Man Born Blind: Logical, Found, Seeing

Dear Listeners,

John 9 tells the story of the man born blind,  offering lessons that can strengthen and encourage us today. Please tune in to learn from Jesus' actions along with the man's interaction with the Pharisees. You might be surprised at what you discover.

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In Christ's Love,
Emily💕

Transcript

Did you know that in Christ you have an indestructible life?

That’s fantastic news all the time, but it’s especially encouraging when life gets hard or feels uncertain.

Don’t give up!

Satan can’t have you, the world can’t overcome you, and the challenges you face can’t stop you!

In Christ, you’re indestructible.

***Music Interlude***

Welcome back to Indestructible Life, a podcast for women who want to learn more about God and themselves through the lives of Bible people.

I’m Emily Wickham, a wife and mom plus a writer and speaker—but most importantly—I’m a woman loved by God, just like you.

Thank you so much for choosing to spend your time right here with me for episode 5.

I’m grateful for your interest in God’s Word because it’s the grace and truth we need—just as Jesus is the Word made flesh and grace and truth came by Him.

Today we’ll be learning about the blind man in John 9, and it’s a long chapter.

But I want you to hear directly from God’s Word before I communicate the thoughts on my heart, so please open your Bible or listen as I read John 9:1-41…

Please pray with me…

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It’s interesting the disciples wanted to know whose sin caused this man’s blindness—whether it was due to his own sin or his parents’ sin. 

And Jesus’ answer fascinates me because He didn’t blame the man or his parents or anyone’s sin for causing the man’s blindness.

Jesus declared the man was blind so God’s glory could be displayed in him.

And that’s a remarkable thought because on our part, it can be easy to insert ourselves into every situation, thinking we have something to do with its cause.

Yet the blind man’s story shows us it’s entirely possible for certain circumstances to take place without any connection to us.

Let’s always remember God is sovereign over all things, and in this instance, this man’s blindness served as a vehicle to display God’s works in him at that moment in history.

The Lord’s emphasis wasn’t on why the man was blind but for what purpose.

And here’s another application for us: we as human beings can get hung up on the whys of life.

From time to time, we face situations we can’t understand, and sometimes we wrestle with God about why particular things happen.

Maybe instead of focusing on the why, we should remember this blind man and realize we don’t need to understand everything.

That is such a freeing realization.

Second of all, we need to gain peace in knowing God has His reasons, and ultimately, He will be glorified through the inexplicable parts of our lives as we yield to Him.

Alright, let’s move on and take a closer look at what Jesus did.

In verse five He declared He is the light of the world, which I find to be a striking use of imagery since the man in His presence literally couldn’t see a thing.

But Jesus was just getting started.

He then spat on the dirt, formed clay, put it on the blind man’s eyes, and instructed him to go wash in the pool of Siloam.

Now, keep in mind this blind man hadn’t spoken a word up to this point—Jesus was fully reaching out to him.

And the man didn’t argue or ask questions at any point.

He simply obeyed Jesus, and after he followed through with Jesus’ instructions, Scripture says he “came back seeing.”

So we could say this was a pretty simple, straightforward act of healing.

Jesus encountered the blind man, applied clay to his eyes, issued instructions that the man followed, and healing occurred.

It was simple until other people—mainly the Pharisees—got involved.

You see, the blind man’s neighbors became aware he had been healed, and they began to talk around him, wondering if he truly was the man they knew as a blind beggar.

They disagreed with each other, and the man born blind even interjected repeatedly into their conversation, stating “I am the one.”

The neighbors then focused on questioning the man as to how he’d received his sight.

He explained the facts, but eventually, they took him to the Pharisees.

I guess we could say this man’s healing caused quite a stir.

But it got more intense.

The Pharisees got worked up mainly because the Lord Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath.

Now, just in case you wonder about this detail and feel some concern about whether Jesus ever did break the Sabbath, let me share some helpful information from gotquestions.org.

I quote, “Jesus did not break the Sabbath, as outlined by God under the Old Covenant. As He publicly stated, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). The Pharisees had so conflated their own standard of holiness with God’s that they accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath law. They were furious over Jesus’ actions, yet it was only their Sabbath law He did not keep. Jesus kept God’s law, and He had done nothing to violate the Sabbath.”[1] (end quote)

This information gives us a better picture of what was underneath the Pharisees’ issue with Jesus healing the blind man.

They couldn’t stand the fact Jesus didn’t follow their rules.

He wasn’t afraid of them, and He certainly didn’t buckle under their pressure.

The Lord Jesus Christ walked above the jurisdiction of these self-serving religious leaders because He answered to One and One alone: His Father in Heaven.

Wow, I can’t adequately express how much better off each of us would be if we simply followed the example Jesus provides in this matter.

Let’s follow the Holy Spirit’s leading above all of the other clamoring voices in our lives.

In some instances, this will mean submitting to another person or group of people as long as the Spirit leads us and their directions align with God’s Word.

But in other cases, like Jesus’ experience with the Pharisees—whose decrees might have sounded good but didn’t necessarily agree with God’s Word—let’s stand strong, staying still or moving as the Spirit guides.

Okay, back to this miraculous occasion when Jesus healed the blind man.

The Pharisees asked the man born blind how he had received his sight.

And once again, the man shared the facts, stating as it says in verse 15, “He applied clay to my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”

After he answered, the Pharisees started disagreeing about whether Jesus was from God or not, and they asked the man his opinion.

Oh my goodness, I feel worn out already.

These people were so cantankerous!

Well, they then decided to question the man’s parents, who claimed he was indeed their son, but they didn’t verify details about how he could now see or who healed him.

The parents didn’t want to stick their necks out for the sake of truth because they were afraid of the Jews and afraid of being excommunicated.

I want to pause here and consider how this man must have felt when his parents didn’t back up his word because they were afraid.

I feel certain it must have hurt him not to have their full support.

Evidently, they allowed fear to dictate their response, leaving their son on his own.

And that doesn’t feel good.

It must have been a lonely place for this man, but I admire his resolute spirit.

He didn’t give up even though his own parents failed to speak for him.

The Pharisees continued with their agenda, pressuring the man born blind to “give glory to God,” claiming they knew Jesus was a sinner.

The man said he didn’t know about that, but he knew he’d once been blind yet now could see.

Again they asked how Jesus had healed him, and the man said he’d already told them but they didn’t listen.

Then he asked if they wanted to become Jesus’ disciples, which made them really mad, so the Pharisees responded with verbal abuse.

Now, let’s take a breath from the escalating tension and make an observation:

People like the Pharisees are exhausting.

They wrangle about words and details, pressing and pushing to get the answers they want.

Do you know anyone like this?

I do, and this kind of interaction can get the best of me.

It can cause me to start feeling anxious, which often leads to worry, and I end up playing mental gymnastics in my head for days and days.

Can you relate?

Ladies, this is not what God wants for us.

This is not part of the abundant life Jesus came to give.

Jesus had enabled this man to see, which was an enormously beautiful miracle!

But instead of rejoicing with him, the Pharisees criticized Jesus and treated the man born blind rudely and abusively.

So let me apply this to us.

When we are confronted with disagreeable, argumentative, controlling people, let’s remember the response of this man born blind.

Unlike his parents, he wasn’t afraid of the Pharisees.

He wasn’t mean or mad or disrespectful, but he went head-to-head with these religious leaders in their interrogation that kept going on and on and on.

I find such strength and encouragement in his example.

The man born blind just kept stating the facts because he was logical.

He didn’t allow the Pharisees to talk their way into changing what had happened to him.

And I love the logical statement he spoke in verses 30-33.

Listen as I read them again:  The man answered and said to them, “Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes. We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him. Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.”

This man took the Pharisees’ disbelief about Jesus’ origin and destroyed their reasoning in a very matter-of-fact way. 

I just love it.

But as a result, the Pharisees put him out of the synagogue.

They had failed to scare or pressure this man into rejecting Jesus, so they alienated him.

Well, Jesus heard about it and found the man.

And I want that statement to soak in for a minute.

Jesus had given this man sight, which led to the man enduring an argumentative interaction with the Pharisees that led to his excommunication.

But then Jesus found him.

You know, He does that for us, too…

So, Jesus didn’t leave this man alone after his mentally and emotionally taxing experience.

The Lord searched him out when the time was right.

And when I say the man was found, it was in far more than a physical sense.

Jesus had a deeper place in mind with this entire situation.

He revealed His identity to this man, who promptly believed in Him and worshipped Him.

You know, it really is special how this miracle from long ago shows us God’s heart.

I know it pleased Him to give the man physical sight, but more than that, it delighted God to bring this man to faith in Christ.

And that leads me to my final description for this man.

He was seeing.

Now, you might wonder why I didn’t say that at the beginning when we talked about Jesus giving this man sight.

I waited because once again, I’m not referring to the physical.

Jesus opened this man’s spiritual eyes.

Listen to the Lord’s words in verse 39, “And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”

The Lord Jesus Christ knows every heart, and He came so those who lack spiritual sight might gain the ability to see spiritual truth.

On the other hand, Jesus came so that those who think they possess spiritual sight might lose what they think they have.

I’m reminded of a famous verse in the Old Testament.

Micah 6:8 says, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?”

Many of the Pharisees were proud people who didn’t desire to hear what Jesus had to say.

They were much more interested in their own words, and they refused to truly listen to the Lord Jesus Christ.

They couldn’t see their own sin, and their insistence about their own righteousness actually revealed the immensity of their sin.

On the bright side, however, Jesus gave physical and spiritual sight to the blind man.

Yet as marvelous as it must have been for the man to see everything around him for the first time in his life, it was incredibly more magnificent that this man saw Jesus for who He is: the Messiah, God in the flesh.

If I could glimpse just one moment of this entire event, I would like to have seen the man expressing his belief in Jesus and worshipping Him.

Imagine the reverence and awe that must have filled his face as he recognized the Lord God in his presence.

So I’m going to leave us with that picture in mind and ask one final question:

In what area of your life do you need Jesus to give you spiritual sight?

Let’s pray…

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Thanks again for tuning in to Indestructible Life.

Please take a moment to follow this podcast, and until next time, this is Emily Wickham.

Remember, God loves you!

In Christ, you’re indestructible.

[1] https://www.gotquestions.org/did-Jesus-break-the-Sabbath-law.html