Sight for the Blind // Why Jesus Came for Me, Part 3

Imagine just for a moment that you're blind and all of a sudden, your sight is restored. What would that be like? How would it feel? As a young man I used to have 20/20 vision but like just about everyone else, when you get to your late 30s and early 40s the old vision gets a bit blurred, and I needed glasses. These days I wouldn't even think of driving a car or reading a book without the old multifocals. When you think about it, little by little without us even noticing, our vision becomes distorted. It's like that with glaucoma too, little by little people lose their sight and by the time they notice it, it's just too late. Being able to see clearly is one of the most precious gifts of life and if you ask anyone who's lost their sight, 'What would you like most in life?' Well one of the things that would be right up there on their list, would be being able to see again. They say that seeing is believing, that's the old saying but what we see, tends to be influenced by how we look at the world. I guess that's why we call this program A Different Perspective. But when you think about it the glasses I wear, they give me clarity of vision that simply doesn't exist when I take them off. And you know when I go to the optometrist to have my vision re-checked you know every couple of years, they put all these funny little lenses in front of you and they flick them and "is this one better or is that one better, is this one better or is that." And it's amazing how many different perspectives you get on the world, with all the different combinations and permutations of lenses that they flick, flick, flick in front of your eyes. Our view of politics for instance, is influenced by what? Well mostly by our parents and by the socio-economic group that we come from. Our view of the status of men and women in marriage and workplace, well a lot of that depends on what we've learned, and what we believe. I remember as young officer in the Australian army, you know I've been through four years of training at the Royal Military College at Duntroon and they're all blokes, I mean women at Duntroon was just, well I mean that would never have happened – it does now of course, but not in those days. And I remember as a young officer getting my first female boss, can I tell you? I was devastated, I could not believe that I would be working for a woman, I was horrified. Now, I had the honesty to sit down with her and tell her that. I look back on that now and I think, "How could I ever have had that attitude, that's a bizarre attitude" but yet it was a very powerful attitude as young officer who spent four years at Duntroon. Where we sit really influences what we see and how we respond to it. There's a wonderful little story, I have used this occasionally, I have used this before but I think it's a powerful one, written in the naval journal of the US and it goes like this: Two battleships were assigned at the training squadron and had been at sea on manoeuvres in heavy weather for several days, I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog so the Captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities. Shortly after dark the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, 'Light bearing on the starboard bow,' 'is it steady or moving astern?' The Captain called out. Lookout replied, 'steady Captain' which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship. The Captain then called to the signalman 'signal that ship we're on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees', back came the signal 'advisable for you to change course 20 degrees'. The Captain said 'send I'm a Captain, change course 20 degrees', 'I'm a seaman second class' came the reply 'you'd better change course 20 degrees'. By that time the Captain was furious he spat out 'send I'm a battleship, change course 20 degrees' back came the flashing light 'I'm a lighthouse'…we changed course. Our sense of reality can get really distorted by just the way that we're brought up and the way that we're seeing things. What was the point of Jesus coming to this planet? Well we've looked over the last couple of programs this week, at what Jesus said about the reason that He came as the Son of God to be a man on this earth, and the first two reasons we looked at were that He came to give good news to the poor, and release to the captives. He actually told us that, in one of the first sermons He gave when He began his public ministry. The third reason he gave was to give recovery of sight to the blind. Now he literally did that. He healed the blind physically, it's a matter of historical record, but he also used that as a metaphor for our spiritual and emotional sight too. Now maybe you think 'well that's a bit patronising, the notion that we're not seeing straight that we need someone else to sharpen our focus, my perspective is my perspective, your perspective is your perspective, they're equally valid, why do we have to have one that is absolutely right?' I was spending some time with some students the other night at a college where I teach and we were doing a tutorial on effective communication. Now obviously the question of listening came up and one young woman shared a disagreement or an argument that she had recently with her husband. And she said, 'You know the crazy thing is that I agreed with what he said, we were actually in violent agreement, it was just the way he said it, the tone in his voice, I just snapped back at him.' We talked about that as a group for a while, and we all do that, don't we? But why do we do that? Why do we react that way? Well, because we put me at the centre of the discussion. The set of glasses that we look at that whole situation through is a set of glasses that says, 'my feelings are more important than what that person is saying'. We all get scratchy, everyone does but what's a more effective response? And we talked about that in the group. And one of the older men pipped in, and he sort of said, "You know everyone gets scratchy in a marriage, I think love is providing a space where my wife is allowed to be scratchy and I still love her, I accept that she can have scratchy days and I won't bite back at her" I thought "ah wow this is some experience of wisdom with age." Jesus said, "The greatest among you will be the servant of all." Now we all go there, we all have our blind spots, our own weaknesses, the impact on the weaknesses that we have on our own lives and others, our prejudices, the stereotypes. You know, all Asians are bad drivers, and so we put everyone in that box and the moment you see someone who's Asian you say ,"they must be a bad driver". Well, come on! Sometimes we just dislike people and we just don't give them a chance. We have misconceptions. The crazy thing though, is that we hang on to them for dear life, and should anyone criticise them, we fight to defend them. You look at how many people vote for the same party at every election only because that's the way their parents have voted. That is called dogma. Dogma happens at a political level, at a social level, in the level of attitudes of people. And dogma happens when our attitudes are more important than getting it right. When we hang on to bad attitudes and wrong attitudes for dear life irrationally, we are blind. And Jesus said: I'm the Son of God, the Spirit of the Lord is on me because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight to the blind. You know Jesus went out there and told it the way it was, that's why they crucified him. You have a look in the Bible at John chapter 9 and 10: There's a man whom he healed on the Sabbath, which was the day of rest for the Jews, and all the religious leaders got in his face and said, 'How dare you heal this man on the Sabbath, you're doing work on the Sabbath.' And Jesus said 'What's the matter with you, you blind guide? You're the blind leading the blind'. I love how Jesus brought sight to the blind physically but also mentally, and socially, and spiritually, and emotionally. One of the reasons He came is to help us to work through our blind spots. Would you ever have thought of that? Would you ever think, "Well that's one of the reasons Jesus came to this earth? He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind?" Now we can reject that, we can say, "No that's not me", or we can grab that with both hands and say, "Lord I want to have a better life, show me my blind spots."