Why sometimes bad things happen to good people....

At the church where I serve, we are spending the weeks leading up to Christmas pausing from the growing expectation, anticipation, and intensity of the countdown to Christmas in order to ask a simple question. And that question is this: Why Christmas? Why are we counting down to Christmas? Why is Christmas celebrated? Why is Christmas so significant? And specifically, why would Jesus enter into humanity that first Christmas?

To answer these questions, we are going to look at five different passages that are found in the letters that make up the New Testament of the Bible. And as we look at these five different passages that are found in the New Testament of the Bible, we are going to discover five timeless answers to the question “Why Christmas?”

This week, we are going to look at the third of five different passages that are found in the letters that make up the New Testament of the Bible, which is found in a section of an account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of John. Now the gospel of John was written the person who had perhaps the closest relationship with Jesus while He was on earth, a man named John. John is referred to as the disciple Jesus loved. John was Jesus best friend. We see John bring us into his account of Jesus life beginning in John 9:1-2:

As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?"

John brings us into this section of his account of Jesus life by providing the context for this event from history. John tells us that as Jesus and His disciples left the temple after escaping the self righteous religious leaders of the day’s attempt to stone Jesus, they encountered a man who had been blind from birth. In other words, this man had never been able to see a single thing.

And in the culture of the day, being born blind would result in a life of suffering that was totally dependent upon others. Being born blind would result in a life without hope. After all, this blind man had never seen, so how could he ever hope to see? This man was in a hopeless situation. The disciples, upon seeing the blind man, decide to ask Jesus a theological question: "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”

Now to fully understand the significance of this question, we first need to understand what the disciples believed that drove them to ask this question. You see, the disciples, along with many people who lived in Jesus day, believed that blindness, leprosy and other physical diseases were the result of sin in the person or the family. The disciples believed that bad things happened to bad people and good things happened to good people.

But, here was a man who was born blind. So, from the disciple’s perspective, how could this man be blind before he ever sinned? How could this man have experienced the bad things that he experienced in his life before he had done any bad things to earn such bad experiences? So, from the disciple’s perspective, it must have been the parents who had sinned. From the disciple’s perspective, since bad things happen to bad people, his parents must have been bad people, which resulted in their son experiencing bad things in his life.

Now here is something for us to consider: how often can we find ourselves thinking the exact same way? How often can we find ourselves assuming that bad things happen to people because they are bad people? How often can we find ourselves assuming that the bad things that happen in someone’s life is the direct result of the bad things that either they have done or that those who are close to them have done? How often can we find ourselves assuming that if I simply do good, then I will experience good from God? We see how Jesus answered the disciple’s theological question in verse 3-5:

Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. "We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. "While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world."

Jesus replies to the disciples question by explaining that this man was born blind so that his blindness could be used to bring glory to God through what Jesus was about to do in his life. You see, while Jesus was asked about the cause of the blindness, Jesus answered in terms of the purpose of the blindness.

Jesus here is revealing for us the reality that there are times that bad things happen to bad people. And there are times that bad things happen to good people. And there are times that God uses the bad things that happen to people to make much of Him and point people to Him by the way that people respond to the bad things that happen. Y

ou see, nowhere in the Bible are we promised a wrinkle free life. We live in a world that has been corrupted by selfishness and rebellion. And God often works through the corruption of this world to reveal His greatness and glory through our response to the bad things that may happen in our lives.

Jesus then explained to His disciples that they must be doing what God wants them to be doing during this period of time, because over the passage of time, the opportunities to be a part of what God is doing will pass them by. Those opportunities are going to pass by because Jesus is fully aware that He will soon be put to death. When Jesus states that He is the light of the world, He is revealing the reality that Jesus, in His very being and nature, is life and light that helps us see that there is a Creator who is light and life and there is creation that was covered in darkness.

Jesus is explaining to His disciples that, as the Light of the world, that He came to humanity in order to point people to God. While Jesus was on earth, He revealed and explained God to the world, and revealed and exposed the selfishness, sin and rebellion that was in the world. And in the same way today, just as Jesus was the vehicle that God used to point people to Him, as followers of Jesus, we are to be the vehicle that God uses to reveal Himself to the world. After answering their theological question, Jesus then turns His attention to the man born blind in verse 6-7:

When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, and said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam " (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing.

Now a natural reaction right about now is “well Dave that’s kind of gross. That brings new meaning to the phrase “here’s some mud in your eye”. And another question that arises here is “Why didn’t Jesus just heal the man? I mean why place mud in his eye and then tell him to go wash it off in a pool of water?” That just seems weird doesn’t it? I mean Jesus does not even tell this man His name. Instead, He simply goes spit. spit. Go wash. To fully understand what is happening here, we first need to understand where the pool of Siloam was.

The Temple in Jerusalem was located in the northeast corner of Jerusalem. The pool of Siloam was located in the far southeastern Jerusalem. The pool of Siloam and the Temple were on opposite ends of the town. The distance between the Temple and the pool of Siloam was approximately a half of a mile. However, the pool of Siloam was located at a much lower elevation than the Temple. And as you might imagine, the pool was a long walk for any man, let alone a blind man.

Now, I want us to take a minute and imagine ourselves in this event from history as the man born blind. You have spent your entire life suffering as a result of being born blind. You are sitting just outside the Temple panhandling because that is the only way that you can possibly provide for yourself.

Then some guy and His friends come up and start having a conversation about why you have been blind your entire life. Now, while you are blind you are not deaf, so you hear this entire conversation. You don’t say a word to Jesus or His friends.

Then as Jesus finishes His conversation, He turns to you, spits on the ground, makes a mud pie and places it on your eyes and tells you go walk a half of a mile down to the pool of Siloam. Jesus basically says to you “I am sending you to the pool of sent so that you might be able to see.” You’re the blind man. You did not ask for this. What would you be thinking? What would you be feeling? How would you respond?

John tells us that the blind man responded by making the half mile trip to the pool of Siloam. Can you imagine what that must have looked like? What would be running through your mind if you were the blind man? What would you be thinking as you arrived at the pool? What would you be feeling as you began to wash the mud off of your eyes? What would you be thinking and feeling as you began to see for the first time?

You see, by having to go wash in the pool of Siloam, the blind man had to demonstrate His trust in Jesus by obeying Jesus instructions. And the blind man’s trust in Jesus resulted in Him experiencing the miraculous in his life.

Tomorrow, we will see how those who knew the blind man responded to what had happened…