Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind, but now I see! John 9:25 (NIV)
The Blind Man – Sight Series – Part 2
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3
While walking down the road, Jesus' disciples saw a blind man, sitting in rags, begging for anything that would help keep him alive.
“What caused his blindness?” They asked.
“Did his parents sin? Was it his sin?”
“Neither,” Jesus replied. “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world,”
And then Jesus approached the blind man, knelt down, and sat with him in the dirt. He spat on the ground, mixed his hot spit into some dirt and spread the mud across the blind man’s eyes. He told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. This act would take the blind man from darkness into light.
The blind man (I wish I knew his name to call him by it) experienced an incredible transformation.
Why?
The blind beggar didn’t ask to be healed. He wasn’t displaying any great feat of faith. For all we can tell, he didn’t even know what Jesus was doing until he felt hot, sticky mud smothered in his face… and even then, the whole experience would have been bizarre.
Why did he go to the pool? Why follow Jesus instructions? We can assume that he knew who it was that touched him, that reached down to him on the road that day, but the story suggests otherwise…
But to the pool the blind man went. And as he washed, his eyes came unstuck. Unclouded. Clear. Reflecting the light around him. He could see.
From darkness to light.
Transformation born in the everyday, average, limited, muddy, messy world, birthed by the divine and infinite God, who is inextricably woven within the fabric of all that is.
The Pharisees questioned the blind man:
“Who?
What?
Where?
When?
Why?
Sinner?
Sabbath?”
But the changed man could only say back:
“Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know. One thing I do know. I was blind, but now I see!”
How does transformation happen? Is it conjured up by morality? Is it drawn to church attendance? Lured by years of “good Christian service”? (whatever the heck that is…) Is it a two step process that we follow carefully and engage intentionally? Is there a prayer that we pray? A formula to follow?
Or like for the blind man, can it happen when we least expect it? Sitting blind and begging on the side of the road, only to be smothered in mud, baptized with water, and brought into light?
I don’t know. There are many things that I don’t know.
But one thing I know for sure is that once I was blind – blind to the Divine, blind to holiness and wonder, blind to my connection to others and to the earth, blind to the love that has always been right there waiting for me – and now, every day, I’m beginning to see.
Sometimes, when I least expect it, when life gets muddy and thick and smothering, a light appears, the day brightens, and miraculously, transformation comes.
It seems to be that our most transformative experiences come out of darkness, trial, and suffering. And for me, I almost always go through some kind of cleansing, a baptism, for the change to consummate. Whether it's saying goodbye to a season, a habit, a toxic relationship, food (yep…), the humble act of immersion – surrendering to the waves of change – shakes the grip of blindness off my spirit and leads me into light.
When I mix my muddy life – my body made from dust – with the essence of all things, God the Infinite and Divine, transformation happens. God made Adam from clay; like poetry, he mixed him into being. He brought something altogether miraculous from something altogether ordinary. Which begs the question, is anything ordinary?
There was a man who was blind. He had to beg for food. His days were marked out for him. There was no hope. There was no future. There was only more begging and darkness.
Until, unexpectedly, he was transformed.
Your turn… Leave us your comments below
Go to Part 3 – In the Light »
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