Be Seen-The Man Born Blind- Encounters with Jesus

The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined. Isaiah 9:2

In the book of John there’s a chapter dedicated to an encounter in which a healing took place where the person healed didn’t see the healer until after he’d been run through the testing of his faith in the event. It’s an encouraging chapter for many reasons, but mostly because it speaks to us about where faith is born in all of us, in the experiences we have had that no one can take away from us. God is undeniable.

Have you ever felt invisible? Some people just naturally draw attention, and other seek it out. Still others just seem to blend in like big globs of human camouflage. I’ve known people who as children seem to disappear into the background and never come out. It saddens me to think they are never seen by anyone but maybe their parents, and if they’re lucky a few who pass by. This is the story of one of those kinds of people. Maybe you feel like you’re one of those people. Well, take heart, Jesus sees you.

 Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” John 9:1-2

It was Jesus who saw him, not the disciples, or the other people. Jesus saw him and it was the Lord who drew the attention of others to this blind man. Yet, what is it that the others do when they see someone who has a major and obvious disability? They ask why and make assumptions that something bad must have caused it. Someone did something wrong or he would not be blind, because, after all, we all know that good things happen to good people, and bad things only happen to bad people, right? Wrong. We are all children of a fallen world, and we all suffer the consequences of a fallen sin filled world. To make the assumption that it is only bad people who suffer is to assume the worse of the poor, the needy, and those who are sick. It also would mean the inverse would be true, that those who have everything have it because they have great morals and are not greedy or that they never suffer at all. We know that neither is true. Everyone has hard times, and “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23

 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” John 9:3-5

Jesus explains a truth we all need to understand. Bad thing do happen at times so that God may be shown strong through them. One thing about storms is that we have to get rained on to know what it is to be soaked to the skin in order to know why we need to take shelter. A child needs to feel the heat to know not to stick their hand in the fire. He goes on to point out that Jesus was sent by the Father and had a mission to fulfill. He warns that there is coming a time when His purpose will not be able to continue, when he will have to die for the sins of all. For the time being He brings the light into the darkness of men’s hearts, and in this case into his actual life.

 When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing. John 9:6-7

Jesus then takes the very elements man was created from and uses them to make the means of the healing. Notice that the man didn’t ask for his sight. He didn’t seek it out, but Jesus knew what this man desired. Jesus sent him to go wash this salve out of his eyes. What’s interesting is that the man came back to the spot seeing, but it doesn’t say that he saw Jesus. He wouldn’t have known what Jesus looked like. He didn’t know his own face. He didn’t know anyone’s face! Can you imagine seeing a sea of strangers for the very first time, and yet some of them actually know you, and you know them? What must that have been like for him? What must it have been like to find his way back to the spot where he sat and begged every day, and actually be able to see it for the very first time? Something that had always been so familiar was suddenly so foreign to him, yet in a good way! In an amazingly brilliant way! It had to be similar to hearing our baby cry for the first time and knowing it’s healthy because it let out such a wonderful wail! The joy of it all must have filled his heart so that he laughed and cried out of those newborn eyes of wonderment. “Oh, so that’s what you look like,” he might have said to those around him. “My, you’re pretty too! And you have no hair, I thought you had a lot of hair! And you, I expected your nose to look very different.” 

 Therefore the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind said, “Is not this he who sat and begged?”

 Some said, “This is he.” Others said, “He is like him.”

He said, “I am he.”

 Therefore they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?”

 He answered and said, “A Man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and I received sight.”

Then they said to him, “Where is He?”

He said, “I do not know.” John 9:8-12

Not only was the former blind man seeing these people for the first time, but they seemed to be seeing him for the first time. They didn’t even recognize him. He had eyes that were working. No longer where his eyes atrophied. He had eyes wide opened and they moved and followed them! He could see. How was this possible. The simple story of clay on his eyes and washing it off seemed so…miraculous! But there he was, blinking and looking them in the face, telling them what happened. So they asked him, where was this man? How would he know? When last he had encountered Jesus he couldn’t see him. He only knew his voice. If Jesus wasn’t asking the questions He could have been standing right in front of this man and he wouldn’t have known Him. He had been blind. You don’t ask a blind man to give a description, do you?

Why then do we go asking the spiritually blind to give us a description of how to worship? Or ask them where to worship?  We need to wait until they too can have the experience when their eyes are opened by the Light of the World before we go asking them to identify what is holy.

They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees. Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” John 9:13-15

The sign of a good witness is that his story doesn’t change. It just gets simpler because it’s the facts. There is no need to add to it. There was no amazing change of details. This man knew what happened so no matter how many times the questions get asked or who is doing the asking, he tells the truth, especially when it’s the priests doing the asking. One doesn’t lie to a priest.

 Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.”

Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.

They said to the blind man again, “What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?”

He said, “He is a prophet.” John 9:16-17

What a great observation of human nature John makes here. You have all of these people who have just experienced the same event, a man blind from birth, receiving his sight, and all they can do is debate about the personality of the man who performed the miracle instead of basking in the event itself. It’s like watching a beautiful sunset and saying, “if only those clouds weren’t so low it would be perfect,” when the low clouds are creating a contrasting purple to the orange glow of the sun. Who are we to critique God? Yet we do it all the time. We go the distance to find fault with ourselves when we look in the mirror, and in others when there is no mirror around. And yet, when God sees us He finds us worthy of His Son’s life. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight. And they asked them, saying, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”

His parents answered them and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself.” His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” John 9:18-22

Plausible deniability seems to be running rampant because they can’t get the formerly blind man to change his story. So what do they do? They try to get the parents to say that the poor man was not really blind; that he’d been faking all along! Isn’t it crazy the lengths some people will go to in order to have us deny what we know to be fact. I have a friend who will say, “I know that I know that I know that Jesus is Lord because…” and then he will talk about some event in his life in which he prayed and God answered his prayer. It could be a great big miracle, or a little thing, like finding a parking spot near the door of the emergency room when he needed one. It’s the small things that make a mighty God seem even more enormously loving towards us. “I cried out to God with my voice— To God with my voice; And He gave ear to me.” Ps. 77:1

 So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, “Give God the glory! We know that this Man is a sinner.”

He answered and said, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.” John 9:24-25

Once again there is no arguing with the facts. Those who doubt cannot remove from any of us what we know to be fact. When he was blind he was in darkness, and now he sees the light. He cannot undo what has been done for him. We cannot undo what has been done for us either. When you know Christ, and you have felt His presence in your life, witnessed his power, felt His love fall upon you, it cannot be denied. The spirt of God moves into the recesses of your heart and brings light. It’s a light that doesn’t have a switch. To turn that light off you would have to deny the very character of God. This man could not. He could only say that he did not know, but what he did know he was certain of, completely certain.

 Then they said to him again, “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? Do you also want to become His disciples?”

 Then they reviled him and said, “You are His disciple, but we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we do not know where He is from.”

 The man answered and said to them, “Why, this is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes! Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.  Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind.  If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing.”

 They answered and said to him, “You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?” And they cast him out. John 9:26-34

At this point the questioning is turning into harassment, but the man still doesn’t change his story. God is giving him strength, and Jesus’ prophesy about him giving glory to God is quickly becoming evident in this exchange. The man turns the table on those who would accuse Jesus of being of Satan, so he asks them if their reason for asking is because they want to be his disciple. Then he follows it up with a bit of a lesson for them, this beggar from the street has been a student for years. He points out that only God can restore sight according to Moses, whom they call themselves disciples of. “So the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? “ Exodus 4:11 He is stating what they all know to be true. It has to be a work of God that he has his sight. There can be no other explanation, unless they deny God. He is calling them out. He is a true disciple of Jesus and through this encounter he has learned from the Master that he cannot deny what Jesus is, the Son of God. He has no other out but to be put out, and so he is put out of the synagogue. He is then an outcast, but at least he has his sight, which leaves him better off than he was before when he was an outcast and didn’t have his sight.

 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said to him, “Do you believe in the Son of God?

 He answered and said, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?”

 And Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.”

 Then he said, “Lord, I believe!” And he worshiped Him. John 9:35-38

Jesus finds him after he’s been cast out, and the man doesn’t know who he is. When Jesus asks if he believes in the Son of God his answer is not one of disbelief, but of belief. He wants to see Him, so that he can believe, so that he finally come full circle in the exercising of his faith. He wants to finally see, with his very own God given eyes, the one who gave him his sight. Jesus tells him, in His own way, “You’re looking at Him.” I imagine that to that man it was as if Jesus just defined what total beauty really looked like. Nothing could have compared to the face of Jesus in that moment. How could he not worship Him. Jesus brought light into this man’s existence. That beauty is what I desire to behold when I get to heaven and the scales of this dark existence fall from my eyes.

 And Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.”

Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, “Are we blind also?”

 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains. John 9:39-41

Some may read this passage and think that Jesus is saying that He came to judge the world, but what He is saying is that he is causing judgement to come; that he is bringing definition to people’s spirit. It is by His very presence in their lives that they will fall on one side or the other of the truth. Are they going to see the light or remain in the dark?

“And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” John 3:19

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