The Lord bless you on this evening of the 22nd day of Lententide!

Our Lord once said to the Pharisees: “If you were blind, you would have no guilt, but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.” (v 41)

Every Christian should yearn on a daily basis to confess their blindness. We must, because we are sinners. This is how the Holy Spirit leads us, especially during this season of Lent. This is the confession forged by grace through faith in Jesus.

When it is made — by the leading of the Spirit — we are permitted by the Lord to see the only comfort that saves: that Christ came for sinners; He came for the blind; and He came for the lost.

It is easy for us to slip into treating this, however, as only applying to “once upon a time before my conversion,” but that would be a mistake. As long as we have our sinful nature clinging to us, we must confess our blindness and we should yearn to see the Lord’s grace as amazing each and every day as we continue to live in our baptismal grace.

May it ever be until we are in glory.

Invite a friend to tomorrow’s divine service. Jesus is both host and guest and will be there to keep us in the forgiveness of sins.

Here is an excerpt from tomorrow’s proclamation:

“The Keen Sight of Blindness” (John 9:1-41)

Pastor Espinosa

 

Text: “³⁹Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.’ ⁴⁰Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, ‘Are we also blind?’ ⁴¹Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no guilt, but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. John Newton (1725-1807) wrote the hymn Amazing Grace and was raised in the faith. As a young boy he had memorized the Westminster Catechism, all of its Scripture texts, and all of Isaac Watts’ hymns for children. But he fell away from the faith. As one historical summary puts it, “During his military service Newton tried several times to adhere to his mother’s religious principles, praying, reading Scripture, and even fasting, but some skeptical literature finally convinced him to discard them.” (Precht, Lutheran Worship Hymnal Companion, 714)

 

Hard experiences followed: he deserted the navy, was caught, whipped, and demoted; he was treated badly by the sailors who disliked him and his superior attitude as a midshipman. By his own account, it was only the memory of his girlfriend that kept him from suicide. He eventually transferred from the navy to work for a slaver off Sierra Leone, but nothing really improved; the ill treatment continued and he owned nothing but the clothes on his back and the food the slaves would share with him. He was miserable, and so like a prodigal son sought help from his father.

 

The help came and he found himself on a voyage back to England and during that voyage, “Newton read Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ and began to reflect on his forgotten religious training. The ship became waterlogged in a storm, and, manning the pumps for hours on end, Newton prayed ‘like the cry of the ravens, which yet the Lord does not disdain to hear.’ (Duffield, English Hymns) Newton dates his spiritual birth from that experience on March 10, 1748.” (ibid, 714) Years later in 1764 he was ordained deacon and priest the following year. He carried on a fantastic evangelical ministry and never retired. “In his old age, he would be accompanied at the pulpit by a servant who helped him read his texts. He died December 21, 1807…his tombstone was inscribed with his own words:”

 

“John Newton

Clerk

Once an Infidel and Libertine

A Servant of Slaves in Africa

was

by the Rich Mercy of our Lord and Saviour

Jesus Christ

Preserved, Restored, Pardoned,

and Appointed to Preach the Faith

he had long labored to destroy.” (ibid, 715)

          I am greatly impressed by his epitaph because immediately after his name and title, John Newton essentially confesses his sin (now there’s a legacy!) and then gives all glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ and then after briefly describing his life in the faith (namely “appointed to preach”), again confesses his sin in writing “[the Faith] he had long labored to destroy.” Ask yourself, what do you want to be remembered by? John Newton answered by saying, “that I was a sinner and that “by the Rich Mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ [was] Preserved, Restored, Pardoned.” Again, how’s that for a legacy!? It is easy to have a feverish need to do this, and to do that, to accomplish x, and to accomplish y, but is there a better thing you could possibly say about your life — if it is lived well — than what Newton wrote in the hymn that we just sang moments ago: “Was blind but now I see!”?

In Jesus’ Love,

Pastor Espinosa