To See or Not to See

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

TO SEE OF NOT TO SEE

John 9:35-41

35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"  36 "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him." 37 Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you."  38 Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."  40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, "What? Are we blind too?" 41 Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

NIV

We have come to the concluding remarks in the situation over Jesus healing the blind man on the Sabbath by making mud, putting it on his eyes and telling him to go wash it off. That meant both Jesus and the man worked on the Sabbath, but the Jews were only accusing Jesus because the disliked him so much they wanted to find some way to kill him. Jesus reveals himself to the man he healed from blindness, but at the same time, he condemns those who think they have sight as being blind. The idea here is they are many people who think they have the truth because of their adherence to some form of religion or religious activity. They put their belief in their “works” so to speak. Being a good person, even if their goodness is connected to the spiritual qualities, as the Pharisees were, does not mean they can see but are still blind to the truth of God. Of course, the determination or judgment as to which people are, blind or sighted is not up to us, but that judgment belongs only to Jesus. Our task is first, to recognize we are blind and need the work of Christ in our lives. We need him to open our eyes so we can see. We cannot open our own eyes, we cannot think that we have the ability of sight based on our efforts, our study, our thinking. Our sight, our ability to see is only a result of the work of Christ, such as putting mud on our eyes and telling us to go wash it off, then and only than only then can we see. To claim we can see because of our determination of the truth, our works, our effort to gain insight, only means we are still blind. How foolish to look to the ways of the blind to find the truth, when all we need is Jesus to do the work in our lives. That does not mean that once we can see, we such not look into his word and discover all his truth to live by, or what the future of our eternal life looks like, but education alone is not the answer, it all starts with Jesus taking mud and putting on our blind eyes so we can see.