Invisible People

I. Introduction
A. This is the year of Revelation. Next week I am planning to begin a 44 week series on the final book of the Bible.
1. But I didn’t want to start the series on New Years Day when a number of folks would be out of town. So, today I am going to preach this morning from John 9:1-5 on Invisible People.
B. I preach this with hesitation and even a sense of embarrassment. There are a number of folks in this congregation who are much more qualified to talk about this subject than I am. There are some who put me to shame when it comes to seeing invisible people. And it is a privilege for me to know such Christ-like people and see Christ in them. I pray God would help me to become more like them.
C. The story we’re going to look at this morning is actually 41 verses long, all of John 9, which is too long. But really the thing I want to focus on is in the first two verses.
D. John 9:1–5 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
E. In case anyone is unfamiliar with the rest of this story, Jesus heals the man by putting mud on his eyes and instructing him to wash in the pool of Siloam. And His healing causes quite a stir.
F. But there’s something very strange going on here right at the beginning of this passage, something seemingly designed to make us ponder.
1. It would make more sense if it said, As they passed by, the disciples saw a man blind from birth, and then asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
2. But in the text it was Jesus who saw – and the disciples who asked. We’re left wondering why this is. What about Jesus’ seeing this blind man provoked the disciples to ask a question about him?
3. Remember, this is the gospel of John. This is John’s eyewitness account. He chose to write that Jesus saw the blind man and then that the disciples asked the question. So, how do you think John knew that Jesus saw the blind man?
a. Well, how do we usually know if someone we’re walking with sees something? It’s usually because they react to it in some way, or say something. On the other hand, though, it’s possible for someone to make it very obvious that he sees something without saying anything at all, isn’t it?
b. You’ve seen people looking up in the sky and everyone else starts looking at the sky.
c. Or if you saw someone looking at the wall or at the floor, it would draw your attention to them.
4. In other words, it seems like Jesus looked at the man in such a way that it drew attention to the man.
5. One of the noteworthy things about the gospel accounts of Jesus is that He looks a lot. Over 40 times in the gospels we read that Jesus looked at someone or saw someone.
a. If someone were to record the main events of three years of my life, I don’t think it would include 40 times of saying that I looked at someone or saw someone.
b. There’s a reason for this. There’s a point here about Jesus.
c. Looking involves attention and interest. I’m ashamed to say that sometimes I’m around people but I act like they’re not even there. Not so Jesus. Jesus saw people. He really saw people.
6. Now, certainly a person can look and not love, but we know from the pattern of Christ’s life and from the rest of this particular story in John 9 that Jesus’ looking involved love, openness, compassion and other-centeredness.
7. Think about the disciples, on the other hand. What attitudes did they show toward this blind man?
a. First of all, they talked about the man while they were right in from of him – as if he couldn’t hear them, as if he wasn’t even there.
b. They offer him no help, no hope. They don’t seem to be concerned about him as a person; they were only interested in the theological puzzle his blindness posed.
c. Not only this, but they sort of judge him and his parents as having sinned enough to deserve this, implying that they are not blind because they haven’t sinned – at least not on the same level.
8. Jesus, on the other hand, saw the man – as a person – and cared about the man, and met the man where he was, and helped the man.
9. And, at the end of the story, the man is bearing a powerful witness for Christ. He is bold, he is clever, he’s even a bit feisty in his interactions with the Jewish authorities (John 9:9-12, 24-33).
a. He impacts his family, he impacts the people who knew him – and even the Jewish leaders.
b. Others saw him as worthless, but Jesus turned him into something valuable and worthwhile.
c. It reminds me of that old poem, “The Touch of the Master’s Hand” by Myra 'Brooks' Welch.
(1) Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer thought it scarcely worth his while
(2) to waste much time on the old violin, but he held it up with a smile;
(3) "What am I bidden, good folks," he cried, "Who'll start the bidding for me?"
(4) "A dollar once, a dollar twice; Two dollars, and who'll make it three?
(5) Three dollars, once; three dollars twice; and going and gone? But no!
(6) From the room, far back, a gray-haired man came forward and picked up the bow;
(7) Then, wiping the dust from the old violin, and tightening up the strings,
(8) he played a melody pure and sweet, as sweet as an angel sings.
(9) The music stopped, and the auctioneer, in a voice that was quiet and low,
(10) said; "What am I bid for the old violin?" And he held it up with the bow.
(11) A thousand dollars, and who'll make it two? Two thousand! And who'll make it three?
(12) Three thousand, once, three thousand, twice, and going and gone," said he.
(13) The people cheered, but some of them cried, "We do not quite understand!
(14) What changed its worth?" Swift came the reply: "The touch of the master's hand."
(15) And many a man with a life out of tune, and battered and scarred with sin,
(16) Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, much like the old violin,
(17) A mess of pottage, a glass of wine; a game – and he travels on.
(18) He is going once, and going twice, going and almost gone.
(19) But the Master comes, and the foolish crowd never can quite understand
(20) the worth of a soul and the change that is wrought by the touch of the Master's hand.
II. Jesus saw people who were invisible to others. And the reason He saw them is because He looked. And the reason He looked is because He cared.
A. The first part of this is that there are invisible people.
1. Just as this man was blind to what was around him, so people like the disciples were blind to him.
2. And today people are just as blind to invisible people as the disciples were in this story:
a. We perceive them as having nothing to offer us.
b. We perceive them as adding nothing to our lives: no wealth, no status, no help, no interesting information.
c. We perceive them as a potential burden on our time or money, a potential hassle or bore.
3. We subtly protect ourselves from that which is awkward or disturbing.
a. We protect ourselves from that which may require something of us.
4. This fall I attended my wife’s 50th high school reunion with her. The room was pretty crowded because there were round tables surrounded with chairs. It wasn’t easy to get around. But of course, that’s what everyone wanted to do. So like every one else, we planted our stuff at a table and went around mingling. There were actually a number of people there I knew from various places, but it didn’t take long for me to greet and chat with the folks I knew, but of course Mary Ann as still off catching up with old friends. When I came back to our table and sat down, there was a woman at our table in a wheel chair, all alone. In that wheelchair she could never get around the room and mingle. The only way she was going to socialize is if people come over and sat down next to her. But no one was doing that. I had nothing else to do, and there was no one else at our table at the moment, so I went over and sat next to her. Her name was Nancy and she had MS. I asked her every question I could think of, and engaged in conversation as best as I could, but there were still moments of awkward silence. I offered to get her some food but she refused. No one else came over to her, no one else greeted her. After about a half hour she saw someone eating fruit and commented that it looked good. This time I insisted on getting up to get her something to eat, but by that time I got there the food had all been put away. So I went into the kitchen and begged the caterers to get some fruit back out, which they seemed happy to do. When I returned back to the table with a big plate of fruit, the friend Nancy had come with had returned and was chatting away with her. Nancy was delighted to get some fruit to eat.
a. But I think it’s safe to say that most of the people who knew Nancy in high school went home that evening, not only having not spoken to Nancy, but not even knowing she was there.
5. Afterward, I thought a lot about Nancy. I was very aware that Nancy was one of those invisible people, but I felt so ill-equipped to really love her. I kicked myself because I knew that I could have made much more of my time with her. Eventually, I thought of a few more meaningful things I could have said to her. For instance,
a. “Nancy, because of your experience you see things other people don’t see. You see things I don’t see. You have a lot to teach people like me. What are some of the things you see now which you didn’t see before? What are some of the things you wish people like me would realize?”
b. Hopefully, that could have led to deeper conversation.
6. I’m very much a person who is in process when it comes to loving people. I’m not who I should be, but I thank God I’m also not who I used to be. Jesus is teaching me.
B. The second point is that Jesus sees the invisible people.
1. To Jesus, no person is invisible, no person is a nobody.
2. We see this in His interactions with the blind man here, and we see it elsewhere.
3. Jesus introduced His ministry in Luke 4:18 by reading these words from Isaiah 61:1-2, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, and to set free those who are oppressed.”
4. You see, Jesus came for the invisible people: the poor, the captives, the blind, the oppressed!
5. You can also see this in the pattern of His ministry:
a. He loved tax collectors, lepers, blind people, sick people, poor widows, children, sinful women.
b. Think about the Samaritan woman (John 4:1-42). She had three issues to make her invisible to a Jewish man: she was a woman, a Samaritan, and immoral.
c. Even the disciples chose were rather invisible people: uneducated and unimportant.
6. Jesus saw invisible people. He illustrated this in His description of the father of the prodigal son, who noticed his son far off (Luke 15:20). This shows us the way Jesus looks, and explains why He sees things the rest of us don’t see.
7. You know, tornados do some very strange things. They turn an entire house into rubble, but leave a pot of flowers on the front walk untouched.
a. Jesus is sometimes like a tornado. He will shatter rocks but “a battered reed He will not break off, and a smoldering wick He will not put out.” (Matt.12:20)
8. His grace flows downhill. He goes toward the low ones, not the ones who think they’re high.
a. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” (Mt.9:12)
9. This is the kind of people He is building into His church. By and large, His church is a church of nobodies, as Paul says in 1Cor.1:20-31, “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?...26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to the world, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what’s foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what’s weak in the world to shame the strong.”
a. Generally, God chooses the weak, the poor, the despised, the unpopular.
b. The divine economy sure is different than the economy of the world, isn’t it?
c. Why does God seem to prefer the least, the last, the lowest, and the lost? Why would God go scraping at the bottom of the barrel to collect a people for Himself? Paul goes on to tell us:
(1) “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God,” (29)
(2) so that all might know that “He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus,” (30)
(3) so that when we boast, we “boast not in ourselves but in the Lord.” (31)
d. God chooses the unimportant because His saving dealings with mankind are all based on the principle of grace. And He is determined that this be recognized, so no one boasts in their salvation or thinks that God’s favor is a result of anything in us or anything we do.
10. This is why He actually calls us to become little people.
a. “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.” (1Pet.5:5-6)
b. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matt.5:5)
c. This is the opposite of our flesh, which longs to be recognized.
C. So, there are invisible people, and Jesus sees the invisible people. The third thing is that Jesus wants to help us see and care about invisible people.
1. In John 9, Jesus saw this blind man. And then He got His disciples to see the blind man.
2. And that’s one of His goals for us as well: to teach us to see and love the invisible people.
3. There’s nothing wrong with the concept of New Year’s Resolutions. But it seems to me that we ought to be asking ourselves, What do I think God wants to do in me this year? What does He want to change? Perhaps one thing is to learn to see and love invisible people.
4. Paul addresses this in Romans 12:16, “Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.”
5. Being Christ-like means noticing those who could easily go unnoticed.
6. You can’t love until you look. You can’t love people until you see people.
7. But noticing, of course, is not enough. We also have to care. We have to see them with the eyes of Christ.
8. A part of us doesn’t want to love, so we avoid looking.
a. The good Samaritan looked, but the priest and the Levite avoided looking; they walked on the other side of the road so they wouldn’t have to look.
b. If we’re being honest with ourselves, I think we have to admit that Christians are often pretty good at ignoring the needs of our world around us. Many of us aren’t really lovingly engaging in the lives of the people around us. I see it in myself and I see it in others.
c. Christians can be very self-oriented, can’t we? Do we really view others as beautifully created in God’s image, as precious in the eyes of the Lord, as potentially being our friends in heaven?
d. Our nature is to invisible-ize those who are different than us.
9. The key, of course, is to realize that we were invisible people whom Jesus saw and loved.
a. He cared about us in spite of our unworthiness, and now He wants to use us as channels of His love for others, especially for invisible people.
10. It’s not that we shouldn’t love popular people. But there are two things about popular people that make it less necessary to reach out to them.
a. They get lots of attention and lots of praise. They don’t need attention or encouragement as much as invisible people. They’re not as hungry for love because they get so much of it from others.
b. The second thing about popular people is that they are usually not as open to the love of Christ as invisible people. The popular are like the rich, whom Jesus said are rarely saved.
c. I’m not making this up. Jesus Himself said, “Woe to you when all people speak well of you.” Luke 6:26
III. Addendum (on the blessing of Katie Wellington)
A. I want to address the people who are relatively new to GPC, folks who have been here for five years or less. If you heard that there was a birthday party with over 200 people in attendance, what would you assume? Not often are there birthday parties of this size. You would probably assume it was the birthday of some very popular or talented person. Well, six years ago over 200 people attended a 30th birthday party right here for Katie Wellington.
B. I believe it is an honor to have Katie in our congregation. Katie is Christ’s precious little one.
C. I think Katie might be the most important member of our church. Listen to what Paul says in:
D. 1Corinthians 12:14-25, For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.
E. God often disguises His most precious treasures in a cloak of invisibility. If we are put off by things like blindness, we will miss the treasure!