Introduction
- On a Sabbath Jesus healed a man born blind.
- Like many people Jesus’ disciples queried the connection between a person’s illness and human responsibility—was it because of his sins of anyone’s else?
- In this particular case, the man’s blindness was not caused by his sins or anyone’s sins.
- Jesus said it was for the glory of God.
- We understand what Jesus meant was that through the healing of this blind man, God would be glorified.
- In the healing process, Jesus mixed mud with his saliva and spread over the man’s eyes.
- After he washed his eyes from the pool of Siloam, he had his eye sights restored.
- When the Pharisees saw all these, they did not turn to believe but rather angrier and were trying all out to find loopholes to charge Jesus.
- At the end these Pharisees were shamefully and sarcastically told off by the formerly blind man.
1. A Grace of all Grace
- Apparently the born blind man did not even ask for his eye sight restoration.
- Jesus was passing by and saw him.
- When the disciples doubted the cause of the blindness, Jesus answered them by performing a miracle.
- No one deserve such grace and yet in compassion, Jesus is always more willing to show His mercy and love for us.
2. An Evidence of Sacramental Grace
- When Jesus heals the blind, he mixed mud with his saliva and spread on the man’s eyes.
- We believe that there was no magic power in the mud and Jesus’ saliva.
- In this particular case, the mud and Jesus’ saliva became medium in the healing process.
- In our baptism, God sanctifies and regenerates us with water through the work of the His Spirit.
- In the Holy Communion, the sacramental bread and wine confirm our belonging in the body of Christ.
3. A testimony without dispute
- When the man received his sight, his neighbours could not believe he was the blind man before.
- But he testified, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, `Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight.”
- When he was brought to the Pharisees, again he testified, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.”
- Unsatisfied with so many positive witnesses for Jesus, the Pharisees kept on disbelieve and check on the man’s mother.
- The woman confirmed the blind man was her son but not sure how he gained his sight.
- When the man being asked the third time, he said, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
- The man also loosed his patient when he saw these Pharisee were so stubborn.
- He rebuked them sarcastically by saying, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”
Conclusion
- We see here were different role-plays
- Jesus the Messiah who loves his people, even the blind man.
- The disciples of Christ showed no compassion upon this blind man. Instead, they had a theological argument about whose sins that causes the blindness.
- The blind man who deserves nothing, received the mercy from Jesus.
- His testimony was about something beyond comprehension—a born blind person received sight.
- His testimony was simple, no exaggeration yet powerful.
- His mother’s testimony about him was not complete due to pressures from the authority to penalise whoever says Jesus was the Messiah.
- The Pharisees who saw a real life testimony, heard what people (including the man’s mother) have said about him, had gone through thorough check on the authenticity of the testimony, yet hardened their hearts and not willing to accept the fact that Jesus was the Messiah. What a shameful missed out.
- May God help us to be true to our testimonies, share them with the people around us, in simple yet powerful terms, as John Newton puts it, “I once was lost but now am found,Was blind, but now, I see!”
