Spiritual Blindness

Spiritual Blindness

“All I know is this: once I was blind, now I can see.” John 9:25

How many times have you read a story, watched a picture and became so engrossed that you were a part of the action taking place?

To read the events of the gospels, one must become a participant in each scene, to be an eye witness, involved in every action. Not just there looking on, but to identify with each character, for in each instance a part of our self is in each one.

This blind pan presented by John….Who is he? Could it be myself?

The disciples and misguided questioning? Myself? Not a spectator, not a bystander, not a looker on. The gospel says no, one has to take their place in each event.

This man by the Judean roadside is just ourselves, until God in Christ made us to see. Without this we cannot know ourselves as we really are. We cannot see our fellow man as he really is. We cannot see the meaning, the wonder and purpose of life. We cannot see earth crammed with heaven and every bush afire with God.

The proofs of blindness with our sight is in the prejudices we mistakenly call truth, illusions we cherish, dull familiarity of things that leads us down in miserable depression. You see mistakes tend to atrophy the faculty of vision. Every moral compromise is a progressive desensitizing of the soul.

WITHOUT GOD IN THOUGHT WORD AND DEED, WE ARE AS JESUS SAID, “THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND” AND BOTH FALL IN THE DITCH!

Man trying to build a new order and better world with God nowhere in their thoughts are no more than dreamers.

Look at the disciples; we are there too. The question they asked was based on what they saw as a theological problem, “who did sin, this man or his parents that he was born blind.”

This arose because in the centuries since God looked on creation and pronounced it “Good”. Man had gone astray in his thinking, action, labors and worship. Jewish theology gave the answer to the question asked by the disciples. Such cases of blindness were a direct result and punishment for individual or corporate wrongdoing, whether of others, even to the prenatal wrongdoing of the sufferer himself.

Now look at the scripture. Jesus did not accept this. He sets aside the orthodox notion of an equivalence between suffering and sin. Still this lingers with so man even to this day. Chiefest of sinners because of the suffering? That comes to me.

Notice also that Jesus does not pursue the question any farther than his answer; “neither did this man sin; for his parents.” Jesus leaves it along, “But that the works of God should be manifest in him, I must now do the work of Him who sent me.”

Now Jesus is not ruling out that effort or trade out and destroy or deal with evil of sin. The point Jesus is making here is that we are not to be so concerned as to why the situation arose, but rather How are we going to let God in upon it so that His will can take control? Please understand, for in any and every situation no matter how dark, God can be made manifest.

To ask why any such and such a calamity happened or as to the reason why trouble suddenly breaks in is not the correct question. Rather we should ask, “How can I let God in upon this thing?” You see Jesus will not answer such questioning any more than He answered the disciples that day long ago. Beloved, there is no conceivable situation in which there does not exist some opportunity to Glorify God. Learn this and one is more than a conquer.

The blind man’s eyes were anointed, and he was sent to wash in the healing waters. Sight came, and beloved this is the characteristic work of Jesus still, for you, me and the rest of the world shattering the darkness of a lifetime.

Note the man saw four things. The wonder and beauty of creation, the faces of his fellow men, himself and Jesus to whom he owes everything.

Does not God open our eyes to the glory of His creation? Does He not open our eyes to our fellow man, seeing them as children of God? Not as a cog in a machine, factors in some race problem, not just faces in a crowd. Does He not open our eyes to ourselves, seeing ourselves as the prophet of old who saw himself unfit for God’s presence.

Does He not open our eyes to Himself, no longer is He someone we read about in a book, hear about in church, argue about in some discussion. He opens our eyes and we see Him as the center of our very life, the light before which all darkness has fled, the wisdom to know truth, a new vision as the very light of the very world!