Being of Age

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

BEING OF AGE

John 9:17-23

17 Finally they turned again to the blind man, "What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened." The man replied, "He is a prophet." 18 The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man's parents. 19 "Is this your son?" they asked. "Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?" 20 "We know he is our son," the parents answered, "and we know he was born blind. 21 But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself." 22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. 23 That was why his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

NIV

It is really a good thing that we are not put out of the church because we believe something a little different than the leadership. The Pharisees held so much power over people, that if someone confessed they believed Jesus could be the Messiah they would be refused membership in the synagogue. It always comes down to agree or get out. Every denomination today has its set of beliefs, written out as a statement of faith or a constitution or in some other form, but the point is if you want membership into the club, a person needs to agree. There is no room for disagreement. That is just the way it is. There might be a little wiggle room, but like the Pharisees, it always comes down to how they interpret the law, or in our case the scripture. In this text, the issue about is working on the Sabbath, making mud was work, healing was work, so Jesus broke the law. This blind man who was healed was not being accused of walking to the pool of Siloam and washing, both would have been considered work, depending on how many steps he took to get to the pool. The Pharisees really did not care about the law that much, as they most likely were not perfect at keeping it either, except the wanted people to think they were. They were simple after Jesus, trying any way they could to get them for breaking the law and thus discredit him and find some way to have him killed. Everything he does and says is good and right, bringing the truth to the people, healing them both physically and spiritually. Under the law, the Pharisees look to for righteousness, actually brought death. It was to show their need for Jesus, but they refused to see the truth, they were too steeped in their traditional ideas. We are not much different today, as we denominationalists have a whole lot of traditional views, which may or may not be steeped in the truth. That is why we have so many different denominations, all being sort of like Pharisees, holding to the truth we have made the truth. Somebody has to be wrong, otherwise, all denominations would be in complete agreement. What is the answer? How do we choose which to belong to? How do we determine the correct course, the right belief system? The blind man’s parents did not want to buck the system of the Pharisees for fear of being throw out, cast out, becoming a non-member. A Jew without a synagogue would be terrible. Is a Christian without a denomination terrible? It seems we have a few non-denominational churches, but alas, non-denominational churches are a denomination. Oh, the complexity of being a believer. Why isn’t just accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior enough? Why does it always seem it is Jesus plus something, in order to belong? If we disagree too much we might be labeled a dissident, and thrown out. We guess, just like this blind man, we are of age and we should speak for ourselves. It is Jesus who made us able to see. It is a matter of being of age, in order to speak up.