This week we are looking at an event from history
involving an encounter between Jesus and a man who was born blind that is
recorded for us in an account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of
John. Wednesday, we looked on as a group of self righteous religious people
questioned the man who had been miraculously healed by Jesus.
While this group of religious leaders viewed Jesus
as someone who did not measure up to God's standards and wanted to draw the man
who was born blind into a doctrinal debate, the blind man 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 then reveals for us what happened next in verse 26-27:
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 miraculous
activity in his life by taking His side. We see how the self righteous
religious people responded to the man’s response in verse 28-29:
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 9:30-33:
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? We see how Jesus responded to what had happened in verse 35-40:
Jesus heard that they had put him out, and
finding him, He said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered,
"Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?" Jesus said to him,
"You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you."
And he said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped Him. And Jesus said,
"For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may
see, and that those who see may become blind."
John tells us that Jesus, after hearing that the man
that he had healed had been kicked out of the church that was supposed to point
people to Him, responded by once again taking the initiative in order to pursue
Him. Upon finding him, Jesus asked the man who had been born blind a simple but
powerful question: "Do you
believe in the Son of Man?" In other words, Jesus is asking this man if He
had placed his trust in God’s promise that one day a rescuer, a deliverer, a
Messiah, would come to bring the Jewish people back to God and back to
prominence in the world.
Notice the man’s response: "Who is He,
Lord, that I may believe in Him?" Remember, at this point this man had not
seen Jesus. He had heard Jesus voice; he had felt Jesus hands upon his face,
but he had not seen Jesus. But this man wanted to trust in the man that God had
promised to send. This man wanted to trust in the man that he had not yet seen
but that had done the miraculous to him.
And then this man, who had been
blind, heard the following: "You have both seen Him, and He is the one who
is talking with you." John tells us that the man who had been healed from
his physical blindness responded by basically saying “I trust in you” and then
fell to the ground in worship of God in a bod, who miraculously brought rescue and healing from a lifetime of suffering.
Jesus then proclaimed to the crowds that had
gathered around Him that this was the reason why He came to humanity. Jesus
proclaimed that He entered into humanity so that God would be revealed and
proclaimed to those who had not previously been able to see God because they
were spiritually blind. And Jesus entered into humanity so that those who
thought that they were insiders with God through their own religious activity
and had rejected Jesus would be revealed as being blind to the things of God.
John then concludes this section of his letter by revealing the response of the
self righteous religious people in verse 41:
Those of the
Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, "We are
not blind too, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you
would have no sin; but since you say, 'We see,' your sin remains.
John tells us that the self righteous religious
people responded to Jesus explanation for His entry into humanity with a
defensive question: "We are
not blind too, are we?" They basically asked Jesus “so are you saying that
we are spiritually blind?” Jesus response to their question, if communicated in
the language we use in our culture today would have sounded like this: “If
you had been previously blind to the things of God, you would be without sin
because would have received the forgiveness of sin as a result of trusting in
Me. But because you claim to have spiritual sight when it comes to God but
reject Me, you reveal that you are actually spiritually blind and remain in
sin”.
Jesus point is that those who claim to have
spiritual sight apart from Jesus will be shown up for the blind people that they
are, while those who are spiritually blind to their selfishness and sin and
need for forgiveness, will through Jesus receive the ability to see their need
for forgiveness and the relationship with God that they were created for. And it is here, in this miraculous
event from history that was recorded for us by Jesus closest friend on earth, that we discover a timeless answer to the question “Why
Christmas?”
And that timeless answer is
this: We celebrate Christmas because Jesus came to give us spiritual sight. Just
as it was with this miraculous activity involving a man who had suffered his
entire life without sight, just as it
has been for Christmases throughout history, we celebrate Christmas because
Jesus came to give us spiritual sight.
You see, Christmas is
significant because Christmas is about Jesus entering into humanity to
intervene and act in a way that overcomes suffering that comes as a result of
us living in a fallen and broken world. And Christmas is significant because
Christmas is about
Jesus entering into humanity to give us spiritual
sight.
Christmas is about Jesus entering into humanity to
give us the spiritual sight to help us see our need for Him as a result of our
selfishness and rebellion against Him. Christmas is about Jesus entering into
humanity to give us the spiritual sight to help us see that He offers us the
opportunity to experience the forgiveness and the relationship with God that we
were created for through Him. And
Christmas is significant because Christmas is about Jesus entering into
humanity to give us the spiritual sight to see that it is through our response
to suffering that we might experience, that we have the opportunity to make
much of Him and point people to Him.
So here is a question
to consider: How have you responded to the reality that Jesus came to humanity
to give us spiritual sight?
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