“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.”
So wrote John Newton, very likely thinking back to his own conversion in 1748, soon after the building of this church. Newton wrote the hymn Amazing Grace to illustrate a sermon for New Year’s day 1773. He was then the curate of Olney in Bucks. A hymn-writing curate – there’s a thought – Watch out choir!
Blindness
For Newton his conversion was as vivid and life-changing an experience as the transformation from blindness to sight. Our second reading gave us the story of the healing of a blind man. But there is much more blindness in the passage than the physical blindness of this man. There is the blindness of the disciples who ask Jesus whose sin it was that caused the man to be born without sight. There is the blindness of the neighbours, who are not sure that the man they now see is the same person as the one they knew as blind. There’s the assumed blindness of the man’s parents, who won’t comment on his healing because they’re reluctant to get involved in any controversy. Finally, perhaps the most deep seated and incurable blindness of all is that of the Pharisees, Jesus’ opponents. They seem to be the embodiment of the prophet Isaiah’s words centuries before:
“Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
Keep looking, but do not understand.”
Make the mind of this people dull,
And stop their ears, and shut their eyes,
So that they may not look with their eyes,
And listen with their ears,
And comprehend with their minds,
And turn and be healed. (Is 6: 9-10)
Light
The previous chapter of John’s Gospel begins with Jesus’ statement that He is the ‘light of the world,’, and He repeats it here. This theme of Christ as light runs right from the Prologue at the beginning of the Gospel. He brings literal light in bringing sight to the blind man who is healed. But this is controversial, partly because it happens on the Sabbath and partly because the Pharisees do not recognise Jesus as having any authority. To them, He’s a nobody. They know that God spoke to Moses, who gave the Law, but they cannot recognise Jesus’ healing of the blind as a sign that Jesus is from God. He doesn’t fit their expectations so they persist in being blind to His identity. In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus calls the Pharisees ‘blind guides’. Here He castigates them, saying “I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind” (v.39). If we have a tendency to think of ourselves as among the spiritually discerning, Jesus’ words here may sound a particular warning to us.
Conversion
John Newton’s early life was one of sea-faring and high drama. Already a seaman when a young boy he was pressed into the navy and enslaved in Africa for a time. His conversion in 1748 was equally dramatic, taking place during a storm at sea, but the results were not instantaneous. He continued to act as the captain of slave-trading ships until 1754 and only much later in life joined the campaign for the abolition of slavery. He later came to believe that it had taken some years for him to really come to full faith.
In the healing of the blind man from our lesson today we see in miniature a similar process of growing awareness. At first the man simply submits to Jesus putting the mud on his eyes and goes to wash in the pool of Siloam as he’s told to do (v.7). When questioned by his neighbours he just states what has happened to him (v.11). He repeats this later when questioned by the Pharisees (v.15). When questioned a second time by them, however, he answers with a degree of wit and independent thought, challenging the Pharisees’ view that Jesus is a sinner (v25). When the Pharisees challenge a third time, accusing the man of being a disciple of Jesus, he turns the challenge on them “Why, this is a marvel, you do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes…If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” (v.30 – 33) When he finally encounters Jesus again he makes a full confession of faith and worships Him (v.38). As the story progresses his understanding is shown as developing. He receives not just physical sight, but spiritual insight so that in sharp contrast with the Pharisees, he is able to recognise Jesus.
In Romans, Paul exhorts his readers thus: “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” (Romans 12:2) Physical healing seems to have been more or less instantaneous for the blind man. But spiritual understanding and transformation came more slowly. This was certainly the case for Newton. When in 1788 he finally published a pamphlet against the slave trade a copy was sent to every MP, and sold so well that it swiftly required reprinting. In it he stated that, “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.” It took time for Newton’s vision to clear.
We may have been Christians for many years, but it may also take time for our vision to clear. So perhaps, if we are brave enough, we may need to ask God to heal our blindness. To help us to see with Jesus’ eyes. The other day I came across these words which one of my friends had posted on Facebook – “Sometimes I want to ask God why he allows poverty, famine and injustice in the world when he could do something about it. But I’m afraid He might just ask me the same question.” Then there are needs closer at hand, in our church and community here. Needs which might require the giving of our time or our money. Are we able to see them? On this Dedication Sunday, let us consider anew our commitment to Christ, and His church. Might He be calling us to do something more about our faith?
To return to John Newton, another of his hymns has the following lines:
“Weak is the effort of my heart,
And cold my warmest thought;
But when I see thee as thou art
I’ll praise thee as I ought.”