Day 21 - March 21st 2022
Read John 9:13-34
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided.
17 Then they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”
The man replied, “He is a prophet.”
18 They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. 19 “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”
20 “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. 21 But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.”22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. 23 That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner.”
25 He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
26 Then they asked him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
27 He answered, “I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”
28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, “You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.”
30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.
Has the truth ever been hard for you to hear? While we are often pretty hard on the Pharisees in the Christian church it is not surprising that they struggled to believe in Jesus. They had lived with certain traditions about the messiah for a decades and since Jesus didn’t align with many of those traditions they were skeptical.
Remember that John the apostle of Jesus wrote this Gospel at the end of his life after many of the Pharisees had come to believe in Jesus. John had the opportunity to speak to them about why they were so conflicted and what was going on behind closed doors during Jesus’ life. So the argument that took place here in this section of scripture was told to him by eye witnesses.
The story of the man whom Jesus gave sight is a great miracle but an even better account of how hard the truth can be to hear sometimes. Maybe you’ve been conflicted about Jesus for a while and as all the evidence begins to line up in His favor you have struggled to believe. This story is a great reminder that this is a natural human response. But it also might be an example of how we can miss something special that is right in front of us because we don’t want to see it.
Spend some time in prayer today about what you might not see about Him because you didn’t want to.