April 3, 2011 - Lent 4

Jesus Gives 3D Glasses
John 9:1-41
Lent 4 – April 3, 2011

You may or may not have noticed that there has been an explosion in 3D technology over the past several months. It started slowly, first with a movie here and there, and then more & more movies – and now every time I go into Costco, in the electronics section that's right by the entrance, half of the TVs come with 3D, and the displays come complete with the special glasses you need to be able to enjoy all that the TV has to offer. And there are hand held video games that have jumped into the 3D market as well.

Now some of you may remember the 3D movies of old, where the point was really just to be doing something new & different. It didn't really add much to the experience – the effects weren't that good, and involved things like sharks leaping out of the screen at you. It's a bit different today. I haven't seen all that many movies in 3D, but I remember going to see Avatar in the movie theater in 3D, and was impressed with how subtle & yet realistic the 3D effect was. There was one point during the movie where I reached out my hand to brush away some dust in the air, only to realize that the dust wasn't really there – it was part of the movie. Kind of amazing – in this case, most of the time anyway, the 3D aspect helped to draw me in, to make me feel like I was actually in the make-believe world of Pandora.

The funny thing with all this 3D stuff is, of course, that the world around us, the real world, is 3-dimensional. But the world of entertainment has been flat, 2D – unable to convey the depth, the fullness of real life, until recently.

My husband Andy, however, is not convinced. He's an early adopter in a lot of ways, likes to get the latest and greatest – stood in line in the first few weeks that the original iPhone was offered & was willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money to get it (although I have to say, he kept it for a LONG time, as far as cell phones go). But even though he likes new gadgets & electronic stuff, he's not at all into the 3D thing. He's content to have his entertainment to stay strictly in the realm of 2D, and really kind of wishes that all of this 3D stuff would run its course and go away.

It reminds me of the way the Pharisees are in this gospel story with Jesus. This chapter centers around blindness – but it's not just the physical blindness of the man born blind that Jesus encounters here. This gospel is also about spiritual blindness – about the ability to see God at work in the world, God at work in the person of Jesus – or the inability to see that. The man born blind has never been able to see at all, but Jesus comes along – and the disciples point him out, kind of as an object lesson. The common line of thought in that time and culture was that if someone had a disability, there was a reason for it, and that reason was that someone sinned. In this case, the disciples wanted to know if the man himself sinned somehow (before he was ever born) or if it was his parents' fault that he had never been able to see. Jesus moves them away from that thinking. This isn't the time to point the finger and cast blame, but instead an opportunity to see God at work in this man's life – and so Jesus spits on the ground and makes some mud, spreads it on the man's eyes, and tells him to go wash. Amazingly, the man receives his sight – and where before he couldn't see at all, now he sees in 3D, technicolor, with a fullness & depth that he had never imagined would be his.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, are trapped in their 2D world. They hear of this tremendous miracle, but instead of rejoicing, they call together the inquisition! Because Jesus had dared to work on the sabbath (making the mud was considered work), they believed Jesus was someone opposed to God. They couldn't see that God was working through Jesus. They couldn't accept that God could be working in new ways, outside the way that they had always done things. Jesus comes along handing out 3D glasses, offering the opportunity to see and experience the world around them in ways they never imagined, but they'll keep their 2D vision, thanks. They wish that Jesus would just go away with his newfangled ways of doing things, his non-traditional ways of talking about God and living out God's love.

We fall prey to this spiritual blindness more than we'd like. It's not that we can't see at all (most of us, most of the time), it's more that we can only see in 2 dimensions. Too often, all we can see is a flat world, because that's all we're used to seeing. It's like we're Dorothy living in Kansas, living in a world of black and white, not realizing that all around us, the world is filled with vibrant color. Without the 3D glasses that Jesus gives, we miss the richness of God's grace, the depth of God's love, the breadth of God's forgiveness. The 2 dimensionality of our spiritual sight leaves us blind to so much that God has to offer. We are blind to the real world, God's world, that surrounds us.

But it doesn't have to be that way. In this story, Jesus comes to the man who was born blind, and without that man having to say a thing, Jesus gives him the gift of sight, the chance of a lifetime to see the world with new eyes. But his recovery doesn't end when he goes to the pool of Siloam and washes. His physical sight is restored then, but he grows in spiritual sight only as he moves through the story & is asked again and again what happened to him. And each time he tells the story, his spiritual sight gets stronger – he moves closer and closer to seeing who Jesus really is, until finally Jesus reveals himself as the Son of Man. When he sees Jesus face to face, it's as if Jesus gives him 3D glasses, and suddenly he gets a glimpse of the world in all its fullness, seen just for a moment with Christ's vision for the world as God intended it to be – a world filled with love and mercy and forgiveness, a world filled with grace and healing and kindness.

And Jesus offers us a chance at 3D glasses too – a chance to see the world as he sees it – with depth and richness and vibrancy – a world that exceeds anything we can imagine. Here and now, we only get glimpses and glances – a foretaste of the feast to come – but this world, God's world is all around us, filled with compassion and love and grace. Jesus gives us the 3D glasses we need to see it. Let's put 'em on and celebrate what God is already doing in the world all around us – and then let's share this new vision so we can help others see what Jesus helps us see. This transformed, 3D vision will help us change the world.

Amen!