Sophocles, the famous ancient Greek dramatist wrote a play about a legendary king of Thebes from Greek mythology, called Oedipus Rex. Laius king of Thebes is warned by an oracle that his son would one day slay him. Troubled by this prophecy, after his wife Jacosta bears him a son, Oedipus, he commands the baby to left on the Cithaeron mountains to die of exposure—a common form of infanticide in those mythological days. However, a shepherd nearby finds the baby, takes pity on the poor child, and brings him to another King in that part of Greece, King Polybus of Corinth who adopts him into his own family to be raised by himself and his wife, the queen. Some yeas pass by, and Oedipus becomes a young man who is curious about his destiny so he visits the oracle at Delphi—who gives him a startling revelation. He is destined to kill his father, not only that, but marry his mother!
 
He’s horrified, and his fear of this prophecy drives him as far away from Corinth as possible, resolved never to return and he ultimately arrives in Thebes, where he becomes king…But something happens on his way to Thebes…He encounters someone on the road, a man. The men get into a quarrel over the right-of-way which quickly escalates from words to swords. And Oedipus ends up slaying the man with his sword.
 
And only years later, as the citizens of Thebes are pleading with King Oedipus to find the murderer of their previous King, Laius which will lift the plague that was threatening to destroy their city, does Oedipus discover in his search, that the man he slayed on the road that fateful day was king Laius, his father…Which means his wife, the current queen, Jacosta, is his mother. Jacosta so distraught about it all, takes her own life. Oedipus disturbed over the reality that he has killed his own father and married his own mother, rushes into the palace and he sees his queen (and mother!) has killed herself. Tortured, agonized, and in a frenzy, he takes the pins from her gown and gauges his own eyes out, so that he can no longer look upon the shame and misery he has caused.
 
There is an unmistakable theme that bursts from the pages of this Greek tragedy ….blindness….the inability to see what is right in front of you! Oedipus is blind to the reality of his identity as Lauis’ son and slays him in ignorance, and blind to the reality that Jacosta is his mother, even though he had been warned by a prophecy that this very thing would happen! He didn’t heed the warning well enough—he didn’t take enough care in contemplating any murderous action, or in scrutinizing the identity of a potential wife—he assumed the prophecy was concerning his adoptive parents in Corinth!
 
Ironically, it is a blind oracle—a prophet—that is able to see and reveals the truth to Oedipus that it is he who is responsible for murdering his father and has been unknowingly sleeping with his mother. And it’s the same kind of blindness we see with the religious leaders and the crowds in Jerusalem at this festival of booths.
 
They SEE Jesus up close and personal, even acknowledging his miraculous signs. They HEAR Jesus from the front row, affirming they’ve never heard anyone speak like him. They’ve SEEN and READ the prophecies in Scripture concerning the specially anointed one, the Messiah, and the eschatological prophet like Moses…But they cannot SEE what is right in front of them. They are completely blind to Jesus’ real identity as the Son of God, his divine origin as from God, and his mission as the anointed Messiah sent by God to deliver Israel and people everywhere from their greatest enemy, sin. And their blindness turns to jealousy and jealousy turn to rage and rage turns to murder, as they set their plot in motion to try to arrest him—which Jesus easily evades as it is not yet his hour, his divine appointment with the cross.
 
And the question that you are confronted with again this morning as you as you once again meet with the Jesus of Scripture face to face as it were, is: Can you see what is right in front of you?! Can you see Jesus as he’s revealed himself to you on the pages of the Bible, in this Gospel, and in this story?! Can you see him the way he wants you—demands you to see him?!
 
Can you see him in all his beauty, majesty, and glory as full of grace and truth—the embodiment of truth—the Word and Son of God made flesh who existed as God, with God, and came from God as the Messiah-King and Savior to rescue you from your sin, free you from your shackles to it, and conquer the great enemy death.
 
Because if that is not the picture of Jesus you see and believe, then like the people in the story this morning, though you think you may know Jesus, you don’t know anything about him at all—at least, not enough to save you.