Seeing & Not Believing – March 19, 2023

Raleigh Mennonite Church

On this fourth Sunday of Lent Melissa preached from John 9:1-41 and Romans 5:1-11. The story of Jesus healing the man who was born blind, and the subsequent questioning by the Pharisees illustrates the difference between being cured and being healed.

After he gains his sight, he is repeatedly questioned by the people in power in his community. When the man subsequently pushes back and refuses to back down, he is reviled by them, they drive him out of his community.

It turns out that what makes a righteous life a good life is flipped on its head. A good life is not a sighted life and a bad life, a blind life, a bad life is the kind where we depend on our own abilities and justify our rightness. A good life is one where we fall into the arms of grace.