John 9:35-41
Jesus heard that they (the Pharisees) had driven him (the man born blind whose sight Jesus had restored) out, and when he found him, he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped him. Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We see”, your sin remains.
Jesus’ puzzling statement, “I came into the world for judgment so that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind” stopped me in my tracks. Wait a minute. Why would Jesus want anyone to become blind? And so I asked myself, who are the people who “do see?”
ReplyDeleteIn this story the “seers” ostensibly were the religious officials; they were the people who were enlightened with the wisdom of the law, they held positions of authority and they knew what was “right.” But when they were faced with the blind beggar who was miraculously healed by Jesus, the officials did not see the truth, they were unable to see the True Healing Light of Christ. Though they had eyes they did not see. Another way to say that is, Jesus revealed their blindness.
There is more than one way to live in the dark; in the physical blindness of the beggar or in the spiritual blindness of the religious officials. Still, darkness is darkness which begs the age old question: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there hear it, did it still make a sound? Of course, one would say, simply leave a recording device in the woods and the sound of a falling tree will be recorded and some one can eventually listen to it. But ahh – in the end, there is a listener. And in the case of the story of the blind man and religious officials, in the end, there is the seer.
The seer is the medium, the one who sees. In the case of spiritual sight, the seer is the one who recognizes God’s healing presence. And so the man born blind affirmed that he was the seer when he said to Jesus, “Lord I believe,” and worshipped him. May the eyes of my heart be opened to see Christ’s healing presence in me and all of creation.