It’s amazing to me how many of Jesus’ miracles
don’t seem to have been planned out ahead of time. Think about it. Jesus just goes to a wedding as a guest, and
the next thing we know he’s turning water into wine. Jesus is trying to
get off by himself, but a bunch of people follow him, he speaks to them, and
the next thing we know he’s feeding five thousand people with five loaves of
bread and two fish. Those are just a couple of examples where Jesus was
really just kind of minding his own business, and all of a sudden circumstances
prompt him to work a miracle.
And our story today is another one. Jesus is walking
down the road, sees a blind man, and decides to heal him. The way it’s
written, it does not sound like Jesus set out that day to heal a blind
man. It does not sound like Jesus had any particular plan, really. It just says “as he was walking along, he saw
a man who was blind since birth.” The disciples ask him whose fault it
was that this many had been born blind, and Jesus says, “This happened so that
the works of God might be displayed through him.”
You know, as I read this, I have all kinds of
questions. First, how did the disciples know this man had been born
blind? I mean, I can see how they could’ve figured out that he was blind,
but how did they know he was born that way? Was he somebody they
knew? Did Jesus tell them?
And then, I wonder how the blind man felt when he heard
this conversation between Jesus and the disciples about whose fault it was that
he’d been born blind. I mean, the way it sounds, they’re having this
conversation right in front of him. Have
you ever had that happen, to have people talk about you like you were not even
there, even though you are right there, right in front of them? Talk
about feeling insignificant. This guy
might just as well have been a rock by the side of the road, for all the
disciples noticed him.
But then, he’d have heard Jesus say that bit about him
being blind “so that the works of God might be displayed through him.”
What must he have thought about that? He
was pretty confused, probably. We don’t
even know if he knew who Jesus was. He’d
have heard the disciples call him “Rabbi”, so he’d have known that much.
But did he know Jesus could work miracles?
And how was his being blind
going to let the works of God be displayed. What works of God,
anyway? Was Jesus saying his blindness
was a work of God? He must have really wondered what was going on.
So Jesus spits on the ground,
makes some mud, and rubs it on the guy’s eyes. He tells him “Go, wash in
the Pool of Siloam.”
As the story comes to us,
that’s the only thing Jesus said. He did not explain who he was. He did not explain what he was doing.
He did not say what, if anything, would happen after this guy washed in the
Pool of Siloam. He just said to do it.
And the guy did it!
That’s pretty amazing, really. Again, we don’t know that he had any idea
who Jesus was. We don’t know that he had any idea that Jesus had special
healing powers. When he was going to the Pool of Siloam, what was he
thinking? Did he really believe he was
going to be healed? Or did he think, well, what have I got to lose,
really?
And it worked! Can you imagine
how he must have felt? Can you imagine what that would be like? To
have been born blind, to never have seen anything, to not even really
understand what it meant to see something. And then, all of a sudden, you
can see! I mean, that had to feel
incredible.
And then come the
questions. First from his neighbors.
Now, you really cannot blame them for having questions. I mean,
they’d known this guy for years, they knew he was blind, and now he can
see? How’s that work? How’s it
even possible?
But then the Pharisees question
him. He tells them the story, and they refuse to believe it. So
they ask him again. And he tells them
again. This keeps happening, over and
over and over. The Pharisees keep asking him questions, he keeps
answering them, and they keep refusing to believe it.
But here’s the thing.
Think about this. The day before
this--in fact, earlier that same day--the Pharisees would not have had any
interest in this guy at all. They would’ve walked right past him. I mean, he was a blind man. He was a beggar. In their world, he was being punished by God,
either because of his own sins or his parents’ sins. He was essentially a
non-person in the eyes of the Pharisees.
They would’ve ignored him. They
would not have given him the time of day.
They’d have had zero interest in anything he had to say.
And now, just a few hours
later, this guy is the most important person around. The Pharisees pretty
much demand to talk to him. And they
keep talking to him, questioning him. And as you look at the answers he
gives to the Pharisees, it sounds like this formerly blind man loves the
attention he’s getting, and you cannot blame him. It also sounds like he
gives no deference to the Pharisees, and you cannot blame him for that,
either. He tells the Pharisees Jesus is
a prophet. He asks them if they want to
be Jesus’ disciples. He tells them that Jesus could not do what he’d done
if he was not from God. This guy has to
know he’s making the Pharisees mad, but he does not care. And there’s no reason he should care, because
he knows he’s telling the truth. If the Pharisees don’t want to accept
it, that’s their problem. But he’s going
to praise God, and praise this prophet who has cured him of his blindness,
because he knows what happened. He knows
the truth.
Think about what Jesus did for
this man. When you think about it, Jesus really worked two miracles first
man. Jesus cured him of his blindness, of course, and it would’ve been
awesome enough if Jesus had just stopped there. But Jesus did more than
that. Jesus elevated this man from
essentially being a non-person to being the most important person around.
He went from being someone who people ignored to someone people could not stop
talking to That had to feel almost as
good, maybe even better, as being able to see.
In the end, of course, the
Pharisees threw him out. But it looks like he did not care, and why
should he? He did not need them any more.
He did not need anyone. Except for one person. He needed Jesus. When Jesus caught up with him again, he said
to Jesus, tell me who the Son of Man is, so I can believe in him. And was
Jesus told him, he worshiped Jesus.
You see, that’s what makes
Jesus the great healer. It’s not just because of his physical
healing. That’s what we always think of,
the miraculous physical healing he gave so many people. That’s important,
but it’s not the most important way Jesus heals us. Jesus provides spiritual healing. He can take us from feeling like we’re lost,
feeling like we’re not important, feeling like no one cares about us, to feeling
like we’re the most important person around. Because in Jesus’ eyes, we
are. Each one of us, to Jesus, is the
most important person around. No matter
who insignificant or helpless we feel, each one of us is incredibly important
to Jesus.
We’re living in an uncertain
world right now. Some might say it’s a scary world. It’s a world that seems to be changing every
day. Things that we thought we fixed in our world are no longer there, at
least not right now. We feel kind of lost. We feel unimportant. We feel like we have no control over
anything. That’s one of the reasons people start to hoard things--it’s an
attempt to have control over some aspect, any aspect, of our lives in a world
that seems totally out of control.
But it’s not. The world is
not out of control. God is still there.
Nothing happens that God does not allow. And Jesus is still there,
and Jesus is still the great healer.
Jesus can heal us physically, and that’s very important. But Jesus
can also heal us spiritually. In a world
where we feel totally insignificant, Jesus can come and make us feel like the
most important person around. Jesus will do that, if we put our faith and
trust in him. If we worship him, like
the blind man worshiped him. Because
then we will know the truth, just like the blind man knew the truth.
You and I are not insignificant.
We are not unimportant. When we
experience Jesus’ healing, we’ll know that. Because then, we will know
the truth.
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