On Being Found--March 20, 2026

On Being Found--March 20, 2026

"Jesus heard that [the religious leaders] had driven [the man who had been blind] out [of the synagogue], and when he found him, he said, 'Do you believe in the Son of Man?' He answered, 'And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.' Jesus said to him, 'You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.' He said, 'Lord, I believe.' And he worshiped him." (John 9:35-38)

Religious folks often seem to want to ask the question, "Have you found Jesus?" But the Scriptures seem much less interested in that question than they are in what happens when we recognize that Jesus has found us.

This scene, which comes at the conclusion of the story we've been looking at all week, is a case in point.  It is indeed true that Jesus asks the man who had earlier been blind "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" but once you see that question in its context, it sounds much less like a cold call of a religious salesman at the door, and much more like, well, another instance of Jesus doing the seeking.  The man who can now see has been ostracized from his religious community because he wouldn't denounce Jesus as a "sinner" for healing on the sabbath.  He simply testified to what he knew about Jesus and what Jesus had done for him, and the Respectable Religious Leaders were outraged, so they expelled him from the synagogue.  He was now an outcast, not because of his physical malady, but because of the condemnation of the Orthodoxy Police.  So what does Jesus do?  He does what he always does: Jesus seeks out the outcast and brings them into his own embrace.

It is worth noting that Jesus has to be the one who does the seeking and finds the man who had been blind, because the healed man had never actually seen Jesus before to be able to look for him again.  When he first met Jesus, of course, he could not see him, and Jesus' curious way of healing him was to put mud on his eyes and go send him to the pool of Siloam to wash.  So he wouldn't know Jesus if he found him, and he had no particular reason to believe that Jesus was still in town.  If this man is going to be reclaimed from being thrown out and rejected, it will have to be Jesus who makes the first move.  Jesus will have to be the seeker.  And so he is.

This coming Sunday, many of us will hear another amazing story from John's Gospel, when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. And in that story as well, the responsibility will fall to Jesus to take the initiative both to heal and to restore the lost, since the recently-deceased Lazarus cannot ask for Jesus' help, seek him out, or take the first step. Jesus will have to make the first move, because dead men do not even know they are dead to be able to ask for resurrection. Jesus is the seeker, and Lazarus brings only his empty-handed deadness.  Over and over again in the Scriptures, that's how it works: not so much that we have to go find a missing deity, but rather that we are the ones who have gotten ourselves lost, gone astray, or don't even realize that we are in trouble (or dead!), and God is the one who seeks, regathers, and rescues us.

So here in John 9, Jesus is the one who does the finding, and honestly, that's what the whole Christian story is really about: being found by Jesus.  Once Jesus has found the man whom he had healed, he can ask the question about belief--"do you believe in the Son of Man?"--but only after having sought him out first.  And of course, the man's response is telling: he doesn't know who this "Son of Man" is!  So Jesus even supplies him with the answer.  "It's me.  The one who is talking to you.  I am the one worthy of your trust.  I have already sought you ought."  That changes how we hear the initial question, doesn't it?  Instead of sounding like a quiz or being a litmus test (as in, "If you get this one wrong, you're not going to heaven!"), but rather with the assurance that if the man doesn't know the answer, Jesus will supply it.  Jesus doesn't say, "Well, since you didn't properly recognize me as Lord and Savior, I'm afraid you're doomed!  Tough luck!" but rather, "Since you don't know yet, I'll tell you--I'm the one to put your trust in.  And don't worry--I've already found you first!"

And of course, part of the point of stories like in this in the gospel is to help us to recognize the resonance with our own story, too.  Each of us has been found by Jesus; each of us was first sought by Jesus.   Each of us has been drawn, led, and pulled by the Spirit already, even before we were aware of it.  So when we get to a place of being able to say, "I believe in Jesus," it is only possible because God has enabled us to place our trust in Jesus.  Jesus spoon-feeds the answer to the man who had been blind, after all; he will not keep his identity secret or hidden from us.  The humbling, but deeply grace-filled, thing is that Jesus has already sought us out before we realized we should even be looking for him.  By the time we can answer the question, "Have you found Jesus?" in the affirmative, it turns out that he has already found us.  Like our older brother in the faith Martin Luther says when he is talking about the meaning of the Third Article of the Creed ("I believe in the Holy Spirit..."), at some point we come to the realization that "I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him; but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel..." The point at which we come to put our faith consciously in Jesus is much more the realization that we have been found already first by the One who sought us out. And maybe the whole Christian life is really a matter of learning what it means that we have been found by Jesus, and that in his grip we are held with a love that will not let us go.

I suspect that realization will change the way we share our faith with people.  Instead of seeing ourselves as religious salespeople trying to close a deal by getting people to subscribe to our religion or buy the Savior we are peddling, we'll see ourselves as people who have been found and are helping others to recognize that Jesus has found them, too.  We will see salvation, not as a reward for reaching the end of a spiritual treasure hunt, but the gift given by the One who found us when we didn't even realize we were lost, and who gathers us into his embrace when we had been outcasts before. And maybe we will stop talking about eternal life as a prize we have earned for getting the answers right on some post-mortem theological exam at the pearly gates and more as the new kind of existence we become aware of when we realize that Jesus has claimed us and the Spirit has given us the ability to trust in him as a gift. When that happens, we'll see that belonging in the community called "church" is not an exclusive club for people who know the right password, but a gathering of outcasts, misfits, and lost sheep whose hope doesn't hang on getting the answers right but on having been sought out by the Shepherd already. And faith is simply the word for how you come to see the world differently when you realize you have been found.

Today, may we realize that beautiful, humbling truth: we have been found.

Today, may we help someone else to see it, too.

Lord Jesus, heal our vision to see ourselves as people whom your love has found, and to let that seeking love be our message to the world.