Growing up, my best friend and I, were quite mismatched. We didn’t like the same things, we came from vastly different families, played different sports and enjoyed different hobbies. But for whatever reason, we were the best of friends. After primary school ended, we went to different schools and eventually I moved away and for many years we lost contact. I heard a vague rumour that he had become the lead singer of a death metal band, while I attended Bible school. It turns out that our adult lives were even more different than our childhoods had been. Fast forward a number of years and we reconnect online. He had become a strong Christian and his life had taken quite a different road. He, like all converts, had been healed in his heart as he started living his life for Jesus. This brings about a radical change in a person. So much so that you might not recognise the person afterward.
That is what happens to the man in our story. In the previous passage we saw how the man’s suffering was designed to bring God glory, but now he had been healed. This meant that many did not recognise him. His neighbours can’t wrap their heads around it. He is so different they have to get outside help. Let’s have a look.
Scripture Reference: John 9:8-23
The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”
Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”
The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?”
His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.”
His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
On the one hand this is a story about how the Jewish leaders wanted Jesus out of the picture more and more. The man is healed, his neighbours are so shocked that they drag him in front of the Pharisees hoping that their religious leaders might give them some advice about how to handle this situation. But it the Pharisees are more worried that Jesus healed him on the Sabbath, than they are grateful that this man was miraculously healed. So this story serves to propel the overarching story in John forward as it shows us the rising animosity the Jewish leaders had toward Jesus.
But on the other hand, this story tells us about what happens to us when we are changed by Jesus. When we come to faith, we are changed. Our spiritual eyes are opened and we start to see that our previous sinful lives are no longer consistent with Jesus being the Lord of our lives. Like this man we cannot help but tell others about the good news of what has happened to us. We start living radically changed lives. We start to live lives that worship, honour and proclaim Jesus as the one who saved us.
On the third hand (yes I know we don’t have three hands), this story tells us about how people respond to Jesus and his work. We can be like the man, who is miraculously healed and start telling people all about Jesus. Or we can be like the Pharisees, who refuse to believe. Notice, they have the evidence right in front of them, but they dismiss it, reject it, and try to explain it away. Or we can be like the man’s parents. They seem to sit somewhere on the fence. They don’t want to side with the Pharisees, because they know the truth: their son was miraculously healed. But they also don’t want to publicly proclaim that Jesus is Lord, because they are afraid of the Jews.
I think that many of us probably find ourselves in that third camp. We have seen the evidence for Jesus, have even come to believe in him, but often we find it hard to publicly profess our faith. Perhaps what we need is to recapture the joy of the man who was healed. We will only have this joy when we realise how much we have been healed from.
So consider what did Jesus save you from? Then go and tell others the good news.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank you for saving me from my sin. I confess that I am sometimes too cowardly to proclaim your name boldly. Help me to be strong and to share the good news of what you have done for me on the cross with others. Amen.
Spiritual Challenge
Today, ask God to show you with whom who you can share your testimony. Then share it.