(Audio version; Music: "Seeing For The First Time" by: Britt Nicole and "Amazing Grace" by: Chris Tomlin)
Introduction
The
closest I’ve ever come to witnessing a miracle is being present at the birth of
both of my daughters. I suppose it’s not technically a miracle since millions
of babies are born every year. Nevertheless, human life is amazing and watching
my girls come into this world has been an unsurpassed event in my life. I’ve
tried to describe the experience to first-time, expecting fathers but it isn’t
until they’ve seen the birth of their own child with their own eyes that they
are able to say, “Now I know what you meant.” I’m sure there are some of you
out there that have experienced an honest-to-goodness miracle so you’ll
probably be able to relate to this week’s lesson. For the rest of you who have
never experienced a true miracle, have you ever wondered what it must have been
like for someone who was cured by Jesus? I stumbled across a video this week of
a baby who was born deaf. Doctors performed a Cochlear Implant procedure and
the video recorded the moment when the implant was activated and the baby heard
his mother’s voice for the first time.
It is a gift to witness the
reaction to a miracle and I wonder if that reaction might have been similar for
those who Jesus healed. We usually consider Jesus’ miracles in the context of
what those miracles say about Jesus and we would be right to do so. But maybe
we could take a moment to consider the impact of a miracle on the person who is
healed. We sometimes take our hearing and our sight for granted in the sense
that we don’t really think about either on a regular basis. But take a minute
to think about a beautiful sunset for example. How would you describe it to
someone who has been blind from birth? It wouldn’t matter how you described it,
it would never make sense to them because they have no possible way of
understanding colors, textures or dimensions. Now, imagine being with that
person as they regain their sight and see for the first time the sunset you
have tried to describe to them. Your description of a beautiful sunset could
never do justice to seeing a beautiful sunset for the very first time. Tomes of
theological material have been written about the significance of Jesus’
miracles generally and his healings more specifically but let’s not forget that
for the person who receives sight, they could probably care less about the
theology of the healing—for them it’s probably as simple as, I Was
Blind, But Now I See! Let’s look at just such a story.
Subject
Text
John 9:13-34
13 They brought to the Pharisees
the man who had been blind. 14 Now
the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a
Sabbath. 15 Therefore
the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my
eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for
he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others asked, “How can a sinner do such
miraculous signs?” So they were divided. 17 Finally they turned again to the blind man, “What have
you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” The man replied, “He is a
prophet.” 18 The Jews
still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until
they sent for the man’s parents. 19
“Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born
blind? How is it that now he can see?” 20 “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we
know he was born blind. 21 But
how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of
age; he will speak for himself.” 22
His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for
already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the
Christ would be put out of the synagogue. 23 That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” 24 A second time they summoned
the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God,” they said. “We know this man
is a sinner.” 25 He
replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I
was blind but now I see!”
26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to
you? How did he open your eyes?” 27
He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why
do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?” 28 Then they hurled insults at
him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to
Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.” 30 The man answered, “Now that
is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes.
31 We know that God does not listen to
sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of
opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 To this they replied, “You
were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.
Context
Jesus
has just escaped an attempt by some Jews to stone Him while He was teaching at
the temple (shocking I know!). Jesus tells those who reject His authority that
their father is the Devil! He goes on to proclaim His eternal existence by
telling the Jews who opposed Him that He existed before Abraham was born.
Specifically, Jesus used the encounter to identify Himself as “I AM.” This is
the designation God used of Himself when He first introduced Himself to Moses.
The Jews took great offense to this claim by Jesus which precipitated their
attempt to stone Him. Jesus encounters the blind man from our Subject Text as he’s leaving the gang
of Jews looking to stone Him. Jesus’ disciples want to know whether it was the
man’s sin or his parents’ sin that has caused the man’s blindness. It was
commonly believed that all bad things in people’s lives were the result of some
known or unknown sin. Of course, all imperfections in creation are a result of
sin generally but Jesus clarifies that there is no specific sin at the root of
this man’s blindness. Instead, Jesus sets the stage for the way we should
interpret all of Jesus’ miracles during His earthly ministry—curing this man’s
blindness was an opportunity to demonstrate the authenticity of Jesus’ claims about
Himself. After restoring the man’s sight, Jesus sends him away with specific
purification instructions. When a blind man who is normally seen begging for
handouts is suddenly walking around like any other sighted person, people are
bound to wonder what has happened. Consequently, those who knew him to be blind
confronted him wanting to know how his sight was restored. When he told them
how Jesus restored his sight, they brought him to the Pharisees for further questioning
and that’s where our Subject Text
picks up.
Text
Analysis
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus
had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also
asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man
replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”
We
see the neighbors of our formerly blind man in v. 13 bringing him to the Pharisees to tell them all about the
miracle of having received his sight from Jesus. V. 14 gives us the background for why the Pharisees find fault with
Jesus’ miracle—it was performed on the Sabbath! “A prohibition of work on the
Sabbath is found in the Decalog [Ten Commandments] (Ex 20:8-11; Deut 5:12-15)
and several other OT texts (e.g., Ex 31:12-17; 35:2), and its transgression is
treated in the Law codes as a capital offense (Ex 31:14-15; 35:2; cf. Num
15:32-36)…The Sabbath healing gives the Evangelist [John] the opportunity to
show Jesus’ opponents as blind to the manifest workings of God in their midst,
a blindness induced by their insistence that a divine representative must
conform to the niceties of the old code.”[1]
The Pharisees begin questioning the man in v.
15a asking him how he received back his sight. The man answers them in v. 15b by recounting how Jesus put mud
on his eyes and told him to wash his eyes, as we know from earlier verses, in
Siloam and thereafter he received his sight. There are two important
observations we can make from this second half of v. 15 so let’s take a look at them:
1) Why did Jesus put mud, formed
with His spit and dirt, on the man’s eyes? Honestly, I don’t know and Scripture
doesn’t tell us. Therefore, anything I tell you would simply be conjecture but
I’ll give you an idea that has been historically popular provided you don’t try
and build some profound biblical doctrine around it. During ancient times, it
was believed that saliva had some medicinal value and Jesus wanted to
demonstrate to His disciples that they were to use what was immediately
available to them to carry out their ministerial duties. It is an odd method
for healing considering He could have just said the word and the man would have
received his sight. Perhaps Jesus wanted to avoid creating any kind of
formulaic pattern that humanity would inevitable try to replicate, manipulate
and no doubt mass-produce in exchange for a small donation of course. We see
Jesus’ miracles take many forms—at Lazarus’ resurrection, Jesus simply called
Lazarus out of the tomb (John 11:43-44); Jesus healed the Centurion’s servant
without seeing him, touching him, or calling out to him. Jesus simply informs
the Centurion that the request to restore his servant’s health had been granted
(cf. Matt 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10); Jesus unknowingly heals a woman suffering from
a persistent bleeding condition when she touches the hem of His garment as He
passes through a large crowd of people (Mark 5:21-35). I think we actually miss
the point when we focus on Jesus’ method for healings when we should be
focusing on His purpose for healing. Ask yourself: Does Jesus’ method for performing miracles define Him
or does the fact that He performs
miracles define Him?
2) Why did Jesus send the
man to Siloam to wash the mud from his eyes? At first, this instruction to the
blind man seems just as obscure as putting mud on his eyes in the first place.
But I am convinced that John is revealing something to us that is not
immediately obvious to us when we read the text in English. Some contend that
Jesus requires the man to demonstrate his faith by being obedient to Jesus’
instruction to go to Siloam to wash his eyes before he can receive his sight
and that is certainly very plausible. However, I’d like to paint a slightly
different picture for you and it has to do with the meaning of Siloam. “The
pool of Siloam, south-west of the City of David, received its water through a
channel which carried it from the spring of Gihon in the Kidron valley.”[2] It
is fascinating to note that the head of the spring that feeds the pool of
Siloam is known as the “Fountain of the Virgin” (cf. Jesus born of a virgin).
Siloam, as noted by John in the text, means “sent.” If you read through John’s
Gospel you will quickly see that Jesus is consistently referred to as “the one
sent” by God (e.g., Jn 4:34; 5:23, 37; 7:28; 8:26; 12:44; 14:24).[3]
There is also a connection in the Book of Genesis. “Siloam” is a Greek
transliteration from the Hebrew “Shiloah.” “This identification of Jesus with
Siloam, i.e., Shiloah, may well have been suggested through the messianic
interpretation of Gen 49:10 ‘The scepter shall not depart from Judah until
Shiloh [Shiloah] comes.”[4]
There is one other matter of significance with respect to the pool of Siloam. With
its proximity to the Temple, during the Feast of the Tabernacles one of the
Levitical priests would fill a golden pitcher from the pool of Siloam and would
poor the water on the altar in the Temple to commemorate Israel’s time of
wandering in the desert after their exodus from captivity in Egypt and their
arrival at Rephidim where they complained to Moses because they lacked fresh
drinking water. There, Moses struck the rock with his staff and water flowed
from the rock providing Israel with fresh drinking water (Ex 17:1-5). Now wind
the clock forward and we find the connection of the events of the Old Testament,
the Temple rituals and the culmination of all these things in the person of
Jesus as we read in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth: “For I
do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were
all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all
baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same
spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the
spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:1-4).”
Paul provides an assembled picture for us that previously existed as segmented
events and practices of history but now form an image of Christ that was
previously veiled but is now prominently displayed.
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is
not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others asked, “How can a
sinner do such miraculous signs?” So they were divided. 17 Finally they turned again to
the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”
The man replied, “He is a prophet.”
What was previous
implicit in v. 14 becomes explicit in
v. 16 when the Pharisees proclaim
that Jesus could not be from God because they believed He broke the rules of
the Sabbath when He cured the man of his blindness. Note that even the
Pharisees don’t identify Jesus by name only referring to Him as “this man.”
However, there are at least some who are not so sure as they question how
someone who is a “sinner” could perform such a healing miracle. In an attempt
to reach what appears to be some kind of consensus among themselves, they ask
for the blind man’s opinion in v. 17.
To their inquiry, the blind man responds that “this man” is a prophet. But what
does that mean? There were some who consider Jesus to be a prophet in a general sense (Jn 4:19) while others considered him
to be the prophet (Jn 6:14).
“Probably the healed man means the former. The niceties of Sabbath regulations
do not concern him. He knows that a work of God was done in his life, and
therefore the human agent must be an extraordinary individual, a prophet,
someone sent with God’s word.”[5]
18 The Jews still did not believe that he had
been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. 19 “Is this your son?” they
asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”
20 “We know he is our
son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. 21 But how he can see now, or
who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for
himself.” 22 His
parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews
had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put
out of the synagogue. 23 That
was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
Unconvinced by the
man’s testimony, the Pharisees seem to be moving away from getting answers and
toward discrediting the healed man’s experience. The Jews now questioned
whether the healed man was even blind in the first place. To clarify, “Jews” in
this case is a general term used by John to identify a group of people that
included the Pharisees, synagogue rulers and other prominent and influential
leaders in the community. In any event, in vv.
18-23, the Jews summon the healed man’s parents for questioning. If you are
a parent, think about this for minute. Your child has been healed from a
disability under which he has desperately toiled his entire life. You’ve done
everything you can to take care of him and teach him how he can take care of
himself. All the while, always grinding on your mind and emotions is the
question: ‘What will happen to him when I’m gone? Who will take care of him?’
Then suddenly, miraculously, he rushes in the front door fully healed. You’re
overwhelmed! You’re speechless! The years of stress and grief melt away as you
dance around the room with your child in joyous celebration. However, your joy
is cut short when the police show up at your front door and take you in to be
questioned by authorities about your child’s miraculous healing. And this is
where we find the parents of the healed man in our Subject Text. The Jews ask some obvious questions: Is this your
son? Was he blind from birth? How did he come to be healed? The parents answer
the first two questions without hesitation confirming that the healed man was
their son and was, in fact, blind from birth. However, with respect to the
final question, they deferred to their son as the one best qualified to explain
what happened and since he was an adult, his testimony should have been
credible. However, v. 22 alludes to
the fact that they knew it was Jesus who healed their son but they were afraid
of what might happen if they confessed that knowledge publicly. The text says
that they feared being kicked out of the synagogue. In v. 22, we see “A reflection of the (ironically called) birkath ha-minim, ‘The benediction of
the heretics,’…said [three times] daily at that time by pious Jews. The
benediction runs: ‘For the apostates let there be no hope, and let the arrogant
government be speedily uprooted in our days. Let the Nazarenes [like Jesus] and
the Minim [heretics—like Jesus was accused of being] be destroyed in a moment,
and let them be blotted out of the book of life and not be inscribed with the
righteous. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who humblest the proud.’…The expression
‘The Jews had already agreed…’ shows that the expulsion from the synagogues was
the result of a formal decision of an authoritative Jewish body; that is likely
to have been the one taken by the Pharisees at Jamnia, during their formulation
of Judaism under the leadership of Rabban [“our master”] Gamaliel.”[6]
Some of you still might not grasp the gravity of the position these parents
find themselves in. Does the name Gamaliel ring a bell for any of you? If not,
let me just refresh your memories, Gamaliel was the Apostle Paul’s teacher
before he became an Apostle of Christ. Gamaliel was a proponent of arresting
Christians and Paul exemplified that zeal when he sought and received
permission from the religious leaders to arrest Christians (Acts 9:1-2). If you
want a picture of the zeal for persecution inspired by Gamaliel, you can find
Paul (still named Saul at that time) graciously offering complimentary
coat-check services during Stephen’s murder (Acts 7:54-8:3). It seems clear
that this is the reason why we see the parents complete their testimony in v. 23 by deflecting all questions to
their son who, because he is “of age,” can answer for himself and thereby
insulate them from possible indictment by the Jewish leadership. It is not a
coincidence that one of the theme’s in John’s Gospel is the cost of
discipleship and here, John might be reminding his readers of the possible
consequences of confessing Jesus as the Christ.
24 A second time they summoned the man who
had been blind. “Give glory to God,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”
25 He replied,
“Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind
but now I see!” 26
Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How
did he open your eyes?” 27 He
answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to
hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?” 28 Then they hurled insults at
him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to
Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.” 30 The man answered, “Now that
is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners.
He listens to the godly man who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born
blind. 33 If this man
were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth;
how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.
With that, it
appears the parents of the healed man are dismissed so the Jews can once again
focus their attention on the healed man in vv.
24-34. However, the scene now turns from an inquiry into an attempt at
re-education and indoctrination. The Jews want the healed man to give God the
glory for his healing because they have already judged Jesus to be a “sinner”
for having done “work” on the Sabbath (of course we can’t let the facts get in
the way that the “work” Jesus is accused of doing is something that is only
attributed to God). However, the Jews seemed to have forgotten that the healed
man was blind his entire life so life for him was really only about one
thing—survival!
Religious laws,
rules and regulations for someone blind, disabled, seriously ill, widowed, or
orphaned were only important if they served to protect this endangered group.
And although the laws, rules and regulations given to Israel were designed to
do just this, being part of this despised group was often a death sentence in
ancient times which is one of the things that made Jesus so angry about the
religious leaders of His day. This blind man should have been the best friend
of the Jews. Instead, he would have lived on the very margins of society;
barely surviving. So the fact that he is ambivalent about the Jews’ claims that
Jesus is a sinner shouldn’t be a surprise. Jesus did infinitely more than give
him sight, He gave him a very real chance to live! For this man, absolutely everything
came down to one simple statement of fact: I Was Blind, But Now I See! And life
will never be the same again.
The Jews are
incredulous in v. 26 when they ask
the healed man to tell them once again how Jesus gave him back his sight. The
healed man seems to display some frustration in v. 27 because he has already told them what happened when they
questioned him earlier. The healed man then wonders if perhaps the Jews are
wanting more information because they hope to become followers of Jesus. But
when he asks them if the intent behind their questioning is to become followers
of Jesus, the Jews become unhinged with anger! The veiled attempt at
impartiality is over and the basis of their anger is revealed in v. 28-29 when they angrily insist that
he is a follower of Jesus but they are followers of Moses and don’t know
anything about Jesus! “These verses encapsulate the heart of the dispute
between Judaism and Christianity, and in particular between Pharisaic Judaism
(which dominated the scene after AD 70) and Christianity. The Pharisees knew
that God had revealed His will through Moses. This law of God embraced not only
the written word (what we refer to as the Pentateuch), but also a mass of oral
tradition handed on from generation to generation. By the standards of the
latter, Jesus was certainly a transgressor. The Pharisees therefore preferred
to remain ‘disciples of Moses’, i.e.
to remain with the given, rather than to attach themselves to some upstart
about whom they knew all too little. But John’s readers know what answer the
Evangelist provides to such a stance. It is this: If the Jews rightly
understood what Moses wrote, they would grasp that he wrote of Jesus (5:39-40).
On the last day, Moses himself will be their accuser (5:45-46).”[7]
Then, in a twist
of irony and not a little bit of sarcasm, this once blind beggar gives the room
full of learned theologians a crash course in systematic theology in vv. 30-33. The healed man outlines the
matter to them rather sarcastically when he says in essence: ‘Let me get this
right—you don’t know where Jesus comes from even though I’ve told you that He
cured my blindness. Now even I know that God isn’t in the habit of granting the
requests of sinners yet He listens to anyone who is obedient to do His will.
Since no one has ever heard of a blind person being given back their sight, how
do you explain that Jesus restored my sight if He isn’t sent by God?’ Well? How
would you explain that? Sadly, the
Jews respond in v. 34 like a little
child caught in a great big lie. They respond with indignation calling the
healed man a sinner with no right to lecture them in the area of their expertise. To punctuate the matter,
they threw him out! Unfortunately, this is often the result when sinful
unbelievers are confronted with their own sins and the truth of Jesus Christ.
For the religious leaders, they could not get beyond their long-held beliefs
about God’s revelation of Himself to Moses. For the Jews, God was a complex
system of laws, rules and regulations. For the healed man, the matter of God
incarnate in the person of Jesus was very simple: I Was Blind, But Now I See!
Application
35Jesus heard that they had
thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of
Man?” 36“Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may
believe in him.” 37Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he
is the one speaking with you.” 38Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,”
and he worshiped him. 39Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into
this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” 40Some
Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind
too?” 41Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of
sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
Thankfully,
I get to rely entirely on Jesus for the application of our Subject Text. The tale of the healed man from our Subject Text continues in vv. 35-41. Jesus finds the healed man
after the Jews threw him out and asked if he believed in the Son of Man?” The
Jews would recognize the “Son of Man” title as referring to the Messiah
(specifically from the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Daniel). The healed man
only asks to know Him and he would believe in Him. When Jesus reveals to the
healed man that He [Jesus] is in fact the Son of Man, the healed man confesses
his belief and begins to worship Him. In v.
39 Jesus says that His purpose for coming is so that the blind will see and
those who see will become blind. Theologically, Jesus is saying that He came so
that those who are lost will have the opportunity to be saved by believing in Him
and those who don’t think they need salvation will seal their condemnation by
rejecting Him. In v. 40, some
Pharisees who happened to be there to witness what Jesus said, challenged Jesus’
assertion that they too are blind. Jesus finally gets to the very heart of our
lesson in v. 41. Sinners who are
blind and don’t yet recognize Jesus because of their blindness are not
condemned for their sin but those who are able to see and still refuse to
recognize Jesus are condemned as guilty. The healed man demonstrates the
application of our text—acknowledge Jesus for who He is and worship Him and Him
alone as the Sent One who opens our eyes to the revelation of Himself.
“Rafael Coli grew up in the rural village of
Arame at the end of a long, rutted road in northwestern Guinea-Bissau, Africa.
During the rainy season, the road becomes impassable; it’s safe to say Google
‘Street View’ doesn’t zoom in here.
As a boy, Rafael helped harvest his family’s
cashew crop. A former Portuguese colony, his country is, after all, the world’s
fifth largest producer of cashew nuts, behind India, Ivory Coast, Vietnam and
Brazil. The pear-shaped ‘false fruit’ that the cashew tree produces contains a
yellowish juice, a substance that is reminiscent of the days before the gospel
took root in Rafael’s heart—before God fitted his feet for bringing the gospel
of peace to his people in a form they could truly understand.
‘I had a spiritual battle,’ says Rafael,
whose squinting, bloodshot eyes are a telltale sign he’s had trouble with his
sight. ‘I dreamed during the night, and when I [woke up] in the morning I
couldn’t see. Tears ran from my face and fell onto my shirt and it stained my
shirt like cashew stains,’ he adds. ‘After I became a Christian that ended…
His eye sickness began in 1998 from an
unknown cause…’My problem was that I always felt shame,’ he says. ‘Sometimes I
stayed in my room from morning until evening.
It wasn’t until he left the army, started
attending an evangelical church in 2009 and surrendered his life to Jesus, that
Rafael’s life began to improve spiritually, socially and economically. In his
dreams he began to see a person holding an open Bible, warding off the evil
presence that afflicted him in his nightmares. His illness stopped and he is
now in recovery.
‘At the evangelical church...I had the
experience of looking for God,’ says Rafael. When I was learning to look for
God, then I started to find freedom. This transformed my life completely.’
Today he is husband to Damiana and father of
their three children. Since October 2010, he has also been one of five Guinean
team members who are translating the Bible into the language of Jola-Bayote on
behalf of approximately 3,000 speakers. The book of Mark is now completed,
along with Luke and chapters one to 24 of Acts.
‘Because Satan knew that [the translation
project] was going to be here tomorrow, that is why I had that battle,’ says a
now victorious Rafael.”[8]
Believing in Jesus
seems so simple and obvious yet so many still stubbornly refuse to believe. So
we sometimes think that if God would just do something miraculous, then people
would have to believe. I know I have been tempted to think that. At times I
struggle to find the right words with the thought that if I just communicated
God’s truth about Jesus Christ in exactly the right way then people would be
compelled to believe. But in my more sober moments, I know it is folly to think
this way. I remind myself that if staring at an empty tomb didn’t convince
people of the truth of Jesus Christ then my words probably don’t have much
chance of convincing people who are willfully blind to the truth. There are,
however, many who are spiritually blind and desperately want to see again or
for the first time. For them, the truth of Jesus Christ has the power to heal their
broken hearts and lives. I know some of these people; not theologians by any
definition. But they have recognized and accepted the truth that is Jesus
Christ and now see. If you asked them to explain it, you probably wouldn’t get
a lesson in systematic theology to explain what happened to them. More likely
you’d hear something like, I Was Blind, But Now I See! If you
were once blind to Jesus and have been given sight, what will your story be? It
doesn’t have to be anything dramatic, but it needs to be your story. Be
prepared and courageous enough to tell your story to anyone who asks and even
to those who don’t ask. It might not make sense to people when you tell them in
the same way that describing a sunset to blind person doesn’t make sense to the
blind person. But it’s so beautiful that you have to try. In the same way that
everyone should experience the beauty of a sunset, everyone should experience
being healed of their blindness by Jesus.
Call To Action
For
those of you who don’t know yet, I am trying to build a community through these
weekly lessons in order to reach every nation in the world with the Gospel in
accordance with Jesus’ command and the Mission Statement of this ministry. If you
know someone looking for a miracle as a condition for their belief, will you
please share this lesson with them as a warning? If you know someone who is
blind to the truth of Jesus Christ, will you share this lesson with them and
allow Jesus to do a miracle in their lives and heal their blindness? If you
know someone who needs a miracle to encourage them in their faith, will you
please share this lesson with them as a reminder that God is still in the
business of healing hearts, minds and sometimes bodies in order to reveal Himself
to the world?
[1] Joel B.
Green, Scot McKnight, I. Howard Marshall, eds., Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1992), pp. 716; 719.
[2] D. A.
Carson, The Gospel According to John,
(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), p. 365.
[3] Gary M.
Burge, John, The NIV Application
Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), p. 273.
[4] George
R. Beasley-Murray, John, Word Biblical
Commentary, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 156.
[5] Carson, John, p. 368.
[6]
Beasley-Murray, John, p. 153.
[7] Carson, John, p. 374.
[8] Alexis
Harrison, Healed: Blind African Man
Receives Sight, Becomes Bible Translator, http://www.charismanews.com, (accessed
May 21, 2016).
