Story 2 - A Blind Man and Some Mud
Many times, the actions of Jesus not only served to teach his followers, but also to debunk a lot of wrong conventional wisdom. The man Jesus interacts with and heals in John 9 would've likely been passed over had His followers not pulled out this jacked-up conventional wisdom.
Jesus and his disciples were walking past a blind beggar when one of the disciples quizzed Jesus about this man's background. More specifically, they wanted to know who had sinned to cause this man to be born blind. Was it this man or his parents?
Right there Jesus should've smacked these guys around. After all, how dumb is it to ask if this guy was born blind because of his own sins?
That aside, this is a question that is still asked today when people fall on hard times, some disease, become disabled or even die. In certain Christian circles, it's still believed that all unfortunate circumstances are tied to an individual's sin. Now, to a certain degree, some of our sinful actions can lead to poverty, disability, loss of our family or even death.
But, outside of obvious sin, there is still a belief that all bad things that happen to people can be traced back to someone's sin. This happened to the mother-in-law of a friend. She had a mental disability, and when she approached her church for help, the church leadership told her it was because of sin in her life. The problem was that there wasn't a sin that was responsible. It was a physical condition she couldn't have prevented.
So, when these followers of Jesus asked this question, they were trying to discover what this man or his folks has done to cause his blindness. But, Jesus responds that no one had sinned to cause the disability. Then, Jesus clues them in that something great was about to happen -- something that would glorify God.
Why Jesus chose to make a mud pie out of spit we will never know. It's probably irrelavent, because many times in the Bible we see God moving in unique ways that are never repeated. What is important is that this man was healed. He could now see. But, that isn't the end of the story.
This man represents us in so many ways. Prior to a relationship with Jesus, we are like the blind man. We wander aimlessly, desperatly in need of someone to take away the darkness in our lives. Then, we encounter Jesus, and experience his saving grace. Our lives are transformed, and we become passionate followers of His. That is the short version of what happened to this man.
Sadly, in this story, the healed man was the only one who actually understood what happened. Oh, plenty of people recognized the life change, but they were also very skeptical. This man had spent years begging in the community, because he was blind. Yet, the same people who had passed him daily now were split on what had happened. Some didn't believe he had ever been blind. Others missed the importance of the touch of Jesus, and were consumed with the fact that the healer had worked to make spit-mud on the Sabbath.
That's very similar to how we react in Christian circles today. When we see a life transformed, we have the tendency to discount the life change, and sometimes even dismiss moves of God. It's the weirdest thing, but it happens time and time again.
This story messes with us, because we can see ourselves in every aspect of this event. We can relate to the blind man, who spent the better part of his life searching. We spend our pre-Christ life searching to fill the God-sized void with all kinds of worldly things.
The blind man wasn't necessarily searching for Christ. Instead, Jesus came to him, and worked a life change in him. Similarly, Jesus was working on us long before we knew He was there.
Additionally, after some time as believers, we can have the tendency to fall into the religiousity trap, where we think our status as Christians makes us better than those who aren't. It's pride that causes this spiritual blindness. Some of us can recognize and counter it, but others, like the Pharisees can get hung up on minor details (like denominational distinctives) that we miss the bigger things God is doing around us.
How about you? What parts of the story of John 9 have you been a part of?
No comments:
Post a Comment