Holy Week (B)

While John Chapter Nine occurs prior to Holy Week, due to its proximity to the sacred week in John’s Gospel, and also because it is fresh in my mind, I want to share a thought or two. This is the story of Jesus healing a man who was born blind. I’ve included two excerpts from John Chapter Nine, but you should really read the entire chapter to get the flow of events, it is beautiful and instructive in so many ways.

“As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing. Therefore the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying, “Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?” Others were saying, “This is he,” still others were saying, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the one.” So they were saying to him, “How then were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash’; so I went away and washed, and I received sight.” They said to him, “Where is He?” He *said, “I do not know.”

The above is the start of the story. The disciples’ question reminds us that we really don’t know why specific things are the way they are, and I find that asking the question “Why?” when it comes to the pain in the lives of those around me is usually not helpful. Even in my own life the question “Why?” is often not helpful; sure there are times my wounds are self-inflicted, but even then when I start to analyze cause-and-effect, chains of events, and the what-might-have-beens, I typically end up in despair at having even attempted to answer the question “Why?” I am not as smart as I think I am, not as wise, not as bright, and my vision is impaired - I am better off trusting our kind heavenly Father to work things out, to comfort, to heal. As for others, if I can be available for them, to give what I can in Christ, even if it is just being there for them...well, I think that’s probably better than being able to explain “Why?”

I suppose the disciples could have spent all day asking “Why?”, “Who sinned?”, and all the other questions we like to ask. But Jesus says, “Look, it’s daytime, we need to get to work.” Have you ever been around people who, when a problem arises, are more interested in fixing blame on someone than solving the problem? Jesus is the Light of the world and He is interested in giving light to others. Since Jesus says that we are also the light of the world (Matthew 5:13 - 16) we would do well to get with the program and be a blessing to others.

Now I’ll admit that making an eye ointment with dirt and spit isn’t my idea of being a blessing, but that shows you what I know. Can you imagine what people are thinking? I wonder what the blind man was thinking as he listened to the actions of Jesus, as he felt the mud and the fingers and hands of Jesus on his face. If he had already heard of Jesus, which seems reasonable, no doubt he’d heard that Jesus heals by simply speaking, or by laying hands on the sick - he may not have heard that Jesus heals sometimes by mixing His spit with dirt and rubbing it on a person’s body.

Well, another reminder to me to not be quick to judge how God at times may move and lead my brothers and sisters to minister to others; and of course a reminder for me to be open to God speaking to me in ways that I may not expect, through people I may not be looking for, in words and actions that I may not find comfortable.

I wonder how it felt to be touched by Jesus. I wonder how often the blind man felt the touch of another person? His blindness made him less than a person in the eyes of many around him. I wonder what the fingers of Jesus felt like? What His hands felt like? Isn’t it strange that we can live and work in close proximity to others and yet be strangers? Strangers even in our own households? Strangers to those whom we’ve sat next to at church for decades? Strangers to long time coworkers?

Sin has robbed us of the comfort of touch. The sexualization of the body, the pollution of the mind, the lust of society, the degrading of men and women and children - we must now think twice, and think again, and think again before we touch others. Well, the fact is that we need touch and when we touch with love and respect and compassion and healing and comfort - then we touch in the name of Jesus. Oh how the touch of Jesus must have felt, what it must have communicated. Holy touch, blessed touch. That we would learn to touch as Jesus touched.

“Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you.” And he said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped Him. And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

The intervening verses that come between these two excerpts describe the interrogation the man endured by the religious leaders. The pressure was so intense that the man’s parents backed away from supporting their son lest they be expelled from the synagogue. The Pharisees were livid that a man born blind should dare to say a good word about Jesus. When they repeatedly tried to get the man to renounce Jesus he said, “Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

As the pressure to denounce Jesus intensifies the man then says, “Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes. We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him. Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.”

Wouldn’t you have loved to have been there? While this man may have been blind since birth, his mind was anything but blind, his heart was anything but hard, “Well, here is an amazing thing…” What a turn of phrase, the religious poobahs must have been taken aback, they were accustomed to others going along with their authority, they were accustomed to the folks in pews never questioning the decrees of their councils. After all, to buck the system meant to be “put out” of the synagogue, to be shunned from the hub of religious and social life.

The man born blind had courage; courage to tell the truth, courage to refuse to “go along to get along”, courage to face the pressure of family and the religious leaders. We might think that, having received his sight, that he would want to meld into society, to start to enjoy life, to cash in on his celebrity; he may have been able to write his own ticket with the civic and religious powers - but no, he will not do that, he will not sell himself, he will not prostitute himself, he will not lie, and he will not betray. He will not trade physical sight for spiritual and moral blindness.

They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” So they put him out. Do you think the Pharisees were mad? The effrontery of a man born blind, a man without rabbinic education, a man who received healing on the Sabbath and thus (in their minds) violated the Sabbath - the audacity of this man to question their authority, of refusing to go along with them, of failing denounce Jesus. He had to go!

It is one thing in our society to talk about God, it is another thing to talk about Jesus. Groups of people may put us “out” if we talk about Jesus, but what else can we do, those who were once blind but now see - how can we not talk about Jesus?

When Jesus hears that the man has been “put out” Jesus finds him and reveals Himself to him in an even deeper way, and the man worships Jesus. Well, that must have really set the Pharisees off, for they were apparently watching and listening. The Pharisees are quick to proclaim their own sight, they are anything but blind, and because they insist that they have sight their blindness is reinforced. This is a theme throughout John’s Gospel, the more people insist they can see, the more they insist they are slaves to no one, the more they insist that their upbringing makes them righteous - the greater their darkness, the more abject their slavery, the more toxic their religiosity.

Picture the man who has been healed, he has been “put out” of the synagogue, not even his parents would stand with him. His very first day of eyesight and he has been cast off by the very people who should have rejoiced with him, by the people who should have stood with him, by people he had known all of his life. Instead of these people being happy for the man they want to use him to destroy Jesus. Ah, but what courage the man has - a rare thing then, a rarer thing today.

And then...and then a man approaches him. He does not know who the man is until He speaks….because the man once blind has never seen Jesus with his natural eyes. He has heard Jesus’ voice, he has felt Jesus’ touch, but he has never seen Jesus with his natural eyes. When the man hears the first syllables coming from Jesus’ mouth what joy he must have felt...oh my...how he resonated with the Man speaking to him, the Man who healed him, the Man he refused to deny...even if it meant losing everything on his first day of sight, even if it meant being “put out”.

Do we hear Jesus? Do we know His touch? Can we see Him? The man once blind “saw” before his sight was restored, and having his sight restored and worshipping Jesus he continued to see, he continued to live in the light.

Can we say with the man born blind, “One thing I know, once I was blind but now I see”?