Sermon for Sunday, March 15, 2026 || Lent 4A || John 9:1-41

This sermon is about perspective, about aligning our worldviews in order to see by Jesus, the Light of the World. But before we talk about that, we have to do something I really don’t like doing in sermons. We have to critique the translation of the Bible we use for Sunday readings. Here are the verses we are going to look at today from the beginning of our Gospel lesson:

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:1-5)

Seems pretty straightforward in English. The man was born blind so God’s works can be revealed in him. But the original language is anything but straightforward here. This is another case of big time ambiguity like I talked about a few weeks ago. Other translations get much closer to the Greek; (and I know I’m going to make certain church members very happy when I say this) in fact, the King James Version is probably the most accurate rendering of the original language.

“Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.”

Did you catch what was missing that time? Maybe a visual aid will help. Here’s most of the verse that I read from our normal translation: Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day…

The words “he was born blind so” are not in the original language at all. The translators added them to try to clear up the ambiguity in the verse. But the original Greek feels strangely incomplete. It’s something like: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; but that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

Do you see the ambiguity there? Jesus seems determined neither to blame the man’s blindness on his parents’ sin nor to draw a bright line between the blindness and God’s plan. Look what happens when we mess with the English punctuation a little bit: Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned(.) he was born blind So that God’s works might be revealed in him(,) we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.”

Wow! Such a different understanding! Now God’s revelation happens because of the presence of Jesus in the man’s life. (A quick caveat: we can’t really just mess with the punctuation and get away with it because of the rules of Greek grammar, but hey, the translators started it.)

Rather than letting the ambiguity remain, like in the King James Version, the translators decided to scrub the ambiguity from Jesus’ words. And in so doing, they changed the meaning of the passage. I wonder if they made this change because they wanted – perhaps even subconsciously – for the math to work out.

The man is born blind for reason X.
X = God’s plan.
Therefore, Blindness + God’s plan = Miracle of Jesus.

But I just don’t see it that way. The ambiguity gives me pause, because anytime we reduce God’s presence in our lives down to mere math equations, we end up drawing the wrong conclusions. We end up wondering why our faith isn’t a large enough quantity to get God to answer our prayers in a particular way. Or we end up judging others by a checklist of doctrinal obedience and purity codes, and then concluding that they don’t qualify for access into heaven. Or, in the worst kind of mathematical theology, we end up saying that Hurricane Katrina happened because of gay people in New Orleans.

And this is where the most important verse of the early part of John Chapter 9 comes in: “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” This is the second time Jesus has said, “I am the light of the world.” And whenever something is repeated in the Gospel, we know it’s important. Whenever something is repeated in the Gospel, we know it’s important. Part of Jesus’ divine identity is that of light; the light (John tells us earlier) that shines, unextinguishably, in the darkness.

Light, like Jesus’ words in the Gospel, also carries ambiguity. Is it a wave? Is it a particle? It’s both! Light, the very first thing God created, shows the Both/And nature of God. Light is not something we see. Light is the thing by which we see. The visible spectrum that human eyes can perceive allows us one of the ways to sense creation. Jesus grants the man this perception in the story; and in the larger scale of Jesus’ divine identity, Jesus grants everyone a spiritual perception by being the Light by which we see.

In other words, the life Jesus lives illuminates for us the life that God invites all of creation to live: a life of authenticity as creatures truly in touch with our Creator; a life of curiosity in which we resist the certainty of mathematical theology in order to deepen our understanding of God; a life of righteousness as we repair personal and societal relationships that have broken down; and a life of love, which grants us a glimpse at the way God perceives creation.

We construct our worldview via the life of the Light of the World. As we grow deeper in relationship with God, the more we see everyone and everything by this Light. In this Light, we reject the certainty of mathematical theology. Instead, we embrace the complexity of loving our enemies. We embrace both/and thinking instead of either/or thinking. We embrace all the blessed incongruities that a life of love entails.

Beware of Christians peddling unambiguous certainty. Beware of theology that sounds like a get rich quick scheme or a trendy class touting four easy steps to salvation. A life lived under the brilliance of the Light of the World exposes every sin and flaw and wrinkle and mistake and misstep and misdeed and missed opportunity. A life lived under the Light of the World also exposes every courageous act and shoulder cried on and garden cultivated and hope instilled and joy revealed and love embraced. All of this ambiguous mess God mixes into the recipe for our transformation into people who see with eyes accustomed to the Light of the World. Thanks be to God.

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Photo by Braxton Apana on Unsplash.