This week, we are looking at an unexplainable event
from the history of Jesus life that is recorded for us in an account of Jesus
life in the Bible called the gospel of John. Tuesday, we looked on as Jesus
approached a man who had been born blind, then spit on the ground, made mud
pies to cover his eyes, and then told him to walk a half a mile to a pool
called the pool of Siloam in order to wash the mud pies off his eyes so that he
could see.
We looked on as the blind man responded by making
the half mile trip to the pool of Siloam. By having to go wash in the pool of
Siloam, the blind man had to demonstrate His trust in Jesus by obeying Jesus
instructions. And the blind man’s trust in Jesus resulted in the unexplainable
happening. Today we will see John record how those who knew the blind man
responded to what had happened in John 9:8:
Therefore
the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying,
"Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?" Others were saying,
"This is he," still others
were saying, "No, but he is like him." He kept saying, "I am the
one." So they were saying to him, "How then were your eyes
opened?" He answered, "The man who is called Jesus made clay, and
anointed my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash'; so I went away and
washed, and I received sight." They said to him, "Where is He?"
He said, "I do not know."
Now how dumb is this question?
Where is He? I don't know, you see I was blind at the time. Seriously. The
reason why the blind man did not know where Jesus was at is due to the fact
that the blind man had no idea what Jesus looked like because he had never seen
Jesus. John tells us that crowds were confused over the identity of the blind
man because they could not wrap their minds around the reality that he was no
longer blind.
And in their confusion; and in
their search for answers in order to explain what seemed to be unexplainable,
the crowds brought the blind man to the Pharisees, who were the self righteous
religious experts. John then records how the experts responded to what they saw
in verse 13:
They brought
to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind. Now it was a Sabbath on the
day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also were asking him again
how he received his sight. And he said to them, "He applied clay to my
eyes, and I washed, and I see." Therefore some of the Pharisees were
saying, "This man is not from God, because He does not keep the
Sabbath." But others were saying, "How can a man who is a sinner
perform such signs?" And there was a division among them. So they said to
the blind man again, "What do you say about Him, since He opened your
eyes?" And he said, "He is a prophet."
When John explains that it was
the Sabbath on the day that Jesus had healed the blind man, he is revealing for
us the reality that Jesus had broken one of the religious leaders rules by
doing the unexplainable on a day when no work was supposed to be done. John
tells us that the self righteous religious leaders of the day responded to
Jesus doing the unexplainable by viewing Jesus as one did not measure up to
God’s standards and thus an outsider that was not in relationship with God but
opposed to God.
The Pharisees believed that a man sent from God
would not violate one of His rules, so then Jesus must be a false prophet and a
sinner because He was breaking the Sabbath. Others, however, could not
understand how someone who was an outsider that was opposed to God could
perform a miracle that only God could do. And as a result, John tells us that
there was a division among the self righteous religious leaders of the day. You
see, Jesus always divides people. Jesus is not the type of person that one
remains on the fence about.
The self righteous religious leaders then turned to
the man who had previously been born blind in order to get His opinion. By
calling Jesus a prophet, the man, who had not previously known Jesus, responded
to what had happened in his life by giving Jesus a title that seemed to fit
Jesus and that others who had performed miracles had received.
You see, when placed in the middle of an argument
and asked to choose sides; the man who was born blind did not hesitate, but was
definite when it came to how he defined Jesus. We see how the Pharisees
responded to the blind man’s’ statement in verse 18:
The Jews
then did not believe it of him,
that he had been blind and had received sight, until they called the parents of
the very one who had received his sight, and questioned them, saying, "Is
this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?" His
parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he
was born blind; but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we
do not know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself." His
parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had
already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out
of the synagogue. For this reason his parents said, "He is of age; ask
him."
John tells us that the self righteous religious
leaders rejected the man’s opinion and called for his parents. You see, while
they acknowledged that the unexplainable had taken place, their focus was
centered on who people thought Jesus was, not on the miracle itself.
And the parents, who were people pleasers, were more
focused on losing their status in the community than they were of defending
their son and rejoicing in the unexplainable activity that had occurred in his
life. So they avoided answering the religious leader’s questions and put their
son back in the spotlight. We see what happened next in verse 24:
So a 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 then answered, "Whether He is a sinner, I do not know;
one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."
Now the self righteous religious leaders question,
if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded
something like this: “Tell the truth and stop lying, we know that this man does
not measure up to God’s standards and is an outsider that is opposed to God”.
The blind man, however, was not interested in having
a theological debate. And the blind man could not answer their deep doctrinal
question as to whether or not Jesus was an outsider who was opposed to God. All
the blind man knew was what he had experienced and that is what he wanted to
talk about. John the reveals for us what happened next in verse 26:
So they said to him, "What did He do to
you? How did He open your eyes?" He answered them, "I told you
already and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again? You do not want to become His disciples too, do
you?"
As the self righteous religious people pressed the
man who had been born blind, John tells us that the man responded by choosing
to align himself with Jesus. The blind man chose to respond to Jesus
unexplainable activity in his life by taking His side. We see how the self
righteous religious people responded to the man’s response in verse 28:
They reviled him and said, "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 is from."
Now the word reviled literally means to abuse
someone verbally in a very insulting manner. And as they insulted this man who
had been previously born blind, these self righteous religious people attempted
to make themselves appear to be right by identifying and aligning with Moses.
The self righteous religious people basically say to
the man who had previously been blind: “So you want to follow this Jesus, well
we follow Moses. And we know that God was with Moses because of all that God
had said and done through Moses. We know that Moses was on God’s team because
of all the miracles that Moses did and how God gave Moses the Law. But the guy
you follow, this Jesus, there is no evidence that God is with Him or that He is
on God’s team”.
These self righteous religious leaders looked down
and insulted this man as being inferior in education and intellect. What these
self righteous religious leaders were not prepared for, however, was what the
man who had been previously been blind had to say next, which John records for
us in John 9:30:
The man answered and said to them,
"Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from,
and yet He opened my eyes.
"We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and
does His will, He hears him. "Since the beginning of time it has never
been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. "If this
man were not from God, He could do nothing."
Now the man’s response if communicated in the
language that we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like
this: “Well it seems remarkable to me that you do not seem to know if He is
from God or not after He has done something as miraculous as enabling a man
like me who has previously been blind to be able to see. What is amazing to me
is that even though I have never been able to read a Bible or go to Torah class
so as to become a rabbi, one thing that I do know about God is this: What I
know and what everybody knows is that God does not pay attention and respond to
the requests of those who do not measure up to His standards and are outsiders
that are opposed to Him. What I know and what everybody knows is that God pays
attention and responds to the requests of those who place Him large and in
charge of their lives and are walking in relationship with Him. And here is
something else that I do know: no human being throughout history has ever done
something like this without the intervention and activity of God. And I don’t
even remember Moses healing a man that was born blind, do you? So it’s obvious
to me that this man named Jesus is from God”.
You see this man, who had never read the Bible, had just
theologically schooled those who considered themselves experts in the Bible.
While the self righteous religious people were interested in doctrinal debates
and aligning themselves with Moses, the man who was born blind was more focused
on what Jesus had done that was otherwise unexplainable apart from God. John
then reveals how the self righteous religious people responded to being
schooled in verse 34:
They answered him, "You were born
entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?" So they put him out.
John tells us that the self righteous religious
people, who were now embarrassed after being theologically schooled by an
uneducated blind man, attacked the man as being blind as a result of being
someone who, like Jesus, did not measure up to God’s standards and was an
outsider who was opposed to God.
You see, just like the disciples earlier, these self
righteous religious people assumed that bad things happened to bad people. And
as a result of that assumption, John tells us that they kicked the man that had
been miraculously healed by the Son of God out of the church that was supposed
to point people to God. Because that is what self righteous religious people do,
isn't it?
Tomorrow, we will see how Jesus responded to what had happened...
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