Sunday, January 22, 2012

I SEE BLIND PEOPLE


John 9:30-33      The formerly blind man answered the Pharisees, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could no nothing.”


The miracle was performed by Jesus on a man born blind. The man was then seen by neighbors, family and others in the area. He was brought before the Pharisees to be investigated. They were agitated by the fact that this miracle happened on the Sabbath. They demanded to know who performed the miracle. Some questioned whether he was even born blind. They called in his parents to question them. Nothing would convince them that the man had been healed of blindness. The man’s insistence on the truth of the events led the Pharisees to throw him out of their synagogue.

After his expulsion, the man is confronted again by Jesus. Jesus wants the miracle understood within the context of his mission. He wants the man to be conscious of the greater things to which the miracle points. Jesus wants to place him in a permanent, personal relationship of faith to himself.

Look at the contrast between this man who believed in the Son of Man and the responses of the Scripture-trained Pharisees. Judgment has come. The dividing-line is between those who see Jesus for who he is and those who are blind to him. The people in this story place themselves on one side or the other by how they react to the truth, to Jesus’ miracle. Judgment is not reason Christ came into the world but the effect of his coming.

“Not seeing” describes the general state of a person before the light of the world has illuminated him or her. The way to the light is open to all. Those who do not “see” are those who imagine that they can see. They “become blind”. Their “not seeing” becomes their inability to see. The result is they place themselves under judgment.

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