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Seeing Clearly Without Clearly Seeing (John
9:1-25, 35-38)
2009.03.01
Pastor Edward Cheng
We know from the Bible that Jesus Christ died on a cross,
and by His blood we are saved and our sins are washed away. How
does this happen? Can you explain exactly how you were able to
believe in Jesus and give your life to Him?
Does it matter that I still can’t quite
explain how I was saved? Does it matter that I don’t understand the
mechanism of it? We really don’t know how certain things work—like
death, or going to heaven, and the word of God only gives us
glimpses. Will someone greet us when we get to heaven? Abraham?
Relatives or friends? I don’t know!
We’re reading a story today about a man who was blind from
birth, and then Jesus comes along. Without even asking him if he
wants to be healed, Jesus makes mud using His own spit, applies it
to the blind man’s face, and tells him to wash. The man goes,
washes, and comes home seeing. Everyone is shocked, and the
Pharisees don’t believe it.
The bulk of the chapter is their interrogation. How is it
possible? How could this man have been healed of blindness by
Jesus? They keep asking, because they think, “There MUST BE another
explanation.” They ask the man, his parents, and then the man
again. The man keeps repeating, “Yes, I was blind, and it was
Jesus. I don’t know how, but I know I was blind, and now I see!”
Seeing clearly, as in understanding, doesn’t require
knowing all the facts. This morning we’ve heard the testimonies of
three people getting baptized, and each has a different story,
whether they grew up in church, or didn’t, or came from overseas.
For each, the exact process of their coming to this point might be
hard to explain, but we do know that at some point, each one was
blind, and now each one can see. We could try to pick apart how
each of them came into the kingdom of heaven, but it’s not necessary
for us to know all that to observe that they have changed.
If you question a believer closely enough, you could back
them into a corner where they couldn’t explain their faith any
further. The Pharisees in this story had already concluded that
Jesus healing the man genuinely was not an option, and they were
looking for a different explanation. Imagine the man’s
frustration. “I have been changed!! I don’t know exactly how it
happened, but it’s real!”
Is it enough for a person to trust in Jesus just based on
knowing how he’s changed people, without knowing fully how he
operates? When faced with my own doubts, I come back to the fact
that regardless of whether I can explain it or not, I have seen the
Lord work—in my life, in the lives of others, in this church—and it
is enough.
The idea of seeing in this story is about more than
physical sight, but also spiritual sight. In v. 7 it says, “…he
came home seeing.” The man himself says “…now I see,” (v. 15, 25)
and in a sense, it means that he sees who Jesus is and believes. In
v. 37, Jesus tells him, “You have seen Him [the Son of Man] and He
is the one speaking with you.” And the man believes in Him. What’s
interesting is that when the Pharisees are concerned, the phrases
used are more detached: “…asked him how he had received his sight”
(v. 15); “It was your eyes he opened” (v. 17); “still did not
believe that he had been blind and had received his sight” (v. 18).
They refuse to see.
Where are you,
when it comes to sight? Do you see clearly who Jesus is, even
without all the facts and explanations, or are you waiting for more
proof? What more proof does there need to be than the fact that
Jesus works? He’s changed my life, and I have seen him change other
lives. Consider the fact that there are people who were once blind,
but now see. If we would acknowledge the change, maybe the Lord
would open our eyes to see him clearly. |
