This week we are looking at en event from history
involving an encounter between a man born blind and Jesus that is recorded for
us in an account of Jesus life called the gospel of John. Yesterday, we looked
on as Jesus and His disciples encountered a man who had been blind from birth.
In other words, this man had never been able to see a single thing. And in the
culture of the day, being born blind would result in a life of suffering that
was totally dependent upon others. Being born blind would result in a life
without hope.
After answering a theological question of the
disciples in such a way that revealed for us the reality that there are times
that bad things happen to bad people, there are times that bad things happen to
good people, and there are times that God uses the bad things that happen to
people to make much of Him and point people to Him by the way that people
respond to the bad things that happen, Jesus turned His attention to the man
born blind by spitting in the man's eye and commanding him to wash in the pool
of Siloam.
John tells us
that 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 Him experiencing the miraculous in his life. Today,
we see John record how those who knew the blind man responded to what had
happened in John 9:8-12:
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 13-17:
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 a miraculous work 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 miraculous 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 was
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 18-23:
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 miraculous 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 miraculous
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 24-25:
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. Friday, we will see John reveal for
us what happened next...
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