Now I See (John 9)

Nicholas Klein might not be a well known historical figure, but you’ve probably heard a version of something he once said, especially if you spend a good amount of time online.

Klein was a leader in the labor movement of the early 20th century. It was in that role, while giving a speech in which he was encouraging his audience to remain steadfast in pursuing their demands, even in the face of often violent opposition, Klein remarked,

First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.

This has become one of those quotes that resurfaces on social media from time to time, often detached from its original context, or even misattributed to another speaker.

Nevertheless, Klein’s statement reflects a certain truth about the human experience.

People who accomplish great things rarely do so without facing resistance and opposition. In fact, one might say that an accomplishment’s greatness is measured, in part, by what must be overcome to reach it.

If that’s true then the athletic accomplishments of Oksana Masters are among some of the greatest ever.

This month Masters dominated her events at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games. Winning four gold medals, she raised her career total to 23 medals, making her the most decorated winter paralympian in U.S. history—an achievement as utterly and completely improbable as any story you’ve ever heard.

Oksana was born in 1989 in Ukraine, which was then a part of the Soviet Union.

Exposed to high amounts of radiation in utero, she was born with a long list of physical defects. She had “six toes on each foot…webbed fingers on each hand, and no thumbs. [Her] left leg was six inches shorter than [the] right, and both were missing weight-bearing bones.” (The Hard Part Out Lord)

Oksana was put up for adoption and spent the first seven and a half years of her life in a violent and abusive orphanage system.

She was an outcast among outcasts—the kind of life all too frequently treated as disposable, like a nobody whose life means nothing to no one.

However, one day before Oksana’s fifth birthday, Gay Masters, a college professor in Buffalo, New York, saw a grainy black and white photograph of her in a publication from an adoption agency.

Masters would later say that, upon seeing that picture, she knew that Oksana was her daughter.

“It was her eyes,” Masters said. “They just pull you in.”

From that moment, it took two long years to complete the adoption process.

Oksana was seven when she finally came home to Buffalo for the first time. Later, the new family moved to Louisville, Kentucky.

Along the way, nurtured by her mother’s love and support, Oksana grew stronger and fierce.

She was a competitive and active child, despite eventually having both legs amputated.

Rowing was the first sport that Oksana fell in love with. She even set a world record and won her first paralympic medal in 2012, but a back injury required her to give it up rowing when she was only 23 years old.

Grieving the loss of a sport she loved, she tried others—skiing, cycling, biathlon—and she excelled at all of them, too.

More records and medals followed, which brought Oksana more accolades and opportunities to tell her story. She became an author and an advocate.

She even made a trip back to Ukraine with her mom–visiting orphanages and wounded veterans, in her own words, “to try and show people in Ukraine that no matter what their circumstances, their futures have yet to be decided.”

Oksana has this drive, this fire, to overcome anything set in her path by anything or anyone and she wants to help others do the same. It’s a quality that our cynical impulses often dismiss as naive optimism, but animating someone who has been through so much, done so much, survived and endured so much, our better angels recognize it as genuine and powerful hope—a quality she learned from her mother.

Oksana writes,

For two years, [my mother] waited for me. She wanted me when I was five years old, but legislation in the Ukraine made it impossible for her to take me to America. For two years, she didn’t quit.

“Get a Russian baby,” they told her. “That’s what everybody else is doing. You can get a healthy Russian right now.”

They even offered her information on some Russian adoption agencies. But again and again, my mom refused.

“I just want my daughter.” she told them.

For two years we weren’t able to speak or communicate in any way. I only had one picture of her, but every day I would look at it. I would stare at the only photo I had of my new mom. I’d sit alone, in the dark, and tell myself over and over that one day things were going to get better.

I’d do it again when I lost one leg, and then the other. Every time I was hurt, or alone, or the future looked bleak, I would say the same thing: “It will get better.”

And in the end, it always did. (Live Better, The Players’ Tribune)

First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.

I think the man at the center of our Gospel passage would’ve seen the truth in these words and celebrated the power of Oksana’s story.

John’s 9th chapter tells us about “a man born blind” who was judged and dismissed by many, but who Jesus saw, heard, and healed.

It’s said that Jesus and his disciples once encountered a man who had never been able to see. Making mud and then spreading it upon the man’s face, Jesus told the man to go wash himself in a nearby pool of water.

Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

After the healing, Jesus and his disciples left the man and continued on their way. However, with the gift of sight, our man would see for himself how judgemental and dismissive his neighbors could be.

First, they doubted him.

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

The Pharisees—members of the religious establishment—were dubious of the man’s claims, too. They inquired so as to learn if this really was the same man who once was blind.

Once they were satisfied that it was the same man, they were less than enthusiastic.

First they doubted him. Then they criticized him.

Once the evidence convinced the authorities that a healing had, indeed, taken place, criticism about how the miracle occurred replaced their doubt.

It wasn’t the right time for healing, they said.

A holy man would know better than to heal on the Sabbath.

The authorities questioned the healed man’s parents, then gave him one more chance to denounce Jesus.

“We know that this man is a sinner,” they said.

He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

First they doubted him. Then they criticized him. And then they drove him out of town.

That’s where Jesus found our man again.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, 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.

His neighbors had so little regard for this man, he was such a nobody, that not only could they not be bothered to celebrate his life changing healing, they actually counted it as another disappointing chapter in his disappointing life.

He was such a screw up that he couldn’t even get healed correctly.

But these labels that belittled and dismissed meant nothing to Jesus.

He saw the man just as he sees each one of us–as we really are, not as others define or even as we define ourselves.

He sees and hears the truth about us and he “loves us, gave his life to save us, and, even now, is living at our side every day to enlighten, strengthen and set us free.”

He also invites us to share the same grace we’ve received with others by pushing past the labels they’ve had placed up on them and honoring them as the beloved children of God that they are.

Jesus calls us to be his disciples and to continue his work—to see and hear our neighbors for who they really are and to love them.

Nicholas Klein once said, “First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.”

Oksana Masters went back to a place she dreamed of escaping “to try and show people…that no matter what their circumstances, their futures have yet to be decided.”

The healing of a man born blind unleashed a firestorm of judgement and criticism, but the man remained clear eyed about what had happened.

“One thing I do know,” he said, “that though I was blind, now I see.”

May we, as the Church, take Klein’s wisdom, the power of Oksana Masters’ story, and the witness of John chapter 9 to heart.

With the confidence of those who are seen, heard, and loved by a gracious, merciful, steadfast God, may we reject every label that belittles, dismisses, and damages God’s children, so that we may see, hear, and love our neighbors just as they are–-just like Jesus.

Amen.

Image: Oksana_Masters_Rob_Jones_mixed_sculls_final_2012.jpg: Steve Selwood from Yate, U.K.derivative work: IronGargoyle, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons