HEALING OF THE MAN BORN BLIND.

(John ix:1-11.)

I. The Analysis.

(1) The natural condition of all men (verse 1).

(2) The right and the wrong explanation (verses 4-6).

(3) The Light giving light (verses 5-7).

(4) A faithful witness (verses 8-11).

II. The Heart of the Lesson.

This lesson presents our Lord in perhaps the greatest of His characters, that of the light of the world. To all outward seeming nothing could have been more audacious. What the unbelieving world saw as it looked upon Jesus was a young Jewish artisan, from a remote and ill-reputed village of Galilee. He spoke of the world, but He had never travelled. Not once had He been beyond the confines of the little land given to His ancestor, Abraham. The civilizations of Greece and Rome were known to Him only by rumor. The great literatures of the world and its science and art were unknown to Him. He had neither wealth nor great position. His followers were a few ignorant fishermen, tax gatherers and converted harlots. He had not written a book, and He was about to go out of life as an executed criminal. All this was what the world saw, and all that it saw.

Nineteen hundred years have passed since Jesus announced Himself as the Light of the World. What does that world see now? It sees the absolute verification of that claim. Wherever Jesus is known there is light; and the measure of the light in any part of the world to-day is the precise measure of the degree in which Jesus is known.

To any civilized man life is intolerable just where Jesus is not known. He has proved Himself to be not only the sole spiritual light which this world has, or has ever had, but He is the light of intellect and of the affectional life as well. Everywhere the ethic of Jesus has formed the human conscience. Millions are living in conscious violation of that ethic, but they are all living with a bad conscience because of it. The intellectual light which Jesus has shed abroad in the world has been awfully perverted, and for this the Gentile nations will be called to an awful account when He comes back again, but the light came from Him.

He has given the only light on the mysteries of life and of death which has been found adequate. He has interpreted both life and death. Life here is immensely important because it is the vestibule to the life beyond; and death is a conquered enemy, who can at the worst but open the gates of glory to a passing saint. He has given light on the philosophy of life, on the true life-method. Life is to be invested, not hoarded, and the investment is to be made in other lives, not in stocks and bonds. Religion is not saying prayers, but visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keeping himself unspotted from the world. When ecclesiasticism, and creed and custom, and form give place to conversion, the unity of the Spirit, and the invested life, there will come such a revival as this world never saw.