A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Year A)
March 15, 2026
Text: John 9:1-41
Now, O Lord, take my lips, and speak through them. Take our minds, and think through them. Take our hearts, and set them on fire. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
There’s a question that human beings have been asking for as long as we’ve been around. It’s the question we ask ourselves whenever life takes a turn for the worse or when something painful happens to us or someone we care about.
The question is simple.
Why?
As it happens, that question actually came up in a different way last weekend at our parish retreat at Blue Lake.
One of the things we did Saturday afternoon during our program time was play a little game called “Stump the Priest.”
People could write questions anonymously on a piece of paper—any question they wanted to ask—and I had to answer them on the spot.
Some of the questions were fun and lighthearted.
One person asked, “What’s the best rock band?”
To which I confidently replied, “The Eagles.”
(Although Journey is a very close second.)
Some of the questions had to do with me and my call to the priesthood.
But then there were some deeper questions—questions about the nature of God.
And one person asked a question that really made me stop and think for a moment.
They wrote, “How can God be just and merciful?”
In other words, how can God be a God of justice and a God of mercy at the same time?
That’s one of those questions that’s really hard to answer.
It’s the kind of question you usually want to sit with for a few days—not something you have to answer in ten seconds in front of a room full of people.
I did my best and hopefully gave a halfway decent answer.
But since then, I’ve had a little more time to think about it.
And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized that there may be an even deeper question underneath it.
Because when people ask a question like that, they’re often wrestling with something in their lives that hits close to home.
Maybe the deeper question is this:
If God is loving and all-powerful—if God can do anything—then why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?
That’s an age-old question.
People have been asking it for centuries.
And I suspect it’s a mystery we’ll continue to wonder about until Jesus comes again.
If God created all that is and if God loves us more than we can possibly imagine, then why does God allow us to suffer?
Why are some people born with burdens they never asked for?
Why do some people suffer from illness while others live perfectly healthy lives?
Why do earthquakes, storms, and fires destroy homes and communities?
Why?
It’s the same question the disciples ask Jesus in our Gospel lesson this morning from John.
At the beginning of our story, as Jesus and his disciples are walking along, they see a man who has been blind since birth.
And the disciples immediately ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
In other words: Why?
Why did this happen?
Someone must be responsible.
Something must have caused this.
Surely there must be a good reason.
That way of thinking was very common in the ancient world.
Many people believed that suffering—whether it was illness, disability, or tragedy—was the result of sin.
If something bad happened to you, it must mean that somewhere along the way someone had done something wrong.
The disciples are trying to understand what happened to this man and why he was born with this condition.
But Jesus says something unexpected.
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” he says.
In other words, this was not a punishment from God.
It’s important for us to hear those words, because even today we still ask the same question.
Whenever something painful or difficult happens in our lives, our first instinct is to ask why.
Why did this happen to me?
Why did God let this happen?
What did I do to deserve this?
As human beings, we want the world to make sense.
We want things to be fair and just.
We want to believe that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to those who deserve it.
Because if that were true, the world would feel safe and predictable.
If something bad happens, we think that if we can just figure out why—if we can explain it—it would somehow make the pain easier to bear.
I see it all the time in my work as a priest.
Not long ago, I was talking with a friend who was going through a really difficult season of life.
It seemed like nothing was going her way.
One struggle after another kept piling up, and eventually she reached a breaking point.
And she asked me the question that so many of us have asked.
“Why is this happening to me? I’ve done everything right. I’ve tried to live a good life. Why would God let this happen?”
She wanted the world to make sense.
She wanted to believe that if you try to live a good and faithful life, then life should treat you fairly in return.
But the truth is, life rarely works that way.
Sometimes there is no clear explanation.
Sometimes suffering shows up in ways that make no sense at all.
Good people get sick.
Faithful people experience loss.
Innocent people suffer.
Sometimes, there’s a clear explanation why—and sometimes there’s not.
And when those moments come, the question “why” can start to weigh heavy on our hearts.
And make us wonder whether or not God really cares about us at all.
I want to bring us back to Jesus and what happens to the man who was born blind.
Jesus doesn’t blame anyone for the man’s suffering.
He doesn’t try to explain why he was born blind.
Instead, Jesus responds in the best way he knows how.
With healing and compassion.
He spreads mud on the man’s eyes, and miraculously, he receives his sight.
In John’s Gospel, the author rarely uses the word “miracle” to describe the amazing things Jesus does.
Instead, he calls them signs.
And that’s important to remember because a sign always points to something beyond itself.
This story is not just about one miraculous act of healing.
It’s a sign pointing us to the truth of who God is.
It points us to a God who heals and restores—a God who is in the process of making all things new.
But, the story doesn’t end there.
After the healing, the man is brought before the Pharisees.
They question him.
They argue with him.
They even interrogate his parents, trying to discover the truth of what happened.
And when the man refuses to back down—when he keeps telling them that the one who healed him must be from God—the Pharisees refuse to listen.
They cast him out.
This man who has spent his whole life on the margins—blind since birth and probably a beggar—is cast out once again.
And in the time of Jesus, that would have been devastating.
To be driven out meant being excluded from the synagogue, which was the center of spiritual life in the community.
It meant being cut off from the life of the community itself—socially isolated, and perhaps even separated from family and friends.
But then John tells us what happens next—and it’s a detail we often miss.
“When Jesus heard that they had driven him out, he found him.”
Jesus goes looking for the man who was cast out.
Think about that for a moment.
Jesus could’ve easily moved on.
The miracle had already happened.
The man had received his sight.
Jesus had already done more than enough.
But when Jesus hears that the man has been driven out from the community, he goes back.
He seeks him out.
Jesus is not only concerned with healing the man’s eyes.
Jesus cares about his whole life.
His dignity.
His belonging.
His place in the world.
So Jesus seeks him out and finds him.
And in that moment the man receives something even greater than the gift of sight.
He receives the gift of knowing God’s unconditional, abiding love.
He is seen as God’s beloved.
And maybe that’s the greatest miracle of all.
Because what this story shows us is the heart of God.
Our God is not a God who causes pain and suffering.
God is not waiting around up in heaven waiting for us to mess up so he can punish us.
Our God is a God of healing and restoration, a God who seeks us out and promises to walk with us through all the changes and chances of this life.
When the world casts people aside, God is with them.
When life pushes us to the margins, God is with us.
And when we find ourselves asking “why”—when we walk through seasons of life we didn’t ask for and can’t explain—this story reminds us of God’s unconditional, abiding love.
God is always with us.
Even when we don’t understand why some things happen—
Even in the midst of despair and suffering—
Jesus is still the one who comes looking for us and promises to never let us go. Amen.
The Rev. Eric Mancil 