John 9: 1-41
Found in a video at the following link: https://www.facebook.com/pg/stpeteschestersprings/posts/
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I always feel, both happy and sad, for the blind man that we just read about from today’s Gospel. He was just sitting there going about his business of begging; he had no idea who this man was who was approaching him; he may have wanted to receive his sight, but he didn’t really know what sight was; he definitely didn’t ask Jesus to heal him. Jesus healed him anyway; he healed him so that God’s works might be revealed. Jesus made it clear that the man was born blind, not because of anyone’s sin, but so that God’s works might be revealed; this blind man’s part in the spreading of the word and love of God was important. The Gospel of John, is known to have told the stories of Jesus’ miracles, so that people seeing Jesus’ signs might believe in Jesus as the Savior, the Son of God. The blind man’s purpose, much as is ours, was to reveal Jesus as the Messiah of God to the world.
This particular story is long and is one with lots of twists and turns. I’m not going to tell it again, but I will highlight some important portions. As it turned out Jesus healed this blind man on the Sabbath, an act questioned by the Pharisees, who saw even healing as an act of work, something that was prohibited on the Sabbath. This is a part of the story that makes me feel sad. The man, formerly blind, was asked to give an account of his healing, as though he had in some way done something wrong by being healed; can you imagine? The Pharisees even seemed to doubt that he was the same man who had been blind; now imagine having to prove you had been blind, when all you really wanted to do was go out and celebrate your great blessing and thank the man who healed you. This is like one of those stories where good fortune is the beginning of great hardship. While the formerly blind man stood before his questioners with confidence and a willingness to speak the truth from his heart, his questioners called for his parents to substantiate his story. You would think that they would support him, but they did not; afraid of these religious leaders, they simply turned the questioning back of their son, telling them that he was of age, to ask him; all they would really do is admit that he was their son who had been born blind. This formerly blind man was all on his own, it seemed; the religious leaders, unhappy with his responses, drove him out of the house of God; at least the formerly blind man had his vision!
The Pharisees and other religious leaders argued first among themselves that this man is a sinner because he had been blind; they argued that Jesus was a sinner because he healed on the Sabbath, something that the devil would surely do; then they argued how no one had ever healed a person born blind and given him sight; only a person come from God could possibly perform such an act. This is why I feel bad for a man who received a wonderful blessing. I pray that Jesus met up with him again, after this conflict and gave him the opportunity to celebrate his gift, but that is not a part of the story. That is because this story (I believe) is in many ways about the Pharisees and religious leaders who first confronted the man formerly blind and then were confronted themselves by Jesus.
Jesus was not happy that the Pharisees had driven the formerly blind man our of their place of worship. The worship place was a place of God, not a place for narrow minds. It was not a place for those who are blind to seeing the Son of Man. The man (formerly blind) saw Jesus, listened to his words, experienced the miraculous acts of God, and he believed, so he could see more than just the images of light and darkness through his eyes, but he could see that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of Man, God’s Son. The Pharisees and other religious leaders, in our story, were so wrapped up in their rules and ideas that they did not see, they did not recognize the work of God and they did not recognize Jesus as God’s Son. They were blind to God. How often have we seen such a reality? A quote comes to mind, “Don’t confuse me with facts, I already know what I believe.” In politics, especially today, this is a real problem, no matter which side of the political fence we lean on. We tend to believe only the rhetoric of the politicians who speak for our own side. Too often we are blind to the truth; too often we do not take the time to check the facts. We even have a name for this, we call it “blind faith”. The pharisees in our story, did not have to go to a fact check site on their computers, they simply had to open their eyes and see the power and wonder of God in the healing of a blind man born blind. If they went to the Scriptures to check the facts, they would see that only someone sent from God could do the healing done by Jesus and they would have no reason to cast out of God’s house the healed man and they would have turned to Jesus as their Lord and their Savior. But they were blind to Jesus; these religious leaders were the ones who were living in sin. Their sin was that they would not see, they would not listen to the word and love of God in Jesus Christ. It was seen as sin, because they had eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear, but the chose not to believe.
Make good use of the eyes you have and the ears that you have and believe that Jesus is your Lord and Savior; he loves you, forgives you and promises you new life in his kingdom. Jesus will be with you throughout the current crisis.