In these two stories we see that Jesus is powerful over the forces of nature and he is the light of the world who gives sight to those who have been living in spiritual darkness.

Storms are scary things to encounter. The darkness is a scary thing to encounter too. But these passages teach us today that because of Jesus we have nothing to fear this side of heaven. Take a look at the text with me…

JOHN 6:16 – 21

16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. 20 But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” 21 Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

JOHN 9:1 – 41

1 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.” 6 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10 So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was division among them. 17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”

18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19 and asked them, “Is this your son who was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. 21 But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” 22 (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

24 So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” 25 He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” 26 They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27 He answered them, “I have told you already and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” 28 And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” 30 The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, God listens to him. 32 Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.

35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” 38 He said, “Lord I believe,” and he worshipped him. 39 Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” 40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt, but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”

THE STORM (6:16 – 21)

This story comes right on the heels of Jesus feeding the five thousand with a few loaves of bread and a couple fish. After the people in the crowd started plotting to take Jesus and make him their political leader he retreated to the mountain side by himself while his disciples got into a boat and headed for Capernaum (6:15 – 17).

If you can imagine the scene, the disciples are out in the boat in the middle of the night, it’s dark and a storm begins to rage across the sea making their journey really rough because of the strong wind (6:17 – 18).

So here they are, rowing as hard as they can against the wind and the waves (three to four miles into their stormy journey) and they spot Jesus walking on the water and they are completely frightened (vss. 18 – 19).

Sometimes it’s really scary when God shows up in the midst of the storms of life because he typically doesn’t show up the way you expect him to.

I love Jesus’ response to his disciples when he says “It is I; do not be afraid” and then John tells us that they were happy to get Jesus into the boat with them and then suddenly they arrived at their destination on solid, dry ground (vss. 20 – 21).

This story teaches us that Jesus is powerful over the forces of nature. Not only can he walk on water but he is also able to calm the stormy wind and waves that are beating his disciples to a bloody pulp.

There is no force of nature that can stand against the power of Jesus. The wind obeys him. The waves obey him. The deep water that would normally drown a mortal man even obeys him and becomes like a footstool to him.

It’s no wonder that John says earlier that, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made” (Jn. 1:1 – 3).

It is no surprise that if Jesus is the Creator of all things that all things would ultimately bow their knee in obedient submission to him.

Paul agrees with this and further underscores this truth when he says that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in Heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:15 – 17).

Again, Jesus is supremely powerful over the forces of nature and in him all things are held together because he created all things.

There is no physical force of nature that can stand against the power of Jesus. Ultimately he is sovereign over all things from wind and wave to depths of the sea; anything in all of creation.

What storm do we have to fear if Jesus is our Savior? What storm do we have to fear if God is our Father?

THE DARKNESS (9:1 – 41)

This story happens right on the heels of another confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish leaders in the temple (Ch. 8).

In this previous episode things got so heated between Jesus and the Jews that the Jewish leaders picked up stones to kill Jesus because he made the audacious claim of being God when he said “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” so he left the temple to avoid getting stoned to death (8:57 – 59).

After leaving the temple Jesus encounters a man who had been born blind and he explains to his disciples that this man was blind not because of his sin or his parent’s sin but because he had been chosen for the power of God to be displayed in him (vss. 1 – 3).

Jesus further explains that he is “the light of the world” and that the time to do the work of bringing sight to the blind, light into the darkness, is now here (vss. 4 – 5).

He then proceeds to spit in the mud, smear the mud on the blind man’s eyes and then tells the man to go and wash his eyes out in a pool that is named Sent and the man immediately obeys him and he is able to see (vss. 6 – 7).

After this, the man’s neighbors begin arguing back and forth about whether or not this man was really healed and the man jumps at the opportunity to share the story of what Jesus has done for him even though he doesn’t know where Jesus is (vss. 8 – 11).

So the neighbors decide that it’s best to bring the man to the religious leaders so they can weigh in on the situation and from there the inquisition unravels as the Pharisees question the man multiple times and begin to make judgments about Jesus accusing him of being a sinner because the miracle happened on the Sabbath even though the man who had been blind believes that Jesus must be a prophet (vss. 13 – 17).

The man’s answer leaves the Pharisees greatly disturbed so they grab his parents and begin questioning them hoping to catch some kind of discrepancy in the story; in their minds there’s no way that this man was born blind and there’s no way that Jesus actually healed this man because the Pharisees have already rejected Jesus and decided that anyone claiming that Jesus is the Messiah should be excommunicated from the synagogue (vss. 18 – 23).

Long story short, the Jewish leaders hated Jesus so much that they were doing everything they could to attempt an all out character assassination.

So they bring the man back in for questioning and they try to convince him that Jesus is a sinner and his (the blind man who now sees) response is to simply argue that the only way he could have been healed by Jesus is if Jesus was a worshipper of God and he even gets frustrated with their (the Pharisees) line of questioning and asks them if they want to be Jesus’ disciples (vss. 24 – 33).

Of course the religious leaders get ticked and toss this man out of the synagogue after shaming him for being “born in utter sin” and therefore, in their self-righteous mindset, he was unqualified to teach them about the things of God (vs. 34).

Heaven forbid if a sinner teaches the things of God to others! These Pharisees were great models of what it looks like to be spiritually blind while believing that you are just fine!

And of course this is just what Jesus confronts in these religious hypocrites after he finds the healed man and asks him if he believes in the Son of Man (vss. 35 – 42).

The reality is that only someone who understands their spiritual blindness will be able to ask for spiritual eyesight and only Jesus has the power to give sight to the blind.

This is what leads Luke in his gospel to record Jesus saying that, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk. 4:18 – 19).

This is what Jesus does. He proclaims good news to those who are poor in spirit. He proclaims freedom to those who have been in captivity to the clutches of Satan, Sin and Death. He gives sight to the blind, gives freedom to the oppressed and proclaims God’s grace.

This really is a radically different message and ministry in contrast to the Pharisees’ message and ministry.

Jesus’ message and ministry is saturated with transformation, freedom and light. But the Pharisees’ message and ministry was saturated with legalistic rule keeping and list making. Jesus is the light of the world who brings light to those who are living in darkness.

Where do you need to ask the Lord to shed his light in the darkness? What parts of your life are consumed with darkness right now?

CONCLUSION…

We’ve learned that Jesus is powerful over the forces of nature and we’ve also learned that Jesus is the light of the world who gives sight to those who are living in spiritual darkness.

But why does this matter? What difference does it make in our lives? If John wrote this gospel so “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (Jn. 20:31) then what is the logical application of these two stories?

It seems to me that we are all living in fearful and uncertain times where we are in desperate need of the God who is infinitely powerful over the storms of life and is able to give sight to those in darkness.

There are many things to fear today. This pandemic we find ourselves in has touched all of our lives in various ways that cause fear. This thing has impacted our jobs, our family members, our communities, our recreation, our education and our foreseeable future.

There is much uncertainty, much darkness and much stormy weather to stand and row against in this season. Whether this has caused a little fear or a ton of fear in you, the reality is that this pandemic has affected us all in fearful ways.

These two stories have reminded us today that Jesus is powerful over the storms of life and he is the light of the world who gives sight to those who are living in spiritual darkness.

Storms are scary things to encounter. The darkness is a scary thing to encounter too. But these passages teach us today that because of Jesus we have nothing to fear this side of heaven.

We have a Savior in Christ Jesus who went to the cross for us, left the tomb empty on the third day, returned to the right hand of the Father in glory and has promised us an eternity in Heaven where there is no sin, no fear, no sickness, no disease, no pain and therefore no tears.

Because of this we can rest assured that no matter what happens in the world around us we have the joy of the cross, the hope of the empty tomb and the ultimate destiny of Heaven as sons and daughters of the King.