But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin. 1 John 1:7 (MSG)

In The Light – Sight Series – Part 3

Go to PART 1  |  PART 2  |  PART 3

John recorded a story about a blind beggar whom Jesus healed. When he showed up in town with new sight that could see miraculously beyond his former limitations, he isn’t celebrated… No one joins him in his joy. He's questioned. Accused. Set upon.

The story of the blind man healed has a B plot: it shows who was really blind. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t the man who couldn’t see.

The Pharisees and the leaders and the skeptics… so concerned with themselves, the rules, popular opinion, what could be done and should be done and what couldn’t be done and shouldn’t be done; they couldn’t see the transformation, the hot, bright miracle, right in front of their own eyes.

Blind as bats. Unwilling to see.

John Newton wrote a beautiful hymn:

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I’m found.
Was blind but now? I see…”

What did he see?

He once aided and abetted human trafficking and slavery. He partook in it, profited from it, and enabled it. But somewhere in his journey, he had an awakening. From his darkness and suffering, he leaned into the mud and the mess and became aware, alive and awake to what was happening around him.

If you read his story, there was a moment at sea that could have well been John Newton's holy baptism.

He was transformed.

What once was permissible to him, he could no longer engage in. His sight had changed. His eyes were no longer blind to the reality of human trafficking and slavery.

I wonder what we are blind to?

I wonder what things we cannot see because we are too concerned with lines drawn in sand, too caught up in ourselves and our greed, too unwillingly to see that our privilege and wealth keeps a boot firmly planted on someone else's neck.

Are we willing to go from blindness to sight?

“This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in him. If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.” 1 John 1:5-7.

Look, It’s not dualistic. Don’t fall into shame over your blindness. Don’t allow yourself to be overwhelmed and paralyzed with your new sight. Light brings us into relationship: shared experience, helping and strengthening and doing and empowering and being. There is no condemnation in the light.

Change is ongoing. Every day I find new scales that I didn’t even know I had falling from my eyes. I’ve been blind to so much, and now I’m starting to see. And I hope I continue shedding blindness for the rest of my life.

It's a humble grace.
It’s salvation.

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but no I’m found.
Was blind but now, I see…”

Your turn… Leave us your comments below

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