He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.
I am guessing that it’s this sentence from Jesus that is at the root of so much crummy theology. Bad things happen, just so that Jesus can fix them. Children get sick, pandemics happen, just so we can see Jesus’ power and might. Bunk. I cannot imagine that God would purposefully inflict trouble for the sake of fixing that trouble.
This story of the blind beggar that Jesus heals comes form the Gospel of John, a book chock full of poetic language and imagery. Poetic language and imagery may be beautiful, but frequently I struggle to understand it because I’m so literal. Like this story.
People are asking Jesus who sinned, the man or his parents. In the God they understood, bad things when God is displeased by sin and bad things. Good things occur because God smiles on good behavior. And these judgments by God were passed down to children and children’s children. So it was a reasonable question – who sinned, this man or his parents? That’s how they understood God’s action in the world.
Jesus, in trying to dissuade them from this, explains that neither the parent or the child sinned. The man was born blind so God’s works might be revealed. The literalist in me, and in the Pharisees in the story hear it and think it’s about literally not being able to see.
But Jesus goes on to tell them that people who think they can see, remain blind, and those who do not see may see. The Pharisees respond literally to what they thought Jesus was literally saying. We surely are not blind! Jesus says that since they see, their sin remains.
So up until this point, Jesus was talking about seeing and not seeing. Vision and blindness. But now he’s thrown in sin. Ah! Obviously, he’s not talking about literally seeing. So if the punchline of the story is figurative, I’m guessing the intro is too. The figurative way to rephrase this story’s opener is something like, “This man was born blind because things happen. But because he’s literally blind, I can heal him, and teach you all something about grace, and God’s power, self-perception, and humility before God”
Jesus gave the man his sight, who’d previously been blind. The man knew he was blind because he literally could not see. If our blindness was as obvious as a lack of vision, we might know it too. But as it is, our blindness is much harder to recognize. We may not ever recognize it. But it’s there.
The Pharisees are either literalists who know they an see, or their proud and unaware of their own shortcomings and sin. They are blind to their conditions.
Jesus is saying that if they walk around thinking they can see everything, thinking they see clearly, they’ve lost that sense of humility, and the willingness to have God’s merciful power fix those parts they don’t even recognize are broken.
Jesus used the man with the physical blindness to teach about God’s ability to let us see, if we’re willing to admit we too are blind. We’re blind and we don’t even know it, just like the Pharisees.
This morning, I’m thinking about how it’s hard to acknowledge that we don’t see everything, don’t know everything. How easy it is to act and sound like the Pharisees. Surely I’m not blind! We want to be competent, and capable. We don’t like admitting we aren’t. But when a bad thing happens, whether it’s an illness or pandemic, or job problem, or family trouble, we quickly realize we don’t have everything handled. Through the problems, we ‘see’ our shortcomings, or at least that we can’t fix, solve, heal, everything. That’s God’s job.
The blindness in the man, or my shortcomings make me realize that God, not I, have the power to heal, and restore, and redeem. Through my blindness, I see.
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