All four Gospels tell about Jesus healing blind men. We have no record of blind women, but there are several incidents with blind men. In John, the Fourth Gospel, we have the most detailed story about a blind man.
We have a full cast of characters, with lots of dialogue, almost like a play. In addition to the blind man and Jesus, we have the disciples and the religious leaders, who frequently are on the scene. But we also meet the man’s parents. And some of his neighbors. So there’s a great deal of excitement as Jesus heals this blind man.
After the man’s eyes are opened, he will have to look closely at a difficult choice that goes with seeing. Will he be true to Jesus when it might have been easier to deny the man who healed him? We also will look at some preachers in the seventeen hundreds who stood true to their convictions when their religious freedom was denied. Then we will ask ourselves what we do when we are confronted with choices that include being true to our Lord.
First we notice the disciples. They’re with Jesus at the Temple on a Saturday when they see the blind man sitting with his begging bowl. The disciples show their understanding of how God works. Or, I should say, their misunderstanding. One of them asks, “Whose sin caused this man to be born blind, the man himself or his parents?” We often think the same way. Sarah is diagnosed with cancer. What did she do wrong? Sam lost his job? Is that punishment? And so on. The classic example is Job, who is described in the Bible as "blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil." As Job faces personal disasters, three well-meaning friends insist he is a great sinner, and his suffering and loss are payment from God.
Jesus says, “Fellows, you’re asking the wrong questions. This has nothing to do with anybody’s sin. This is an occasion to show God’s work in the man’s life.”
Dr. Bill Hull said the disciples looked for someone they could blame, but Jesus looked for someone He could change (Hull 298).
Then Jesus identifies His own work as the work of God and says He and His followers
must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day; night comes, when no one can work (v. 4).
Jesus, no doubt, thinks of His own shortness of opportunity to work, recalling the religious leaders who very recently attempted to stone Him to death -- in the Temple, of all places (Hull 298).
Our Lord says all this as He prepares to heal the blind man, bringing sight to his eyes and, perhaps, spiritual sight to the disciples.
Now, John turns our attention to the blind man. Jesus declares Himself as the light of the world, in contrast with darkness in the eyes of the blind man. As He says this, Jesus spits on the ground and makes a clay poultice. After applying the mixture to the blind eyes, Jesus tells the man, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam." The author tells us Siloam means Sent. So Jesus sends the man to Siloam, and we are reminded how Jesus Himself was sent into the world from God (Hull 298).
Jesus might simply have spoken words of healing, as He did at other times, but making the mudpie and putting it on the eyes is a physical sign to the onlookers, and, likewise, He gives the man something to do that people can see. The crowd may be breathless as the man stumbles toward the pool. He has sat there begging, day by day, and most likely has felt his way around. But if he has any fear, he still bulls his way forward at Jesus’s command.
And the results: he went and washed and came back seeing.
What a wonder-filled moment. As the man’s eyes open, new potential for life is opening before him. But his newly opened eyes soon will see a different kind of darkness.
Word spreads about the man’s newfound eyes. Neighbors gather around. Some of them have watched him from the time he was a toddler as he learned to stand on his own feet, despite his blindness. Some of them led him to the Temple gate where beggars traditionally sit with their bowls. So his parents and neighbors come in a hurry as word of healing goes viral. Meantime, Jesus goes to other areas of the Temple.
In his blind state, the man probably stooped over most of the time, with his begging bowl set out in front of him. So his neighbors hardly knew what he actually looked like. But let’s listen in to the neighbors debate whether this really is the man who had never been able to see:
[8] The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar, said, "Is not this the man who used to sit and beg?"
[9] Some said, "It is he";
others said, "No, but he is like him."
He said, "I am the man."
[10] They said to him, "Then how were your eyes opened?"
[11] He answered, "The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, `Go to Siloam and wash'; so I went and washed and received my sight."
[12] They said to him, "Where is he?"
He said, "I do not know."
Those neighbors are excited. They want everyone to know. So they get the healed man to go with them to the Pharisees, the religious authorities who are always on hand at the Temple, supervising everything, including claims of healing.
Everybody surely will be happy to hear and see the man who is no longer blind. But the Pharisees are anything but happy. They are obsessed with keeping things as they think things have always been. They regularly clash with Jesus because He brings new insights into how things ought to be. In this case, they say Jesus broke the Sabbath by giving sight to the blind man. To quote Dr. Bill Hull once again: “No sooner was a born blind beggar enabled to see than the Pharisees . . . began to throw theological sand into his newly opened eyes” (Hull 299).
As they see it, Jesus violated the law in two ways when He healed on the Sabbath: This was not an emergency. The man had been blind all his life, so Jesus could have waited till the next day to heal him. Also, Jesus had worked when He made the mudpack to put on the man’s eyes. So this is a double sin against the holy day (Hull 299). Jesus isn’t around right now, so the Pharisees quiz the man:
[15] The Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight.
And he said to them, "He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see."
[16] Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?" There was a division among them.
[17] So they again said to the blind man, "What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?"
He said, "He is a prophet."
That doesn’t set well with the Pharisees, but now they turn their attention to the man’s parents:
John tells us, [18] The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents . . . [19] and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?"
[20] His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; [21] but how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself."
Then John explains, [22] His parents said this because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if any one should confess [Jesus] to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. [23] Therefore his parents said, "He is of age, ask him."
His mother and father are filled with fear for themselves. If they take up for their son, they will be excommunicated (Hull 300). They will lose their connection with Jewish worship. Their neighbors will shun them. The familiar religious system means more than the son they had protected all his life. Rather than lose their religious affiliation, they say their son is an adult. Let him speak for himself.
A few decades later, as Jews were converting in great numbers, the ruling council, the Sanhedrin, set up formal religious court procedures. They held trials and officially declared the new Jewish Christians to be heretics (Hull 300).
With the parents safely under their control, the Pharisees again question the former blind man. This becomes heated as he talks back:
[24] So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and said to him, "Give God the praise; we know that this man is a sinner."
[25] He answered, "Whether he is a sinner, I do not know; ONE thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see."
[26] They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"
[27] He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do YOU TOO want to become his disciples?"
[28] They say, "You are HIS disciple, but WE are disciples of Moses. [29] We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from."
[30] The man answered, "Why, this is a marvel! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. [31] We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if any one is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. [32] Never since the world began has it been heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind. [33] If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."
This is the last straw. They’re through with this sassy fellow. So they say [34], "You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?"
And, with that, they cast him out. He no longer has standing in the faith.
As the man gains the one thing he needed most, he seems to have lost everything else. He had made his living as a beggar. Now, that’s gone. His neighbors will be in trouble with the Pharisees if they offer help. His parents feel helpless. Pharisees if they offer help. His parents feel helpless.
Now he has no work, no home, no religious framework. So Jesus comes to offer him spiritual sight to go with his physical sight (Hull 301).
[35] Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, "Do you believe in the Son of man?"
[36] He answered, "And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?"
[37] Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and it is he who speaks to you."
[38] He said, "Lord, I believe"; and he worshiped him.
As Jesus reflects on this man’s courageous faith, He says, [39] "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind."
[40] Some of the Pharisees near him heard this, and they said to him, "Are we also blind?"
[41] Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, `We see,' your guilt remains.
As the modern slogan puts it, “No one is as blind as he who refuses to see.”
In Mary P. Hamlin's play, He Came Seeing, based on this incident, the chief Pharisee declares the man an outcast.
The Pharisee asks, “Is a stranger worth giving up all this for?”
“Yes, he is worth it,” the man says.
The Pharisee says, “Very well. You must choose.”
His father cries out: “Just this once shut your eyes -- for my sake.”
The heart-broken mother can only gasp, “Son!”
Now, the healed man asks, “Oh, warm and friendly blindness! Is this the price of seeing?”
The Pharisee answers, “It IS the price.”
In the last words of the play, the former blind man declares, “Then I will pay it. But oh, God in Heaven, I did not know that seeing cost so great a price” (Hamlin 35).
Now, move with me, please, from the First Christian Century to Eighteenth Century America when some faithful Christians, faced fines, imprisonment, and even death if they remained faithful Baptists. In Virginia in those days, it was a crime to be anything other than an Anglican.
"Following the pattern of England, the Church of England became the established church by a legal enactment, and the church was supported from the colony’s coffers. As the established church, it was designed to be the only church recognized or legally permitted in the colony. This led to enactment of severe penalties to exclude all dissenting religions from practicing and proclaiming their faiths in the colony" (http://www.sundaylaw.net).
"The first actual imprisonment of Baptist ministers for breach of the law took place in June 1768. Several Baptist ministers were seized in Spotsylvania County. They were offered release on the condition that they would agree to preach no more in the county for a year and a day. This they refused to do, and therefore were sent to prison" (http://www.sundaylaw.net).
Let me mention some of what Baptist preachers endured before they gained a measure of toleration: One was “pelted with apples and stones,” another was “ducked and nearly drowned by 20 men." Still another was "jailed for permitting a man to pray." Several were severely beaten. One was
"dragged off stage, kicked, and cuffed about," and another was "shot with a shot-gun" (Gourley). In spite of all that, my Baptist forebears stood true to their conviction that religious freedom comes from God and not from other people.
Our study isn’t over with the courageous man who stood true to Jesus who gave him sight.
Our study isn’t over with the courageous Baptist ministers who stood true to Jesus in the face of physical abuse, fines, and imprisonment.
I hope you have not had to choose between your family on the one hand and your faith in Jesus on the other.
I hope you have not suffered the physical abuse similar to those Virginia preachers.
But closer to home -- day by day, we have to decide whether we will be true to Jesus Christ who gave us spiritual sight:
Do we use crude language as a way of going along to get along with our crowd?
Do we tell smutty stories or laugh when other people tell them?
Do we fail to speak up for another person when we hear gossip or innuendo?
Do we take advantage of someone else for our own personal benefit?
Do we show partiality toward a particular son or daughter or grandchild?
You and I have to make our own list as we look deep within our selves.
Tony Cartledge, a Baptist professor and editor, tells of traveling in the Central American country of Honduras. There, he saw various livestock going about unattended in search of food. When the animals found roadside grass, they stopped and ate, again with no one looking after them. This made Tony Cartledge curious. Why were these cows and horses roving the countryside? Where did they belong? Who was seeing after them anyway? When he asked a native Honduran about that, here was the reply: “The animals know to whom they belong” (Cartledge).
From the
Baraca Radio Sunday School Class
First Baptist Church, Anderson, South Carolina
July 14, 2013
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