Based on the entire 9th Chapter of the Gospel of John, this was given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on March 6, 2005, and again on March 15, 2009, at the Hartford (IL) East Maple Street Chapel.

As I note in the video, this message includes some difficult concepts, and so I quoted quite-a-bit from a commentary that I felt did a good job explaining it…

The Webster Collegiate Dictionary defines ‘torque’ as, “a force that produces or tends to produce rotation or torsion”. You might say, in other words, that ‘torque’ is the energy that’s required to make another object turn or twist. An example of this is the torque produced by the engine in an automobile that is applied through the driveshaft to cause the wheels to turn. Now, one of Newton’s Laws states that ‘a body at rest tends to stay at rest’. So any torque that is applied to an object must be more than enough to overcome that object’s tendency to not move! If it’s not, then one of two things will happen… either the source of the torque will not be able to turn… that is, stall or stop… or, depending on the weight of the object, the source of the torque will begin to circle the object it is trying to turn. Let me see if I can demonstrate this a little more clearly…

If a kid on a bicycle can pedal hard enough… that’s the torque… the front wheel of the bike will come off of the ground and try to go around the back wheel! Now, if he’s good, he can then control the amount of torque he is applying and maintain the front wheel at a given distance from the ground… if he’s not, the whole thing will continue all the way over until he falls off! A drag racer is designed to apply a huge amount of torque to the wheels in a very short period of time, and so is very prone to this twisting over the tires, but most have special ‘wheelie bars’ built on the rear to prevent them from going all the way over. And by their very nature, farm tractors have a very real problem with all of this… their drive wheels are weighted and ballasted to give them the necessary traction needed to pull an implement through the field, while the engine horsepower has increased dramatically over the years to further enhance that ability. And as horsepower has increased, it has become necessary to add more and more weight to the front of the tractor to hold it down!

Now, a four-wheel drive tractor has a different kind of problem… due to the dynamics of the direction that the torque is applied, the rear axle is still trying to lift the front of the tractor up while the front axle is trying to push down on the rear! That’s why they are generally built to be so much heavier in the front to begin with! In fact, back when Case was still building the solid-frame four-wheel drives, the set-up and owner’s manuals both called for ballasting, or adding weight, to position 60% of the tractor’s static, or non-moving, weight on the front axle and only 40% on the rear. Then, when the tractor is pulling through the field, the weight transfer that occurs due to the torque forces applied to each axle will even out that difference and each axle will be carrying and sharing an equal amount of work!

Once, while working at the dealer in Springfield, many years ago, one of their regular customers brought in an older Case four-wheel-drive that they had purchased there new and had had for some years. I was not the one working on it, but I couldn’t help but notice that the rear tires were worn down to nothing while the front tires still looked almost new. The tractor was in for work on the rear drive train, and when I asked, was told that it had been there a number of times for the same problem… and yes, it had ballast added to the rear tires, not the front! The problem, to me, was obvious… the tractor was weighted wrong, and the rear axle was doing most of the work, while the front one was just ‘going along for the ride’! When I pointed that out to them I was told, “Tractors have always had fluid added to the rear wheels… that’s just the way it is, and that’s how we want it! Period!”

These people had been taught that there was one particular way to do something, and no amount of talking or explaining on my part would convince anyone that that was not always the case… not even me showing them in the book how it was supposed to be done! They were blind to everything but what they wanted to believe… which was the same problem facing Jesus in these verses from John!

Let’s start, though, by asking this question… “Why was this man born blind? Why the hurt?”

       The Life Application Commentary notes that… “In Jewish culture, many believed that all calamities and suffering resulted from sin. The disciples believed, then, based at least partly on Old Testament texts, that a disability such as this man’s blindness was such a punishment… Many people around the world today still believe that suffering results from sin. People tend to believe that displeasing God leads to punishment; therefore, they assume that whenever a person seems to be undergoing punishment, there is reason to suspect wrongdoing. This assumption, for example, drove Job’s friends to treat him with heavy-handed judgment.

But this man suffered so that God could be glorified. We live in a fallen world where good behavior is not always rewarded and bad behavior not always punished; therefore, innocent people sometimes suffer. If God removed suffering whenever we asked, we would follow him for comfort and convenience, not out of love and devotion. Regardless of the reasons for our suffering, Jesus has the power to help us deal with it. When we suffer from a disease, tragedy, or disability, we should not ask, Why did this happen to me? or What did I do wrong? Instead, we should ask God to give us strength for the trial and a clearer perspective on what is happening.

While the disciples were thinking about what caused the blindness. Jesus shifted their attention away from the cause to the purpose. Jesus demonstrated God’s power by healing the man. Instead of worrying about the cause of our problems, we should instead find out how God could use our problem to demonstrate his power. Jesus explained that the man’s blindness had nothing to do with his sin or his parents’ sin: “But this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” These words do not mean that God heartlessly inflicted blindness on this man at birth, but simply that he allowed nature to run its course so that the victim would ultimately bring glory to God through the reception of both physical and spiritual sight.

How can God be at work in a desperate situation? There may be times when we have done everything possible to solve a problem. After we have explored the options, exhausted our resources, probed our motives, asked for advice, and done what was suggested, we may have found that nothing seems to have changed. We may have persisted in prayer and asked others to pray for us, and yet perceive no answer. The truth is, the solution, resolution, or answer may not ever come in this life. But it is also true that regardless of our difficulty and whether or not our burden is removed, God is still at work.

• God may use our experience to help advise and encourage others who pass through the same trials.
• God may use our suffering to break through the hardness of another person and bring about change in them.
• God may use our unresolved need to motivate others to keep searching for a solution from which others will benefit.
• God may use our endurance in suffering rather than the suffering itself to be an encouraging example to other believers.

Indeed, there are as many ways that God might make use of our sufferings as there are ways to suffer… and all will bring glory to God, if we just follow His leadings in their use! But, as useful and important as all of this is to our daily lives, it is not the main point of our story!

The Life Application Commentary tells us that… “Thus far, Jesus has explained his identity in many ways to his listeners. Often he would use a physical object, person, or setting to depict a certain spiritual aspect of his life and purpose. For example:

While sitting by Jacob’s well and talking to the Samaritan woman, Jesus explained that he could give her “living water”.

After feeding over 5,000 people with two small loaves of bread, Jesus explained that he was “the bread of life”.

At the Feast of Tabernacles, where a symbolic act took place commemorating the time when Moses struck the rock in the wilderness and it brought forth water for the parched Israelites, Jesus told all the people, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink”.

Again at the Feast of Tabernacles, another symbolic act took place commemorating the pillar of fire that guided the Israelites on their wilderness journey. Jesus told all the people, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life”.

All of Jesus’ miracles also pointed to who he was. John follows Jesus’ discourse about being “the light of the world” with this account of Jesus restoring sight to a man born blind. The story illustrates the spiritual truth of Christ being the Light of the World…”

Now, “because the people in our story today discovered both a miracle and a mystery surrounding the healing of the blind man, they took him to what they considered the most dependable place for exploring such matters… the Pharisees…who quickly concluded that whatever else the healer might be, he certainly wasn’t from God… for otherwise he ‘would not work on the Sabbath.’ In their quest for “truth,” these Pharisees tried a number of explanations to invalidate the miracle: (1) perhaps the blind man had not been blind from birth or had not been totally blind; (2) perhaps God did this miracle directly (but they would recognize no human agent).

And when the formerly blind man pointed out the obvious answers that they had been so studiously avoiding, they responded by viciously berating him and expelling him from their presence.

The astonishing fact of the man’s newly given vision eluded this group as if they were blind. Later Jesus pointed this out as their problem… over their strenuous objections.”

The first chapter of 1 Samuel tells us how Eli sees Hannah moving her lips as she prayed silently, and assumed she was drunk. But he was letting his eyes deceive him… or, more correctly, he was letting his brain misinterpret what his eyes were seeing! And that is exactly what the owners of that Case tractor back then and the Pharisees in our story today were doing! Their eyes were seeing the truth of the matter… but their brain refused to accept it as such! They would only see and accept what they wanted to believe!

And there-in lies one of the fundamental problems with Christianity today… People will only allow themselves to see what they want to believe! Especially in this country, people have grown to be so independent and ‘free-thinking’ that many refuse to accept the Word of God at face value anymore, but continually strive to modify its content and meanings to be more in-line with those they want it to be! I don’t have to give examples, I’m sure most of you can come up with your own… and I’m equally sure that, like me, you can come up with some that you have been guilty of yourself!

The Pharisees declared, “We are disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”

And the former blind man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

And yet, the Pharisees refused to believe… as do far too many others today!

Are you living in darkness… are you blind to the truth… or can you see ‘the light of the world? Ephesians 5, verses 8-14 tell us, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

The ‘Treasury of Bible Illustrations’ tells of, “A young girl who once consulted with her minister… “I cannot stick it out any longer,” she said. “I am the only Christian in the factory where I work. I get nothing but taunts and sneers. It is more than I can stand. I am going to resign.”

“The minister asked her, “Where are lights placed?”

“What has that to do with it?” the young Christian asked him rather bluntly.

“Never mind,” the minister replied. “Answer my question: ‘Where are lights placed?’ “

“I suppose in dark places,” she replied.

“Yes, and that is why you have been put in that factory where there is such spiritual darkness and where there is no other Christian to shine for the Lord.”

The young Christian realized for the first time the opportunity that was hers. She felt she could not fail God by allowing her light to go out. She went back to the factory with renewed determination to let her light shine in that dark corner. Before long, she was the means of leading nine other girls to the Light.”

Let the light of Jesus shine through you everyday! Let His Words flow through you… let His Message become a beacon that lights up, not only your life, but all of the world around you!