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2014-03-30 Daniel Daring
(Comments welcome here)
I was blind but now
I see
1 Samuel 16:1.6-7.10-13; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41
He thought that his eyes were perfect. He could see everything and quickly learned how to read. But suddenly, the day of judgment arrived. A medical check-up was held in his elementary school. He was only nine. The nurse asked him to close his right eye and read the letters from the chart. All went well. Then, she asked him to close his left eye and read the chart with the right one. He could only read the first four lines; the rest was blurred. He left the clinic crying. He did not understand what a lazy eye meant. He cried because of the word 'eyeglasses.'
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). I presume that nobody today would ask such question. Although there is often a connection between sinful action and sickness (the post-effects of the atomic bombs dropped by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for example), we learn in school that many sicknesses are closely linked to problems with genetic code of a particular person and not with her/his sins. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned” (John 9:3). And yet, the question of sin looms over the entire story of Jesus healing the man born blind in the Gospel of John (9:1-42).
We usually place sin within the area of morality. “I have sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do.” How do we know that we have sinned? We have broken certain norms and rules given to us by our culture and religious tradition, and we use these norms and rules to judge others. It happened to Jesus as well. He was judged according to the norms of the rabbinic tradition: “Some of the Pharisees said, 'This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.' But others said, 'How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?'” (John 9:16). And he was declared a sinner: “We know that this man is a sinner” (John 9:24). Yet here lies the problem. If we can judge an innocent person to be a sinner, because s/he does not fit within the parameters established by our cultural and/or religious tradition, then perhaps we need to rethink and redefine our understanding of sin.
He could not accept the fact that one of his eyes could not see. He wore the eyeglasses only before his parents; in front of his friends he pretended that all was well. After a few attempts to read and watch only with his right eye – an exercise that supposed to improve the vision of his lazy eye, he gave up the practice entirely. Why should he make such a stupid exercise wasting an hour each day? Was he not seeing everything around him?
“Jesus said to them [the Pharisees]: 'If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We see”, your sin remains'” (John 9:41). Sin is linked to a wrong perception of reality. “We look at each other, but we do not see each other any more. Our perception of the world has withered away; what has remained is mere recognition” (Viktor Shklovskij). Like a little boy who is afraid to be laughed at, so he hides the eyeglasses in his pockets and pretends to have perfect sight, we also pretend to see everything, afraid to face the truth about our blindness. And what helps us to pretend so well is our familiarity with our religious tradition, culture, and people around us. No wonder that many of us have lost the ability to marvel and praise God for the things He is doing in the lives of others. Rather, we examine, investigate, judge, and insist that a blind man was not really born blind and a sinner should remain a sinner for ever (John 9:18.34).
Growing in years has only made things worst. His lazy eye remains lazy; he is also losing the sight in his left eye. Now, without the eyeglasses he cannot see; everything is blurred. But he does not hide the fact of his poor sight any more. He knows that only a new vision could change the past.
“Do you believe in the Son of Man?” (John 9:35). The answer to this question is crucial for each one of us. “No” would mean that we are still living in darkness even if we pretend to see. “Yes” followed by worshiping Jesus means that we have moved from darkness to light. But there is no need to give a hasty answer and again pretend that all is well. There are many nominal Christians for whom Jesus means nothing. The Gospel of John makes it clear that our response to Jesus affects the outcome of our lives. Taking this most important relationship for granted leaves us in sin, whereas faith in Him gives us a new kind of vision that allows us to see the world in an entirely new way. But John's Gospel also helps us to realize that grasping the significance of Jesus in our lives is a gradual process. It is clearly outlined in the story of the blind man: at first, Jesus is just “the man called Jesus” (John 9:11); then He is declared to be a prophet (John 9:17); finally, Jesus becomes “Lord” and is worshiped (John 9:38). We can only answer “Yes” to the above question when we are able to realize that Jesus is more than an exclamation - “Oh! Jesus!” - to express our emotion, and more than an extraordinary figure of the past.
We all love to sing “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” Let us pray that it will not be just a song, but a true testimony of what God's grace has done in our lives through Jesus. Then to all who try to shake the foundation of our faith by speaking about Jesus with contempt, we shall give the answer of the blind man: “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25).
c.f. To see as God sees