Two Healings, Two Responses (3)

 

 

Continuing our comparison between the healings of John 5 and John 9:

 

In John 9, when Jesus and His disciples see the man born blind, the disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”

 

Jesus replies, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents, but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him."

 

In John 5, when Jesus finds the man whom He had healed, He says to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

 

I point out that the subject of sin is raised in both narratives, not to attempt to answer the questions that can be raised in both instances, but because we are comparing the two men, the two healings of Jesus. The Scriptures were not written to satisfy our curiosity; they were written to reveal Jesus Christ. One of my favorite quotes from Fenelon is along the line of, “I know many people who are perfect…in speculation.”

 

For sure questions can lead us to Jesus, they can cause us to seek, to ask, to knock; and when Jesus is the object of our search and desire that is one thing, however, when our questions do not have Jesus as their object and center of gravity then we often engage in “foolish questions and ignorant speculations” which “produce quarrels” (2 Timothy 2:23).

 

Furthermore, there are many things deep in the counsels of our Father beyond our understanding; it is not necessary that we know everything, it is necessary that we know Jesus and live in intimate relationship with Him.

 

Regarding John 9 and the man born blind, one thing we can be assured of, absolutely assured of, is that Jesus always desires to reveal Himself to us, He always desires to display the works of God in us. After all, God so loves us that He gave His only begotten Son for us – of course He wants to reveal Himself to us and draw us ever-closer to Himself.

 

I often tell folks who in are difficult situations, “I don’t pretend to know why this is happening, why you are going through this, but I do know this, our dear Lord Jesus wants to reveal Himself to you through this and draw you closer to Him.”

 

I believe this with all of my soul, with all that I am. I believe it because this is the character and Nature of Jesus Christ. There is deep and widespread suffering in this world, few of us escape it, it has many forms, some easily seen, some we never know about. Jesus walks with us through suffering, He carries us, He invites us to share His sufferings, He invites us to bless others through our sufferings – there are many dimensions to suffering and comfort and our transformation into His image.

 

And so we learn to look for Jesus in life’s pain and suffering, we look for how Jesus is coming to us and those around us, we seek to see the works of God within suffering, tribulation, uncertainty, within our struggles. O dear friends, this life will soon be over and the reality of eternity will be upon us and we will be within it. Each one of us will have a “last day”, each one of us will have a coming of the Lord, each one of us will leave this temporal life and move (actually we’ll “be moved”) into a life glorious beyond measure. Are we preparing for this? Are we allowing Christ to prepare us? Can we smell it? Taste it? Sense it? Touch it? See it, in some measure?

 

Let us always look for Jesus to reveal Himself.

 

Then we have what Jesus said to the man in Chapter 5, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

 

This may remind us of what Jesus says to the woman of John 8:11, “Go and sin no more.” I point this similarity out without further comment.

 

Regarding the man who had been ill for thirty-eight years in Chapter 5, physical incapacity does not mean that our capacity for sin is lessened (Matthew 5:21 – 30; 12:33 – 37; 15:10 – 20). We do not know how the man lived prior to his prolonged illness, nor do we know how he lived during his illness; we do know that Jesus warned him to stop sinning so that “nothing worse happens to you.”

 

It appears that this man did not take Jesus’ counsel to heart, for unless he was completely naïve, he must have known the result of telling the religious leaders that it was Jesus who healed him on the Sabbath. The man of John 9 aligned himself with Jesus, the man of John 5 gave his allegiance to those who sought to destroy Jesus.

 

Later in John Chapter 5 Jesus asks, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” This is the way of the religious world as much as it is the way of the world. It is often the way of those “searching Scriptures (John 5:39). Thankfully, we also have Bereans in our midst (Acts 17:11)!

 

Have I ever betrayed Jesus to the world or to the Pharisees? Have I received the blessings of Jesus, only to align myself with systems bent on His destruction? When others have asked me the equivalent of, “Why are you carrying your pallet on the Sabbath?” have I blamed Jesus and betrayed Him, rather than, like the man of John Chapter 9, steadfastly testified of Him and worshipped Him, have I been willing to be “put out” (9:34)? (See also Hebrews 13:13).

 

There is no peer pressure quite like religious peer pressure.

 

I will keep my answers to myself, for they are not pretty answers; my answers shock me, they shame me, they make me tremble.

 

What about you?