Pool of Siloam 1986

John chapter 9, starting in verse 1. As he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth, and his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him. We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day. Night comes when no man can work.

We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day. Night comes when no one can work. We must work while it is day, while we can see what we're doing.

We look at a man who wanders from place to place, never holds a steady job, and we call him a drifter. He's a drifter because, at least in one sense, he is blind. He cannot see beyond the place where he is at any given moment.

There is no road that makes sense to him. There is no goal for him to shoot at. There is no home for him to return to.

There is no father waiting for his coming. So he drifts. And he'll keep on drifting until, somehow, his eyes are open, and he sees a road that makes sense.

And then he either starts walking that road, or he keeps on drifting right on into hell. But you can have a steady job, and live in the same community for twenty years, and raise seven children, and pay all your bills, and still be a drifter. You can be a pillar of the Church, the greatest evangelist, east of the Mississippi, and still be a drifter.

A drifter is a man who sees no purpose beyond that of his own ego. A woman who has no vision of what she's been sent into this world to do. Joshua knew why he was here.

Mary understood what she was to do. Daniel, in Babylon, knew why he was in Babylon. But in much of American Christendom, or evangelical Christianity, or you name it, a vision of purpose is extremely vague.

We're all taken up with our own feelings and our experiences, and our relationships, and all this. But very, very little understanding of what we're here to do. Everything is oriented around me.

See, but until we see what that road is that we are to travel, until we know that we've been sent, and what we've been sent to do, we're going to drift. You say you've been redeemed. You've been washed in the blood of the Lamb.

You've died for yourself in the waters of your baptism. You've been raised by the Spirit to a new life. What are you doing with that new life? Where's it going? We like to say that we've been called together into this fellowship, this wonderful mix of people, for a purpose.

But unless that purpose is very, very clear, and unless, as a congregation, we're pursuing that purpose, we drift. As he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.

We must work the works of him who sent me. While it is day, night comes when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

As he said this, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle and anointed the man's eyes with the clay, saying to him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means sin. So he went and washed and came back seeing. The man was physically blind.

But in, with, and under his physical blindness, there was another blindness. This man also was a drifter. He sat there and begged every day in order to get enough money to live.

But for what? He was surrounded by men and women who had their sight, but were as blind as he. So Jesus spit on the ground, made clay of the spittle, anointed the man's eyes with the clay, and said, Go wash in the pool of Siloam, the pool called sin. The man goes, gets the mud out of his eyes, and now he begins to see light just flickering and shaking before him for the first time in his life.

He's looking at his own reflection in a pool. The first thing this man sees when his eyes are open is a pool whose name is sin. And before this day is over, the man not only sees the physical world around him, but he sees clearly what he's in this world to do.

He went and washed in the pool of Siloam, sin. His eyes opened, he sees the road. Now all of us in this place, except Brother Benny down here, have our sight.

But we all need this miracle. We need to wash in the pool of Siloam so that we know what it means to be sent by God. And beyond that, know that we have been sent by God.

The redemptive power of God will not move in our lives, cannot move in our lives, until we know that we have been sent. Years ago, back in Nova Scotia, they wanted to organize a new church in a town called Fryfield on the edge of Halifax. And so the executive sent a young man who was very well trained, highly educated, and he looked great in his black suit and clerical collar.

And he went from door to door, and he held meetings, and he made phone calls, and he did everything. Six months later, four months went by, and nothing's happening here. He came to our home one evening, really, really depressed, and he just didn't know, just didn't know.

And I said, Mike, do you believe that you've been sent by God to preach the gospel in Fryfield? And he started to laugh. You know, us Lutherans, we don't talk like that. The redemptive power of God will not move in our lives until we know that we've been sent.

We must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day. Night comes. We're no one to work.

He sent me. Go wash in the pool. Call sent.

When Moses returned to Egypt after 40 years in the wilderness of Midian, he went as a man who had been sent. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth my children, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt. And this consciousness that he was sent is what kept him going, enabled him to have the boldness to stand up to Pharaoh.

When young Isaiah left the temple after he had the vision of glory, he walked out of that temple as a man who was sent. Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? Here am I. Send me, says Isaiah. And God says, okay, Isaiah, go.

And say to this people, see and see, but don't perceive. Hear and hear, but don't grasp it. Daniel was high up in the government of Babylon.

He was a civil servant, and he had important things to do. He made decisions and held meetings and gave advice, and he did his job well. And he functioned in the middle of what you could have called the center of power of the Antichrist.

And didn't compromise himself. Right there, he kept on going because he knew that he had been sent to that hour and to that place by the God of Israel. Our Lord began his ministry by going to the synagogue in his hometown, opens the book of Isaiah and reads, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives. He has sent me, sent me, always conscious of the fact that he's been sent. We must work the works of him who sent me while in his day.

Barnabas and Saul go out from Antioch. Sent, not only by the church at Antioch, but by the living God. Souls being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia.

So when are our eyes going to really open so that we know that we've been sent? When we obey the command of the Spirit of God among us now, which says to us as well, even now, go wash in the pool of the Lord. Haven't you noticed that for some time now, the Lord has been smearing clay on your eyes? He spit, made clay of the spittle and anointed the man's eyes with the clay. And when this clay gets on our eyes, it's even harder for us to see what's happening.

And some of it seeps in around the edges and scratches our eyeballs and we're more confused than ever. That's how Peter felt that day on the edge of Galilee. When Peter says, turn around, turn your boat around, go out into the deep and let down your nets for a cast.

And Peter says, what are you talking about? I mean, we were out there all night. We didn't catch anything. We're burned out.

We're tired. We're messed up. Our spirits are dry.

We don't know which way to go. But he doesn't. And because of his funds, that episode on Galilee becomes Peter's pool of Salon.

It's the thing that gets the mud out of his eyes. And for the first time in that man's life, he knows what he's been sent into this world to do. Don't be afraid, Peter.

From now on, you're going to be catching men. It was then that he heard those words and he began to understand that he was being sent. So where is our pool of Salon? It's very much within reach.

It's within reach today. The blind man, to get to the pool of Salon, had to rise up from his familiar begging place, find someone to lead him out of his way over there to that pool of Salon. Peter had to take his boat, turn it around, and head back out into the deep, when the one thing he really wanted to do was go home and go to bed.

Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight. And it wasn't just like he just turned aside right near the burning bush. He had to crawl over rocks to get to that burning bush.

It was inconvenient. You can be sure. You know, Hollywood doesn't tell us the whole story, but God knows what it is.

But you can be sure this guy had to do a little inconveniencing of himself to get to the burning bush. Even our Lord went to a pool of Salon for us. And his pool of Salon is called Gethsemane.

Where three times he says, Father, there's some way to get rid of this coffin. Please take it. And three times he also says, Nevertheless, not my will, your will.

Your pool of Salon is that point where with all your heart, with absolute honesty, you push aside all reservations and all conditions and all amendments to the motion and all hemming and hawing and say and mean it when you say it, not my will, Lord, your will. When you wash in that pool, when you let every drop of that pool wash every area of your life, your will, Lord God, not mine, your eyes open and you see the world. Pool of Salon is three things.

It's a prayer. It's a change in direction. First of all, it's a prayer.

It's turning your heart all the way around, opening it all the way up and saying, your will, Lord. Not my will, your will. I talked to an honest man a few weeks ago who said, There is one area in my life where I'm scared to death to pray that prayer because I am just afraid that God may ask me to do the very thing I don't want to do.

When that man prays that prayer, when he goes to his pool of Salon, as I'm sure he will if he hasn't already, when he says, Okay, Lord, have it your way entirely, your will, not mine, whatever you say, his eyes will open and he will see the road, the mud will come out, the Spirit of God will come into him and he will see that the road is not God trying to figure out some way to make his life as miserable as possible. That's it. That's the thing.