Sunday, March 15, 2026
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Text: Exodus 17:1-7
Sermon Audio
As we gather… Our Lord wants to restore all things. For a time He held His peace (Isa 42:14). However, the time came that He stepped in to take action. He wants to heal the eyes of the blind. He wants to heal sickness. He wants to forgive sin and empower people to lead holy lives. We see this in the person of Jesus Christ who in our Gospel text heals the eyes of the blind man. But as we look at Isaiah’s Old Testament text, we see that the God doesn’t just care about those who are literally blind, He mourns that the true blind man is His servant Israel. He has sent the nation of Israel to be a messenger to the nations, but Israel is failing its mission. That is also why God sent Jesus to be the true Israel who can minister to the nations. The Lord wants to restore all things, and He works through us to restore us spiritually that we can minister to others, even if imperfectly, as we as the Church share this light with the nations.
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
It isn’t hard for us here in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin to imagine the sort of terrain from Isaiah today. We are surrounded by hills and bluffs, streams and rivers. Many of you came over the river and through the woods to church today. In some places, if it weren’t for the roads, you would barely be able to see 10 feet in front of you; let alone all the way to La Crosse (Viroqua). This terrain does not make it easy to get from point A to point B. We need a path through and well marked roads to get to church. The drive would certainly be simpler if all of the obstacles in our way were made into flat land. Take it from a flat lander, when you can see the water tower of the town 40 miles away over the corn fields, you can just start walking and eventually you will get there. But even in the fields of rural Illinois I would still have to pass through a timber or two and cross a creek here and there to get to that town. There are still obstacles. We need paths. We need the obstacles removed to find our way.
Sin has made the path to righteousness impossible to pass on our own. God gave the people of Israel the path to Him through His written Word and the teaching and preaching of the prophets that pointed to the promise of redemption through His true Servant, the Christ. The people just needed to see the path. They had to have their spiritual blindness lifted. At the time of Isaiah, Israel had become blind to God’s Word. They were standing in the woods with their false prophets thinking that God wouldn’t bring destruction. They had built a cabin for themselves in the woods and forgotten the purpose of God’s Word. They ensured themselves that they could do whatever they wanted as God’s people in their spiritual blindness. Isaiah pleaded with them. He proclaimed repentance and the path to righteousness in the promised Christ to come. They had all they needed to see the path, yet they did not perceive in their spiritual blindness. They had been given the road map of Scripture and seen God’s redemptive miracles, but were so blind that they couldn’t see that it pointed to a salvation that was outside of this world. That it pointed to God’s faithful Servant, His Christ who would lead them to eternal salvation. No matter how well marked the signs are to Highway 14, I could never see them if I were blind. I would never make it to church here in La Crosse (Viroqua). We need to have every obstacle removed and our blindness healed.
“For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor; I will gasp and pant. I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation; I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools. And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.” The LORD could no longer hold his peace. His love and compassion for His people spilled out into action. Not only for His chosen Israel, but for all that had been walking in spiritual blindness since the fall into sin. He sent His faithful Servant, His only begotten Son, Jesus, the Christ who would heal the blind and draw all nations to Himself. The second person of the Trinity came down from heaven and took on our flesh for us. He became the true Israel and second Adam. Jesus came with a spiritual chainsaw and bulldozer to clear all of our obstacles so that all could see the path to righteousness. From cradle to cross he hacked down the trees, flattened the obstacles, and removed all road blocks by healing our diseased flesh, living a sinless life, and teaching that He is the path to righteousness. Only in Christ can all people find salvation. He left no excuse. Jesus showed that He was God’s faithful Servant from Isaiah. As the man born blind who received sight in our Gospel reading says, “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” Only God can give sight to the blind. Jesus came and did everything to clear the path, but without spiritual sight, it is impossible to see that the obstacles that once hid the path to righteousness have been removed. Sitting blind in an open field is just as hopeless as being blind in the forest.
The path was always Jesus. Whether it be faith in the Christ to come or the full revelation of our LORD in His incarnation that made the path clear. God must open the eyes of the spiritual blindness that all men are born into. Our Gospel reading reveals the message of our Old Testament reading perfectly. Isaiah writes, “Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see! Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the Lord? He sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear.” Here the blind and deaf servant is his people Israel. They were given everything needed to see the way to salvation is only in the LORD; yet they did not observe this truth. The people in the day of Isaiah had turned to false gods. The Pharisees in our Gospel reading had created their own self-righteous false gods. Both were blind. Jesus sent a literal blind man who had received sight into their midst and they refused to acknowledge that He could be the Christ. Jesus wasn’t who they wanted the Christ to be. Only God could give sight and they couldn’t see that God gave this blind man sight. They even had the two or three witnesses brought to them, as required by the Law to prove the truth, and they still wouldn’t believe. They were far more blind than the once blind man ever was. They are turned back and utterly put to shame, who trust in carved idols, who say to metal images, “You are our gods.”
The Pharisees had created gods in their heart. They may not have been the metal images of old, but they were just as evil. They searched Scriptures and found themselves, not the fact that they testified to Jesus. Sound familiar? False prophets today would rather read their own sense of morality into Scripture than see Christ’s redemptive work in it. “God loves all people, so all religions must lead to the same god, Jesus is just one name for it” or “do whatever is in your heart because Jesus loved sinners so He won’t care if you do whatever you want, the Bible is an archaic book with archaic rules anyways.” These are messages that are preached from so-called Christian churches in our day. This is blindness. They point people to find God behind rocks and trees, anywhere but to God’s written and preached Word and His Holy Sacraments.
This temptation isn’t limited to false teachers. How easy is it for us to find ourselves self-justifying in our own ways. We live in a world that is governed by self indulgence. We look to the metal images in our hands to satisfy our every desire. We know we should love and serve our neighbor, yet we spend countless hours flipping through Facebook to find the latest gossip and to put ourselves on our own self-righteous pedestals. Even if our thoughts aren’t that sinister, we have wasted enough time that we haven’t gotten our job done for the day or provided food for our family as we indulge our idol. We cover our eyes and dive into a world of pornography, greed, and jealousy instead of walking as children of the light who have had their eyes opened by Christ. Lift your heads and come fix your eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith. The one who has given you eyes to see just like He did to the blind man in John 9.
Notice what Jesus does for him. He scoops up some dirt, spits on it, and places the mud on the man’s eyes. Just like in the creation of man in Genesis, God uses His hands and brings new creation to the man’s eyes, but he can only see after he washes. Through the waters, God gives sight to mankind in the washing of regeneration, renewal, and rebirth in Christ. Jesus touched your eyes and gave you sight to see. He has made the path to righteousness clear for you in His atoning life, death, and resurrection. You now see the one who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. You see Him where he promises to be. He has opened your eyes to look upon this altar and see Christ’s sacrificial body and blood given for you in this bread and wine. He has opened your ears to hear His Word faithfully preached from this pulpit. He has opened your eyes to read the Scripture and return here to constantly be filled with His body and blood for your forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. In the cross of Christ, The Lord was pleased, for his righteousness’ sake, to magnify his law and make it glorious.
In Holy Baptism you have been cured of your spiritual blindness to see that Christ is the fulfillment of the Law. You come to where Christ promises to be found to continue to receive His righteousness. You take the righteousness that is placed into your mouth at the Lord’s table out into the world. He who has begun a good work in you will bring it to completion. You proclaim with the formerly blind man to all who are still spiritually blind that Jesus gave you sight through your words and deeds. He has made you a new creation. Who knows, God might just use you to bring your neighbor to Christ to receive sight. Regardless of how the blind receive you, Jesus will still find you afterwards just like He did for the man born blind, so you can look upon Him. With your eyes on Him, you can pick up your cross, put your sin to death through the gift of the Holy Spirit, and follow Him into the eternal life that He has opened for you to see.
Jesus has made the path to salvation sure and removed all obstacles through His redeeming life. On this level ground, His cross is lifted high for all to see. You have been given eyes to see it from La Crosse to Viroqua and to the ends of the earth. Christ has brought His salvation to the whole world. Jesus has made the path to righteousness straight through His atoning death and given you new life and eternal hope in his resurrection. Thanks be to God!
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard and keep you in the true faith unto life everlasting. Amen.