John 9:24 So for the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him, “God should get the glory for this, because we know this man Jesus is a sinner.”
25 “I don’t know whether he is a sinner,” the man replied. “But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!” 26 “But what did he do?” they asked. “How did he heal you?” 27 “Look!” the man exclaimed. “I told you once. Didn’t you listen? Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?” 28 Then they cursed him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses!29 We know God spoke to Moses, but we don’t even know where this man comes from.” 30 “Why, that’s very strange!” the man replied. “He healed my eyes, and yet you don’t know where he comes from? 31 We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will. 32 Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.” 34 “You were born a total sinner!” they answered. “Are you trying to teach us?” And they threw him out of the synagogue.
This blog is a follow up to the previous blog entry where the blind man was healed by Jesus. The Jewish leaders could not come to grips with Jesus healing this man and they even called Jesus a "sinner" in their discussion with the formerly blind man. The blind man began to fire back at them with his own questions in verses 27-30 and they try to use the argument about glorifying God as a talking point. The only point that brings up is Jesus is . God! In the process of the conversation they tell the man that he is a sinner and that he cannot teach them and then they throw him out of the synagogue.
As you can Jesus is not their "cup of tea" because He is upsetting their already concrete beliefs about life itself, and especially about healing. This further illustrates that Jesus was with them and they did not realize who He was at all. They had the Son of God in their midst and they didn't even know it. So to make themselves "look" right they explained Him away and used their religious "power" to do so. Sometimes in the effort to make ourselves look more right we blind ourselves to something that is right in front of us. What is it that blinds us? It is ourself!! Our preconceived notions about what is right and what should happen is built around the explainables. Things that we can understand and explain are the only things we will accept as true. As you can see Jesus Himself was an unexplainable!!! I mean think about this. Jesus was born as a human baby to a virgin. He lived among his family until He was thirty years old and then at a specific time,known only to Him, he begins to tell people that they must believe in Him to be "born again." It is pretty difficult to get much more unexplainable than that, and if you lived at the time of Jesus and had been indoctrinated to live and believe a certain way, you probably would have rejected Him also. The problem with this whole thing is Jesus did die on the cross for you and me, and He did defeat death, hell, and the grave. And lives have been impacted and changed because of faith in Him for over two thousands years and the evidence is at least compelling and we still can't get beyond ourselves and our weak ability to believe in him. When we have something come our way that is different than our impresson of things our human filter blinds us to His truth, just like the Jewish leaders were blinded to who He was and what He was doing. They were right there with Him, so they should have known better. We have the Bible and our faith in light of all Jesus accomplished and we should know better. But we are still blinded.
In John 12:34 The crowd responded, “We understood from Scripture that the Messiah would live forever. How can you say the Son of Man will die? Just who is this Son of Man, anyway?” 35 Jesus replied, “My light will shine for you just a little longer. Walk in the light while you can, so the darkness will not overtake you. Those who walk in the darkness cannot see where they are going. 36 Put your trust in the light while there is still time; then you will become children of the light.” After saying these things, Jesus went away and was hidden from them. Once again, Jesus says do not let the darkness overtake you. In other words, don't be blinded to the truth by myself, or my own impressions of what should be. Here is what needs to happen, "Get me out of the way and trust Jesus more!" Paul wrote this to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 2:13 When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. 14 But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.15 Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others.
Spiritual blindness can happen to us all and we must put our own reasoning on the back burner and trust God's Word so we can clearly see again. Let the spiritual part of your life, which is Jesus, take over and follow His ways and wisdom, not yours. John 8:12 Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”
The Pilgrimage Continues.......
David Warren
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