Sunday Worship Service - March 19, 2023

All three of the scripture readings in my brief series on “conversations with Jesus” in John’s gospel are long ones! The conversation for next Sunday between Jesus and the man born blind goes on for 41 verses. It includes several other people, including the man’s parents. I encourage you to read these stories on your own in their entirety (John 3, 4, and 9). The stories are so long that some scholars believe they were once used in worship by some early churches as the spoken word for the day. The subject of chapter 9 is physical blindness and spiritual blindness. Curiously, the sighted people who learn about Jesus’ miracle are spiritually blind, while the man who receives physical sight also receives the gift of spiritual sight – not all at once, as we will see. I like these stories – and all the stories in the gospels, for that matter – because they reveal deep spiritual truths. I hope you will join us on Sunday ready to think deeply about spiritual sight and what that might mean for us.