John 9:1-3

THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING

‘And as Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.’

John 9:1

How familiar and how natural to us is this question, this puzzle of the Apostles, of physical pain! And our Lord gives His answer.

I. Let us remember, first, how definitely our Lord was accustomed to declare the intimate bond between bodily sickness and spiritual sin.—The entire purpose of His miracles, for instance, was to assert this very truth in its broad form. His miracles—He told the Jews so—were to say that it was the same in either region, whether He said, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee,’ or, ‘Rise up and walk.’ So He would say to men, ‘Go, and sin no more.’ He did connect physical evil in the man with spiritual sin most closely. He declared that they were the same laws working on two levels, spirit and body.

II. And now here is another answer given.—Now at this point, the blind man, He takes a new outlook, a higher level. His answer would say this: Let the past, whatever it be, with all its tangled mystery of pain and wrong, the past, with all its dismal story of ancient dishonour—let the past be dismissed, be discarded, be cast out of the reckoning. The secrets of sad inheritance, the hidden intricacies of unwoven trouble, the agitating questions whence the evil came, and at whose charge, or of what remote origin—all this, with the perplexities it involves, and all these turmoils and interminable anxieties, these may have their truth, which cannot be gainsaid; but now let all this go, let it vanish, pass it all by. Take up a new view of it altogether. ‘Neither this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the glory of God should be revealed.’ Note the expression—‘ but that’ the glory of God.

III. The answer given to the Apostles is, after all, our Christian answer to many a doubt and agitating question.—Before our eyes too is the same problem, though now infinitely widened and multiplied. The vast world of physical pain, how it beclouds, how our souls shrink and die within us as we first seriously face it! We can pass it by while it is only known from hearsay, but not from actual experience. But when we touch it, when it lays its hands on us, or, much worse, when it smites down our nearest and dearest, then will the full weight of the curse make itself felt; we are staggered and lose the track; the matter is too awful, too immense for us to calculate, or measure, or define. True, we, as were the Apostles, are right, perfectly right, to cling to our root assumption that all this dreadful scene is undesigned of God. It is not His will. It is the evidence of some dreadful mischance and counter movement. This pain is the curse, is the sign, is the token of an evil sin has brought about. But still, though that connection with direct sin is more plain than we perhaps sometimes allow, yet we, like the Apostles, feel that question still lurking in the face of our assertions, this problem of pain so immense we are quite unable to cover it in broad generalities. We cannot track the connection. Was it he who sinned? was it his parents? Who can say we dare to speak positively?

IV. Let these questions go, these questions of detail.—You cannot answer them. To answer them involves complete and perfect knowledge, and you have not got it. Leave that to come hereafter, when perfect knowledge will be given you. You can know broad rules, but you cannot follow them down into the bewildering intricacies of this immense historic life with its endless responsibilities. Therefore pass beyond them, sweep them out of sight, let them go. You need not discuss God’s justice. He, too, was distressed, was indignant, was pitiful at the sight which you pity so sorely. That suffering became the motive, became the reason, for sending His own Blessed Son to share its sorrow, to redeem its curse, yea, at the cost of His own life, to lay it down that His Father might be glorified. It is the root law of the Incarnation, it is the very principle by which we live.

Canon Scott Holland.

Illustration

‘Oh, what are we,

Frail creatures as we are, that we should sit

In judgment, man on man! and what were we,

If the All-merciful should mete to us

With the same rigorous measure wherewithal

Sinner to sinner metes!’