Ccc Sermons

For thousands of years, human beings have been trying to wrap our minds around the reality of suffering–searching for answers as to why God allows awful things happen to certain people. An age-old approach to this issue, which can even be seen in Jesus’ disciples in this week’s text (John 9:1-7), was to assume that if sufferings are brought into a person’s life, it’s a sign of God’s displeasure and His judgment of their sins (or of someone close to them). Thus, when Jesus and His disciples encountered a man who’d been blind from birth, the underlying assumption was that his blindness was the result of someone’s sin; it was just a question of whose. And while Jesus was about to perform a miracle, first He paused to correct their misunderstanding and to expose their assumptions about sin and suffering. As we read this passage, may God address us and help us see suffering and disability in new light, not as a judgment of God, but as an opportunity for “God’s works” to be displayed.