A Message of Hope

If you missed yesterday’s post or you need to refresh you memory, go back and read John 9:1-7.

Notice that the disciples look at this blind man, and instead of actually being concerned about him as a person, they want to get Jesus’ opinion on a theological question.  They ask, “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind.” 

I wonder how that man felt when he heard people ask those questions about him—when people treated him as an object instead of as a person.  And I wonder how people feel when we treat them in the same way –maybe they’re handicapped, maybe they’re elderly, maybe they’re sick – and we see them and we’re aware of their physical presence, but we choose not to think about their humanity, about their personhood, and we treat them as objects rather than as people.

The disciples start with a wrong assumption, but it was a very common one then, and it remains common today.  “Who sinned?”  “What went wrong?”  “Things aren’t supposed to be this way.  Whose fault is it?” 

Jesus says, “It’s nobody’s fault.  This man isn’t here so that we can blame someone or to provide us with a topic for discussion, this man is here so that God can be glorified in his life.”

In that sense, this man is just like all of us.  We’re all here so that God can be glorified in our lives.  Now God is glorified in our lives in different ways, but it almost always comes out of whatever challenges we face.  Every challenge that we face, every problem in our lives, every way in which we are handicapped is an opportunity for God to be glorified in our lives!

Now some people are offended the idea that God would have allowed this man to live his life to this point in blindness, just so he could be glorified.  Well, God is God and he can do whatever he wants.  But there is another way of translating Jesus’ words, not as showing the purpose of his blindness, which is what we have in the NIV – but as a command to Jesus’ disciples.  These words can just easily be translated, “Neither t his man nor his parents sinned, but let the work of God be displayed in him!”  If this is what Jesus meant, then  Jesus isn’t saying anything about why this man was born blind – he just addresses the reality – since things are this way, let’s get on with glorifying God.

Isn’t it that way it is in our lives?  We want to know why things happen, but usually we can’t.  What’s important is just to get on with glorifying God by being faithful in adversity and by looking to him to work a miracle if that’s what he chooses to do. 

I think that it’s remarkable that Jesus gives this man an opportunity to participate in his own healing by  telling him to go wash in the pool of Siloam.  The fact that the man had to do something didn’t mean that it was any less of a miracle or that there was any less grace involved, but it gave him an opportunity to show his faith by obedience.  In that regard, his washing in the pool of Siloam is similar to our washing in baptism.

As you might guess, this man’s healing causes quite a stir among those who know him.  Some are not even sure that he’s the same person.  A blind person carries himself differently from a seeing person; their eyes, of course, look different – a person who sees has a completely different look about them than a person who is staring into blackness.  That happens on a spiritual level as well.   When a person goes from walking in darkness to walking in the light, they don’t even appear to be the same person.

But this guy causes a really big stir when he is brought before the Pharisees.  Instead of seeing a miracle of healing, they get uptight because they think, once again, that Jesus has broken the Sabbath, so they interrogate this man and his parents about his healing.  All the man knows at first is that “the man they call Jesus” had healed him.  He doesn’t even know where to find him.  His parents affirm that the man is their son and that he was born blind, but they claim not to have any idea how  he was healed.  The Pharisees themselves argue about what this means.

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.

You know, both groups were using impeccable logic, but they could not get at the truth through logic alone.  Basically both groups are using logical syllogisms, but they ended up with different conclusions. 

Look at their logic. 

Both groups had equally compelling logic.  Who was right?  Well, the second group was right, of course.  When you look down at verses 31-33, the man who has been healed uses this same line of reasoning.  (There were some holes in his reasoning as well.  For example, he says, “We know that God does not hear sinners.”   What other kind of humans are there?) 

What made this man right, however, was not his logic or his theology, but the fact that he had a saving encounter with Jesus, and he responded by taking a stand for him.

In this way, this man stands in contrast to the paralytic back in John chapter 5, who Jesus healed, also on a Sabbath, also at a pool.  Remember that man, even after Jesus had healed him, betrayed Jesus and turned him into the Sabbath police so that he could stay out of trouble.

This man who had been born blind, however, is moving toward faith and so he takes a stand for Jesus.  It got him into trouble, but as he grows increasingly convinced of who Jesus is, he knows  it is worth it.  Tomorrow we’ll look more at the stand that he takes.