Restored Vision of Love (witness number eighteen) ...

What might you do, if you encountered a crowd that hated you for loving them so much, that they picked up stones intending to kill you on the spot?  Most of us would flee if we could, but then we might be motivated by fear, by our fight-or-flight responses.  When Christ encountered this situation, I believe He had no such equal response.  At the end of chapter eight of John’s Gospel account, when the Jewish religious leadership was bent on stoning Christ to death, He simply “hid Himself” and passed right through the midst of them.  This was a miracle.  But it was not based in fear for Himself, perhaps because He knew He would be dying for the world anyway at some point.  Perhaps because He simply knew this was not yet the time for His sacrifice, that His work was not yet finished.  Perhaps even because He loved those who thought to kill Him, and was still hopeful He could turn them around.  But why I believe Christ was not leaving in fear; is because of the first words of verse one of chapter nine of John’s Gospel account … “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.”  Instead of being preoccupied with His own survival and escaping the imminent stoning, Christ notices someone else in need. 

When looking through the eyes of love, there is ALWAYS time for someone else, particularly if they are in pain.  Here was Christ who might have easily been killed for remaining in a place where there was a mob bent on doing just that; but He does not flee, He does not fight, instead He loves.  To refresh the scene, keep in mind that Christ has been preaching to the people in the treasury of the temple, during a feast, and as John will reveal shortly, on the Sabbath day. This was the day He set aside as Holy at creation, and reminded Moses of in the tablets of stone.  Love however, does not take the Sabbath day off.  Love was intended to be amplified on the Sabbath not stifled by it.  To be with God on the Sabbath, to commune with Him one-on-one, hang out with “Dad” so to speak, have playtime, or lunchtime, or help Him out if we could.  These were the desires of God to be with us on Sabbath.  And here on His way out of a life and death situation, Christ does not make His way out of the temple in such a hurry that He misses a need right in front of Him.  The God of love notices everything, and everyone, and on His day, He MAKES time to BE with US.  In this case, He made time to notice one in need, to heal the pain of this man’s life.

The disciples of Christ however, do not fully understand the nature of evil, or the nature of the mission of redemption of the Messiah.  Jewish tradition held, that bad things happened to those who sinned.  It was held that this was a “punishment” sent from God, not a natural consequence of the choice to embrace evil which brings with it pain and death.  What is more, the idea that the sins of the father, are in effect transferred to the son, carried with it the idea that punishment could be taken out on a subsequent generation.  These ideas were promoted by Satan.  For Satan loves the notion, that we would in effect “blame” God for the pain that comes from serving self.  Satan fosters the concept of God as “punisher in chief” instead of “redeemer in chief”.  Satan wants us to believe that God is unfair in punishing our children for what we do.  When in fact, our children are punished for what we do, but not by God, but by us.  A child will suffer the health consequences of what his mother chooses to do while pregnant.  But a child will also suffer with indifference or abuse if his parents continue to choose to seek their own pleasure ahead of his after he is born.  A child will inherit tendencies reinforced by genetics to repeat behavior long fostered in the generations that precede him.   None of this was the wish, or will of God.  Instead God longs to free our grandparents from the pain of their addictions, long before they can manifest in our parents, or in ourselves.  The intent of God was to remove the pain as soon as it was found, so that the ripples of pain end in us today, and are not carried to our children, or our children’s children through our genetics.  When we refuse the redemption and healing God offers, the effects of our choices do sometimes produce a harvest of pain, even in those we would least like to see it.  So it was, that the disciples of Christ had come to accept the concept of God as punisher for sin, instead of liberator from sin.

In verse 2 they inquire … “And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?”  This question is akin to the old joke question … ‘have you stopped beating your wife yet?’  If you say yes, you are admitting you used to beat your wife, if you say no, you are admitting you still beat your wife.  It is almost the same thing the disciples are asking, did God punish this man, or did He punish this man because of His parents.  Either way, you beat your wife, and God punishes people with horrific health issues because they “sin”.  Neither is true.  Christ responds in verse 3 … “Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”  Christ is saying this is NOT a punishment for sin.  This man’s blindness was a birth defect, not one that came because he did something silly, or was abused by his parents, or because God likes to punish sinners with crippling defects.  Had our world refused to embrace evil back in the garden of Eden, the pain and deformities that follow evil would never have been known.  But because we turned away from perfection, imperfection has become our norm.  Many suffer from the degeneration of man from God’s perfect creation and intentions for us, to the decay of generations of choices that are not in our best interest.  Evil has made us less and not us alone.  Lucifer was once perfect, and majestic, and the third highest being in the universe.  Now he suffers from the effects of evil, and is no longer the perfect creation he was made.  He has decayed, as do we, as we embrace the evil of looking first to self.

Christ was revealing to us here that this man’s condition was NOT the intent of God, or the work of God.  However, what Christ was about to do, was to reveal what God wants to do with this man, and with His disciples, and with the world at large.  The actions of Christ would reveal what God wants as opposed to what Satan is happy to sustain.  Jesus continues teaching the true will of God in verse 4 He continues … “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. [verse 5] As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  The work of Him that sent Christ, the works of God the Father, are works of REDEMPTION and RESTORATION.  They are not works of punishment.  This man was a sinner, though his blindness was not a result of his sins.  This man was not theologically perfect, nor was he spiritually perfect.  He was still there begging, blind, poor, and sinful.  But the intent of God was not to foster his continued existence in pain, it was to fix his pain, on the spot.  God was not interested in his continued suffering, God the Father was interested in his immediate healing.  Here Christ is revealing that He, who is love, and truth, and the source of life, must also be the Light of the world.  We cannot find the truth while we embrace the darkness.  We must behold the Light and become changed by Him.  This man had been born blind.  He had never seen light of any kind.  He could not read the word, and the interpretation of scripture had gone so wrong, that the religious leaders were angry enough to kill Christ, because He had healed a lame man on the Sabbath.  The teaching of the word had been so perverted it would offer this man no comfort.  But the revelation of the Word incarnate, the revelation of Love in the restoration of this man, would offer something he had never known.  This was the work of the Messiah, to remove OUR blindness, so that WE could see the Word within Him.

The revelation of the motives of God having been stated, John records in verse 6 … “When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, [verse 7] And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) …”  The Creator, who had formed man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into him the breath of life, now stoops and uses the same tools he did at the beginning – water and earth.  We are largely water and a few minerals.  The symbolism should not have been lost on the man, on John, or on us.  The Creator, who was Jesus Christ, had made man the first time, as He had also sanctified and made Holy His day called Sabbath.  The same Jesus had done both things at creation all those years ago.  Before Abraham was, I am – were the very words of Christ not just moments before.  Now here was the Creator, once again doing what He so longs to do, fixing the eyes of the blind that had never known sight.  Christ directs the man to wash in the pool of Siloam which John points out as meaning “sent”.  Christ sends a man so that He will see.  Christ had ALREADY done the work of healing him, BEFORE He sent him.  The washing was going to reveal the work that had already been done for the man.  The man did nothing to earn any of this.  John does not record this man calling out to Christ for healing.  Christ went to him.  The man did not refuse the work of Christ, he embraced it.  He did not ask for it, yet it was given to him.  He did not expect it, yet it was happening.  It was the love of God, that Christ, could not endure the pain of this man one second longer.  He so longed to heal him, and the man was WILLING to be healed.  So restoration was to come to this man who was “sent” of Christ.

The work of Christ bears fruit.  The work of Christ transforms a life.  The work of Christ is to restore us and free us from pain, not perpetuate us in our pain.  Verse 7 concludes “… He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.”  Never having seen the light, Light had been restored to him.  He may well have not even had physical eyes before that day, for the Creator used dust and water from His own spit to make clay in his restoration.  But no matter, an encounter with Christ, when one is willing to be healed, we are MADE whole.  This is the very nature of the work of the Messiah, the work of OUR savior, to make US whole.  We are not made whole by our ideas about interpreting scriptures, we are made whole when we look to Jesus and let Him lead us to the revelation of Him throughout scripture.  We can be led to truth.  We can have our vision restored.  We can see truth, when we look first and only at Jesus, and NOT to our own ideas and our own ‘perceived’ wisdom.  The Pharisees were wise and learned men, who spent their lives studying the word, yet they looked away from the Light and found only darkness.  We too, can choose to think, we are wiser than Pharisees, and better at interpreting scripture, until we too, look away from Jesus to save us and make us free, thinking our own wisdom will accomplish this work.  It will not.  It never has.  Only Christ can make what was blind to see.  Only when we are led, can we find what He would lead us to.  This was the lesson that was amplified that Sabbath afternoon.

In verse 8 through 12 of John’s gospel record, the man reveals the work of Christ to those who knew him.  Everyone was amazed.  Some thought maybe this was a different guy, or just someone who liked the blind beggar they knew.  But he plainly states, it was him.  He knew it was a man named Jesus who had healed him.  Perhaps he had heard some of the sermon Christ had offered that afternoon.  But by the time he had returned, Jesus was not apparent to him.  He no longer knew where Jesus was.  It is hard to know why those who were there at that time, then brought the man to the Pharisees.  Sometimes this was done as a final step in a healing to be declared whole by them.  But, as might have been the case, this man was healed on the Sabbath, and being jealous to guard against the perceived demands of the law, they might need to get a ruling from the Pharisees on whether this was OK with them.  In any case, verse 13 and 14 set the stage for his encounter with those who refuse to see the Light.  The Pharisees now had another ‘situation’ to deal with.

Verse 15 continues … “Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see.”  It was a simple story.  There were no incantations, or demands for an offering from Christ, or demands that this man do something first, in order to earn the favor of Christ.  Christ took nothing from him, but his pain.  Christ gave him a gift, a gift of healing and sight which he had never known.  But from the point of view of the Pharisees, the only thing that mattered was ‘when’ He did it.  Verse 16 reveals … “Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.”  Herein was a sad revelation of the thinking of the Pharisees – they all agreed Christ had not kept the Sabbath day – because He loved, because He healed, because He restored that which was broken in this man.  To them, this act was not permitted on Sabbath.  No one appeared to debate this point.  But what caused division even within their ranks was the miracle itself.  Satan had never taken the time to heal a blind man before, and so this kind of action could only have come from God.  If God heals, then how is it a sin to heal?  This conflict was beginning to make them rethink their ideas of what keeping Sabbath might be about.  It was a logical conundrum that was making very difficult to stay united against the influence of Christ.

As if it mattered, or perhaps more to get the arguing in their own ranks to stop, they decide to question the man further.  Verse 17 states … “They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.”  The Pharisees had a problem.  They did not want to acknowledge that Christ was in any way connected with God, and they did not want to rethink their ideas about what is acceptable behavior on Sabbath.  But literally staring them in the face, was a miraculous act of love that could not be denied.  So they decide to verify the facts of this man’s condition.  Verses 18 to 23 detail the account of his parents regarding his birth, his blindness, and his identity.  On the matter of Jesus being the Messiah, it was a trap his parents were not going to fall into.  For by this time, anyone who acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah was cast out and dis-fellowshipped from the Temple.  Is it not interesting that religious leaders thought themselves worthy of deciding who gets to enter the Temple of God to worship?  And is this a tradition we like to maintain in our corporate bodies of worship today, perhaps judging for ourselves, who is ‘allowed” to join us in His house, on His day, to worship Him?  In any case, the man’s condition and identity had been confirmed, if the Pharisees were going to resolve this situation they must do it with the man who was healed.

In verses 24 and 25 they ask the formerly blind man to weigh in, on whether he will accept that God healed him, and that this man was a sinner.  But the restored man could only make the declarative statement, He did not know if Jesus was a sinner or not, but what he did know were the facts – once he was blind, now he could see.  This fact was something that all the conjecture and accusation of the Pharisees could not undo.  This fact was now compounded by the first healing of the lame man that was also done on Sabbath.  The ideas of Christ, who had originally blessed the Sabbath day back at creation, and the ideas of the Pharisees who saw this day only as a part of law that must be rigidly guarded were displayed in stunning contrast before the people.  God had created the Sabbath for us, as time He would set aside to be with us.  And we had turned His gift, and His offer of companionship, into a burden that would disallow for restoration and redemption, because of the timing.  Repeating the story would not change it, and the logical problem the Pharisees faced was becoming more evident to everyone there.  They were losing their argument.  They were losing their influence.  They were losing the people.

In verse 26 they ask him to repeat his story again, this would be the third time they had heard it (from the account of those who brought him, from the man himself before his parents, and again after his parents).  At this point, it is evident to everyone including the man, that the Pharisees have no answer for this conundrum.  So he begins to get a little cocky.  He asks the Pharisees if they need to hear the story again so they can become His disciple as well?  While this jab seems like he was only poking a bit of fun at their dismay, it reveals something else.  As of then, the man had decided to follow Jesus.  His exact words to the Pharisees in the end of verse 27 of his question were … “will ye also be his disciples?”  The word “also” implies he intends to follow Christ, and is asking if they intend to join him.  All of their debating and questioning has not pulled this man away from Christ, it has only strengthened his faith in Christ.  He sees now, that the teachers of the law, do not understand the law they teach.  He sees now that the maker of the law of love, was the maker who restored his sight.  He sees the love that was behind the law reflected in the actions of Christ on His holy day.  This contrast leads this man to see Christ as the Son of God, and to see the Pharisees for who they are … blind men … something he knows a lot about.

In verses 28 and 29 the Pharisees respond to his jab by reviling him.  They get defensive and call him out as a sinner, and contrast themselves as being followers of Moses who was confirmed to have spoken with God.  This “fellow” they know nothing about.  Again on display were the simple actions of Christ who loved this man, contrasted with the Pharisees who were content to throw this man away.  His faith grows.  Now He begins to instruct them again by restating the problem for them in no uncertain terms, using their own logic against them, the man reveals in verse 30 … “The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. [verse 31] Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. [verse 32] Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. [verse 33] If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.”  This man was now convinced “who” had healed him, the very Pharisees in front of him had made the case.  It was clear.  Nothing like this had ever been done, only God could do it, it was a marvelous thing, and the fact that you guys don’t see it, is a statement about you, not about Christ.  The Pharisees had done nothing but stand up another follower of Jesus.  So they responded with name calling and threw him out.

It is unclear where Christ was during these preceding’s.  Perhaps He was still in the area, or somewhere nearby.  Perhaps some time passed between these events and what followed.  But in any case, Jesus heard about what happened between the man and the Pharisees, and heard that the man had been cast out of the Temple (a really big deal in those days) for sake of his belief in Christ.  So love again takes time to seek this man out, and reveal the Light to his now restored eyes.  In verse 35 John’s story continues … “Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”  Here Christ asks the man in person to answer what He has already heard, and what He already knows.  The man responds in verse 36 … “He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?”  Like the angels who sang at the resurrection of Christ … “Who is this King of Glory?”  because they so loved to hear the name of Jesus praised.  The man already knows the voice of He who speaks to him, because He refers to Jesus already as “Lord”.  But like the angels who long to hear the name again and again, He asks who it is He is to believe in.  Jesus knows his love and in verse 37 responds to it saying … “And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. [verse 38] And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.”  Jesus tells the man, it is He.  And the man again uses the term “Lord” and now falls to his feet worshipping Him.

This is the response of one who knew pain, and now finds it removed, by the miracle of Christ.  This is the response of one who knows what it is like to suffer, and find no one who could help, and cannot fix himself, but through the miracle of Christ, is healed anyway.  So it is with us.  When we see our condition, our pain, and our blindness, and find that Christ takes it away, and all we need do, is let Him, we respond likewise.  We do not worship God out of obligation.  We do not worship God because He demands it.  We worship God, because we cannot help but be grateful for the love he has ALREADY shown us, and continues to show us.  Love responds to love.  Love kills the evil in us, for evil cannot stand against it.  Evil thought to kill love, but it could not.  Love conquers all, because God is love.  When we experience redemption and restoration in a real way, we see His Light, His Truth, and our lives are made whole because of it, we respond in the only way we know how, we worship.  It is His Light that can lead us to His Truth in the Word, when we are willing to be led.  That revelation does not happen while we trust in ourselves and our wisdom, this is why the Pharisees remained blind.  When we learn to be led, we are led, and we finally see what we could not see before.  The man who was born blind could now see after an encounter with Christ.  We who are spiritually born blind, can now see, after an encounter with Christ, when we let Him restore us, like He restored that man who could not heal himself.