Articles
Jesus Healing the Blind
When the blind man in John 9 regains his sight, we can imagine the reaction to be similar to videos we watch of people who see through corrective color blind glasses for the first time. Our hearts become flooded with empathy as we watch the teary expression of overwhelming joy. However, that teary expression of joy would have never happened, if it hadn’t been for the trial of color blindness. It can be easy to forget pain and right off our trials once they are over. No one in a right mind revels in hardship or wants to suffer. Yet, Jesus couldn’t have performed His miracle if the blind man had not gone through such hardship. The Pharisee’s asked if sin was the reason the man was born blind. In John 9:3 (ESV) part of Jesus’ reply was this, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Think of the blessings and biblical understanding that God’s handiwork allows you to display in your life. Are the opportunities to display God’s wondrous glory being seized?
There are going to be people of the world that will be like the Pharisees and try to suppress Children of God from displaying His work in their lives. The Pharisees were teachers of the Law of Moses and held a high status in Jewish society during the time of Jesus. After the news of healing the blind man’s eyes had spread, we see the Pharisees found him and brought him in for questioning. Since Jesus performed His miracle on the Sabbath Day—the day of rest for the Jews—Jesus was being called a sinner. No matter how many times they asked the man how he had been healed and who by, they didn’t believe. Probably feeling like they were going in circles, the Pharisees even summoned the man’s parents to question them. To which the parents responded, “He is of age ask him” (John 9:23 ESV). John 9:22 tells us that the parents responded this way because they feared being kicked out of the synagogue by the Pharisees—who had already made up their mind to do this to those who confessed Jesus to be Christ.
1 John 3:1 (ESV) says, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” The Pharisees believed that their relationship with God was safer in their own understanding than that of the Son of God. If they truly took the time to restudy what they thought they knew then they wouldn’t have been as stubborn as to deny the miraculous power of Christ. They used their social power and influences to subjugate others to their own ideologies. The world is going to do this time and time again. Therefore, as God’s children we must be firm in our belief so that we stay true and confess the miraculous work of Christ in our lives. We should heed the example of the blind man and choose Christ over worldly gain. Sadly, the parents played into the Pharisees’ hands because even though they didn’t deny Christ outright, by saying nothing, they might as well have. Will you be like the blind man and seize every moment you can to proclaim God’s work? Or will you ultimately digress from your relationship with Christ by focusing on the physical things of this world like blind man’s parents and the Pharisees?
