In a recent 2017 report published in a peer-reviewed science journal, eye and ear researchers found that the brain makes new connections in those with early blindness. These connections, which are not present in normally-sighted individuals, cause an enhancement in non-visual abilities such as heightened sense of hearing, smell and touch.

The research team used three different brain imaging techniques to compare the scans from a group of 12 subjects with early blindness to those of 16 normally sighted subjects of the same age range. The results revealed very different connections between the two subject groups. Those with early blindness showed axons – long connections of a brain cell that transmit information from one part of the brain to another – that connected with parts of the brain that enhanced non-visual senses. Scans of normally sighted people did not show these types of connections.

This research gives some veracity scientifically speaking, to urban legend kind of thinking that believes that if you lose or are born without a certain sense—particularly blindness—your other senses are greatly heightened. Your brain is forced to adapt and compensates through a slight increase in perceptions through your other senses—but it’s not a superpower.  It’s not like Daredevil, the fictitious Marvel superhero character, named Matt Murdock—who was blinded at the age of nine when he pushed an old man out of the way of a runaway chemical truck.

The incident caused the truck’s hazardous substances to spill, splashing into Matt’s eyes and causing him permanent and total blindness…But that’s not all—though he lost his sight, his hearing was amplified to abnormal levels. While he recovered in the hospital, he found he could hear almost everything happening nearby, even floors away.

Not only that, due to the mysterious toxic chemicals Matt was exposed to as a child, all of his senses are now amplified to superhuman levels, to the point where he can get a complete picture of not only everything around him, but everything in his vicinity up to hundreds of feet away. With heightened hearing, touch, smell, and balance, he can sense the slightest change in temperatures, vibrations, and wind, creating an “impressionistic painting” of the world around him in his mind, much like a bat’s sonar.

Matt’s super-powered hearing allows him to listen to people’s heartbeats and grab a sonar snapshot of any room through echolocation. His sense of smell is so powerful he can detect everything from open wounds to a neighbor’s cologne three floors away to what someone ate for lunch days ago.

Though Daredevil is a fictional character he exemplifies the profound theological paradox that though you may be blind physically, yet you may be able to see—perceive—even more clearly, spiritually—then someone who has 20/20 vision, physically…And the other way around—though you may be able to see physically, you might yet be blind spiritually, unable to perceive and see, spiritually, what God has made plain in the person of his Son, Jesus, the God-Man, who came down to earth, took on human flesh, and revealed God in person, physically.

And we see—pun intended—both realities revealed in the story of Jesus and the man born blind. The Pharisees and religious leaders—can see physically—and they think they can see, perceive, perfectly, the identity of Jesus of Nazareth, “We know this man is not from God.” “We know this man is a sinner!” “We know God has spoken to Moses, but not this man!” “We know he is an impostor at best, and a deceiver at worst.” “He’s not THE Prophet Moses promised, he’s not even A prophet—he’s not A Messiah and he’s certainly not THE Messiah!”

And then you have the man born blind, whom as Jesus restores physical sight too, gradually begins to gain his spiritual sight as he undergoes the new spiritual birth: “He is a prophet.” “I was blind and now I see.” “I know that God does not answer the prayers of sinners, but only true worshippers that do his will, and God answered his prayer to restore my sight, therefore he must be sent by God, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to.” (v. 31–33). And by the end of the story as the man born blind sees Jesus physically, and Jesus reveal’s his identity spiritually as the Son of Man, the man’s faith is complete, and he confesses Jesus as his Lord and bows down before him, in worship.

And the question we’re forced to wrestle with and answer this morning is: In which camp are you?! Seeing but not seeing—thinking you see and know the truth about God, salvation, Christ, life, death, eternity—but in reality, you are blinded by your own delusion, design, and pride? Or, not seeing, but seeing—going from spiritual blindness and darkness to having your eyes opened by God through faith in Jesus Christ—and the understanding of your own sinfulness—and Christ’s perfect righteousness as the only hope of salvation for your soul—and believing that—believing in him?!