John 9:2-3

John 9:2

The Discipline of Sorrow

It is not very easy to see, nor is it necessary for us to determine, in what way the disciples thought that a man could be born blind in consequence of his own sins. They may have supposed that it was done in a kind of anticipatory justice, and that God, knowing beforehand that the man would commit some sin, punished it before it was done, by causing him to be born blind. However this may be, the intention of the whole passage is abundantly clear. Our Lord is checking and rebuking that tendency which is strong in all minds, and very strong in some, so to trace back suffering and sin as to find the cause of their unhappiness in some particular wrong thing which has been done.

I. Let us see how far we are safe to connect any present sorrow with sin, and what is the true view and the right use of a trial. It is mercifully ordered, in the natural body, that when there is any mischief going on in any part, it is almost sure to set up pain. So I would lay it down, that everyone who is in any way distressed, should look first to see if there is anything wrong, of which that pain is meant to be the index and the monitor. But when that is once done, I would not dwell there, but I would turn straight to the future. I would consider, not, For what past thing is this sent? but, What coming thing is this to bring about? To what design of God is this meant to give effect?

II. And this is the way by which a sorrow shall quicken and elevate and ennoble a man. For the danger of sorrow is the want of elasticity. If there were more spring, it would do you more good. And that onward look to some happy expected end, is just that which induces that play of mind, and that hopefulness, without which no sorrow will ever fulfil its mission. To look back, shuts a man to the past, and sets him grovelling in its ashes. To see a dawn of brighter things, to take the darkness as the signal that Christ is near, to have faith in a good tomorrow, to realize the greatnesses that are waiting, and, by believing them, to command the manifestation of the works of God this is to bring in the covenanted dawn, and cancel the bitterness of the present hour; this is the true office of grief, and this is the secret of a sanctified sorrow and a glorified God.

J. Vaughan, Sermons,1868, p. 21.

References: John 9:3; John 9:4. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xiii., No. 756; vol. xvi., No. 943.