Part 16c – John 9

Seeing Jesus (3)

There is so much to say in this story about people’s reactions to this man’s miracle but I want to focus on the man and his experience from this point on.

We see in John 9:10-11 that when asked how his eyes had been opened the man’s reply was “A man called Jesus” and in John 9:12, in response to the question where is he?, the man’s reply was “I don’t know.”

What a tragedy we have here that a man can be freed from his blindness and yet not know who it was that healed him, “A man”, “I don’t know”. I would like to suggest that it is possible to be saved from a life of spiritual blindness and yet to not know the source of the miracle.

Let’s move to a different perspective for a moment. These people, this man’s neighbours, those who were questioning him, decided to take him to the religious leaders and what we see when we read John 9:13-16 is that these men are so full of their own importance and are so blinded by religious rhetoric, that they write Jesus off by saying he can’t be from God because he healed on the Sabbath (equating healing with working).

What the Pharisees failed to recognise is that when dealing with the spiritual there are no boundaries of time or segments of days or weeks. When faced with the reality of a man born blind who can now see the Pharisees are divided, and rather than give God the glory, they continue to try to get answers for their own unbelieving hearts by reasoning away the miraculous work of God now evident in this man. I hope that we are not so blind?

The truth is we can never know the spiritual dimensions of life unless we have had spiritual experiences. These religious leaders thought they were spiritual but in fact when faced with reality were floundering and trying to explain away the truth, the truth that “this man Jesus” was in fact a man sent from God and indeed was God in man.

The Pharisees listened with intent to the people, the friends and neighbours, of the healed blind man and weighed up their position. Here was a man going about breaking the religious law by healing on the Sabbath day, the day traditionally held as the day of rest, a day that was set in stone in Jewish custom as a day that “man” should set aside as a day to contemplate God and His creation. What Jesus is demonstrating here is that God can and should be glorified on every day of the week, not just as a ritual on one day of the week.When asked by the church leaders about his healing the healed man says “he is a prophet” John 9:17. In his mind it is becoming clear that this Jesus is no longer just “a man” John 9:11 he is more than that and the next best description he can muster on the spot is “he is a prophet”. What we are beginning to see is the start of a spiritual progression in this man’s thought process, a spiritual process that we all need to receive from the source of all spirituality. We are beginning to see that this miracle of sight to the blind is more than just physical restoration and is much more about Spiritual awakening within the life of a being created in the image and likeness of God. But still there is resistance from the “spiritual” law makers who call the parents of the man to verify he is who he says he is and that he was actually born blind, they were just not prepared to believe the man’s testimony. What a sad situation it is when we do not give God the glory when he steps into the lives of men and women and changes their outlook.

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