John 9

I have heard and read this story a few times but it has not made so much sense to me until God opened my eyes to the majesty of Himself in it over the last couple of weeks. This is going to be a long one so grab a cup of coffee/tea and settle in.

     As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 
Do we not still see this in the church today? Your life is wrong somehow and its because you sinned and God is punishing you. Or we go the full other extreme. God isn't in your life at all, He doesn't care about you so He is letting these things happen to you. Friend, God dearly loves you. No matter your circumstance, what you have gone, will go or are going through, His love for you is amazing and far beyond what we can understand. We attribute His love to a father's love. That is probably the closest we can put into words for our small brains to understand His fullness of love but it still is not fully accurate. Besides the fact that many people in the world do not have a proper father figure to use as an example, our earthly fathers are human. They fail. They are not perfect. He is. And He knows what He is doing for the best benefit of His works and His plan. 

Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
This man was born blind, suffered ridicule as one who sinned against God (or who's parents did) and made a mockery of by the Pharisees and teachers. It was common to debate what (sin) caused someones disability but Jesus wasn't focusing on the BLAME. The man didn't sin, neither did his parents-this doesn't mean they weren't SINNERS but that they were not being PUNISHED for their sins by the blindness. The sole purpose of this man's blindness was to be healed by Jesus. To show God's power and be saved. The physical condition was healed. Jesus was sent to make the blind see. In this case physically as well as spiritually. While we are here, our job is to do the work that the Father has for us. Jesus spit on the ground and made mud. Did he have to do it that way? Could he have just said, "Go and see?" Of Course He could have! I see a beautiful picture of the healing that the Lord gives us in this story. We are filthy, covered in mud, with a little Jesus spit mixed in and when we choose to follow (this man could have washed somewhere else or just wiped his face off some other way-he chose to do it) Jesus' way, he says, "Go wash away that filth and be cleaned." And then we are restored, the same way this man had his sight restored. Our brokenness from birth, no matter what it is, RESTORED.
 
    The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
There is humor in the bible. Picture this: You see a group of people, or maybe you are walking down the street and everyone is talking about this man. They are arguing about whether he is the man that used to be begging, blind since birth or not. Barely able to hear among all the arguing is, "It is me! I am the guy! Guys? Hey, it's ME!" 
Then finally someone turns to him and says, "Oh yeah? Well, how can you see then?" 
"Some guy named Jesus. He spit and made mud and put it on my eyes and told me to go wash it off. Then I could see!" 
"Where is he?" 
"I don't know." 
 I mean, picture that! Friends, family, neighbors, people who have known this guy and/or his family for years. Seen him over and over begging and now all of a sudden he can see. If you know someone who has been supernaturally healed, what was your response? Doubt? Lifting up the doctors instead of the One who truly heals? God is often the last one we respond to in many situations.
 
    They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”
Wherever there was a work of God, the Pharisees where the people to go see. They knew ALL about God, except what really mattered- How to have a relationship with Him. It's interesting to note that Jesus performed this miracle on the Sabbath. This means that this man probably spent an entire night with his family and friends, celebrating! How exciting he must have been to tell the Pharisees what miracle this Jesus had performed. What was their response? "Sorry, Jesus isn't a man of God." WHAT!!??!! But he healed me? What do you mean he isn't from God? How could he do these things if he wasn't? Even the Pharisees were divided. When they asked the man, he knew Jesus had to be a prophet. How could he have healed him if he wasn't a prophet? Imagine being the now-no-longer-blind man. This discussion is happening in front of you.  As we move forward through this, put yourself in the shoes of the man and his parents.
 
    The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
"We don't believe you." 
That is the gist of what the Pharisees told him. We don't believe you so we want your parents to tell us the truth. Now his parents, who were already afraid of being excommunicated from the synagogue, were brought in. Excommunication didn't mean they just went to find another church home, found another pastor to follow or they fit in somewhere else. It meant totally exclusion from the Jewish lifestyle. Anathema means to cut off, cast out, put under ban. Pharisees were supposed to enforce religious and ethical discipline, to keep the people appearing as "a congregation of the Lord." This is what the parents were afraid of. The power was there to cut these people off from the lives that they knew and cast them out of fellowship with other Jews-either for a time or permanently. The confirmed what little they could without compromising the truth. 1-This was their son. 2-Yes, he was born blind. 3-He is old enough to care for himself, ask him any other questions because we weren't there to know for sure. One of the most exciting times of these parents lives-their son was healed- and they had to spend the time afraid instead of worshiping and thanking God. They didn't stand up for Jesus out of fear. Their desire to be included was greater than the desire for God. Isn't that so often our desire? We want to be loved, included in things so much that when the hard things come up, instead of standing for Jesus we buckle under the pressure? We want other people's approval so much that when God has given a clear "Do this. This is where I want you, this is what I want you to do" we say, "Well, I don't know...its really hard...I really want these people to like me instead." The path that Jesus would have us follow is not easy. Sometimes the things he wants us to do or say to people is hard because it causes rejection. Even by the people who are supposed to know it, live it and teach it. Even by the community that calls themselves followers of God. Have strength, disciple, God will lead you, if your desire is Him alone.
 
    So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.
Do you get the feeling they are trying to get him to either recant, change his story or catch him lying? That's the great thing about the truth, you don't have to have a great memory. The Not-So-Blind man makes it clear. He doesn't know Jesus, doesn't know if he is a sinner but DOES know his blindness is healed. He asks if they want to be disciples too implying that he does want to be a disciple of Jesus, even if that means he will be sent out of the synagogue. The Pharisees are so staunch about their following Moses-the law-and that God spoke to Moses but they don't know Jesus. How can they not know where Jesus came from? The man is appalled! He understands that the only way for this to have happened is that Jesus was sent from God, that even by what the Pharisees believe you cannot be a sinner and have God listen to you so this miracle HAS to be from God. We know that God listens to sinners. He wants them to turn to Him. Once we do that, we are no longer sinners. Do we still sin? Yes, because we are not perfect but it means that when we see the clear choice, our deeper desire is more and more God's way not our own. We are teachable, understanding that our knowledge of God comes from Him and that needs to be able to change with what is taught, given to us by our relationship and His Word. We can't put God into a little box the way the Pharisees did and throw away everything outside of it. We may be throwing away something special-the Pharisees threw away Jesus.

    Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.
Here is the best part of the story. The man desired Jesus. He wanted to follow him, seeing Jesus as a true follower of God, and Jesus found him. Then Jesus reveals to this poor blind man, excommunicated from the church, a rebel WHO HE IS! The mans response? Worship. That should be our response to every miracle, showing of God's power in our lives every day. Constant worship. How strong would our relationship with Him be if our response in every situation was to worship? In all things worship and love God. Constant communication. How much He would change our lives for His Glory if we would just submit in all things to His Will. Those who could not see before, can truly see Jesus for who he is but those who claim they know-that they see-are blinded by their knowledge. Our KNOWLEDGE of God gets us into trouble if we do not pair it with WISDOM. Knowing the Truth does not save you. Seeing Jesus for who he was, accepting the FREE gift of Grace that God has given through His Son's sacrifice and desiring God's ways above your own as a result of that realization-that is Salvation. Not everyone will get there. Not everyone who claims they have will be saved because we have watered down the Truth so much to appease everyone. Jesus didn't change the Truth. It has always been the Truth. Its rough, its challenges and it makes you change if you follow it. This being the end of the year, a time for reflection, look back over the year. What has God been challenging you on? Are you turning a "blind eye" as the Pharisees? Or are you embracing the pain of removing the "old you" for the Glory of God? If God has not been challenging you, nothing you read in the bible has made you think about or concerned for the way you live, you are not listening. 

Listen. He wants you to know and grow.