From Darkness to Light

I got a text from Clint Baker last Monday. It said, “sketch from yesterday’s sermon.” Attached was an image that so captured my sermon, I was blown away. It literally healed my heart as I pondered it with wonder. I shared it with a lot of people this week. (I will share it with you this Sunday.) One of the guys I shared it with was Larry Powell. Larry and I were meeting to talk about our Community Groups, and I told him, “Hey, look what I got from Clint Baker. He drew this on Sunday while I was preaching.” He looked at it and, after a minute, said, “Wow, he obviously wasn’t listening!” 

 

It was said in jest, of course, and we had a good laugh. Then I thought of our text, and it struck me that the Pharisees had a similar reaction to the great art of Jesus, sculpted in the flesh of a man born blind. What they witnessed was an unspeakable glory, an unfathomable wonder—a man reduced to suffering and begging because of a congenital defect is now whole, and their reaction is, “The guy who did this is obviously a sinner for breaking the Sabbath.” 

 

In our text this week, the blind see and the seeing are blind. Those who have light are in darkness, and one who is in darkness sees the light. Those who know a lot about God don’t really know him, and one who just meets God knows him intimately. Irony upon irony, so on this Palm Sunday we will look at Jesus’ sixth sign in the gospel of John. Jesus is the Light of the world, and yet some see and some do not. Why?