were. Therefore, when he does not correct in other places what we would also consider antiquated understandings — for example, attributing some conditions to demons — suggests his endorsement of those diagnoses.
I take Jesus, then, to be the reliable arbiter between generations. We have, as one writer puts it, a “modern chauvinism” that presumes we know better than every previous generation. Jesus knew better than his generation. But perhaps he also knew better than ours.
Second, I am struck by Jesus’ qualifying statement: “as long as I am in the world.” We are familiar with his declaration — “I am the light of the world” — from earlier in the Gospel (John 8:12). But here that claim is modified in a significant way. It is specifically for as long as he is in the world that he is the light of the world. But we recognize from the larger contour of John’s Gospel that Jesus is not always “in the world.” Rather, he came into the world, and then he later returned to his Father. This, it seems to me, makes more significant his statement to his disciples elsewhere that “you are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14).
Third, I am struck by the difference between this blind man’s experience and that of others, like Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52). The more typical experience, it seems to me, is that Jesus heals people on the spot. In a few instances like this one, however, the healing occurs away from Jesus. And in the specific case of a person who is blind, that makes an enormous difference, for it begs the question of whether the individual saw Jesus or not. In other words, when Bartimaeus was healed, we might presume that the very first thing he saw would have been Jesus’ face. This blind man who is healed in John 9, by contrast, is some distance from Jesus by the time he can see, and so he would not have known what Jesus looked like until Jesus comes around to find him at the end of the story. In this respect, you and I are more like the blind man in John 9 than most of the other characters in the Gospels. We are the beneficiaries of Jesus’ work without the benefit of seeing him. “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed” (John 20:29 NASB).
Fourth, I am reminded of our common idiom that says, “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” That saying could be the caption below the picture of the Jewish leaders in this pericope. They interview, they question, they challenge, they press for answers, and yet still they refuse to acknowledge the truth about Jesus. All the arrows point to him. All the testimony and evidence prove him. Yet they are determined to cling to their own narrative that doubts, condemns, and rejects him. And they are not alone.
Finally, the story makes a great point of the fact that this blind man was born blind. This is not an ancient case of cataracts or glaucoma or some such. This blindness did not develop. The man did not lose his sight: he never had it. And in this regard, he becomes a kind of metaphor for us in our salvation. Our starting place is blindness. That is, our starting place is sin. We are born “dead in our transgressions.” And that is the hopeless state in which we remain unless Christ comes and intervenes — opens our eyes, raises us up.
Physically, a great many people might in our world have had to say, “I once could see, but now I’m blind.” Spiritually, on the other hand, the testimony that we sing is: “Twas blind, but now I see.”2
Application
Our Old Testament lection calls into question Samuel’s eyesight. Our Gospel lection, then, picks up that theme and runs with it. There is a man who is physically blind, which is straightforward enough. But then we turn to the implication that people who are naturally sighted may still be blind. It’s a spiritual condition, you see. It’s a different sort of darkness. And our brief excerpt from Paul also speaks of spiritual darkness.
And we are challenged this week to take a kind of vision test.
In a standard vision test, we are often diagnosed as either nearsighted or farsighted. In other words, there are some things that we see rather clearly, but other things that are blurry to us. Samuel, we might say, was ‘superficially-sighted.’
Perhaps the same phenomenon is true for us spiritually. Perhaps our spiritual vision is stronger in some areas and weaker in others. Perhaps we suffer from an inability to see some things clearly — a form of spiritual blindness.
Here are some suggested questions we might ask and elaborate on this week as we encourage our people to take a vision test.
Do you see evidence of God at work in your life?
Do you see evidence of God at work in other people?
Do you see evidence of God at work in the world around you?
Do you tend first to notice a person’s vices or a person’s virtues?
Do you see the Lord clearly enough to be able to rejoice in him always? (Philippians 4:4)
Do you recognize temptation before you succumb to it?
Do you see problems or possibilities?
Do you see what God’s will looks like in heaven so that you can pray for it to be done so on earth? (Matthew 6:10)
Do you see “those that are with us” or “those that are with them”? (2 Kings 6:16)
Do you tend to focus on a person’s appearance, or do you try to see their heart? (1 Samuel 16:7)
Do you see mostly your sins or God’s grace?
Alternative Application(s)
1 Samuel 16:1-13 — “The Last Place You Look”
How many times have we heard it — or perhaps even said it! After a great search for something that was lost, when we finally come upon it, we exclaim, “It’s always in the last place you look!”
Two different truths are contained in that phrase. The one is so obvious as to be nearly meaningless. But the other is more subtle and may speak to how we interact with the will and work of God.
On the one hand, to say that a lost something is always found in the last place you look is to be master of the obvious. It is found in the last place you look by definition. For only a certain sort of fool would keep looking in still other places having already found the lost item. And so, in this case, the statement is a ridiculous one.
On the other hand, what we sometimes mean when we say “it’s always in the last place you look” is that the lost thing was found in the last place that we had to look. It was only discovered at the very end of the search, you see. And the phenomenon being acknowledged here is that lost things are often found in unexpected places. It was in the last place I looked, you see, because it was in the last place I expected to find it.
In this latter case, then, the problem may reside in our expectations. Perhaps the reason we couldn’t find the confounded thing was because we didn’t know enough to look in the right place. We looked in the places that made sense to us, but our “sense” may have been the great obstacle to finding the desired item.
This is where a spiritual principle and a biblical pattern appear on the scene. It is exemplified in the episode recalled in our Old Testament lection, but it is certainly not limited to that scene. In this case, you see, the next king of Israel was found “in the last place you look.”
Jesse had eight sons, but only seven of them were presented to Samuel. That seems to be a rather strange oversight. What does it tell us about David? What does it reveal about his role and his estimation within his own family? It isn’t much later that we see him being ridiculed and belittled by his older brother (1 Samuel 17:28). And it may be revealing, too, that whenever he is frustrated by his nephews, who are prominent in his military and political coalition, he refers to them disparagingly as “sons of Zeruiah” (e.g., 2 Samuel 3:39, 16:10, 19:22) Thus he identifies them not by their own names but by his sister’s name.
Could it be that a boy who would become a towering figure in the history of the world was overlooked and underestimated in his own home and family? Does a symbol representing Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Caesar, Henry V, or Napoleon still fly on the flag of a modern state? Yet the star of David persists, three-thousand years after he lived and died.
Ah, but when Samuel came to Jesse’s house to find the next king of Israel, all of David’s brothers were presented to the prophet, while David was relegated to the fields. The next king of Israel was in the last place they looked, you see. They looked first in age, in strength, in stature.
Paul said that “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27 KJV). We mustn’t look for the work of God in expected places, therefore. For then we will only find him in the last places we look — like a manger and a cross.
1 (http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/d/desk-set-script-transcript-...)
2 John Newton, “Amazing Grace” (UMH #378)
