Celebrate blindness

Celebrate blindness

Today I would like to take the readers of my blog to Jerusalem and to the event we find in the Gospel of John in chapter 9, as the entire chapter is dedicated to this.

In our lives we meet people who live with a disability from birth, here we meet a person who has never seen anything with his eyes, it is not known whether this biblical blind man had eyeballs at all whether they were not working. Anyway, he was born like this, and because of this disability, his life became that of a beggar (v. 8). He was already an adult (v. 21), maybe 30 years old, maybe more. The Jews viewed him in such a way that they attributed either to himself or to his parents sins that made him blind (v. 2).

In Jerusalem it was a special time, as we read in the next chapter 10.22, when the temple was dedicated in Jerusalem and was it’s winter. We read in the text of our text that it was a Sabbath (v. 14). The Sabbath begins on Friday after sunset and ends on Saturday after sunset. Winter, all this happened earlier because the days are shorter. As we read in Jn. 2:20, this temple was built, some believe that it was extended for 46 years, so its consecration was an extraordinary holiday for the Jews. Herod tried very hard, it was his pride, a lot of people died during its construction. Our adventure takes place in such solemn circumstances.

Eyes of the Jews were probably directed to the Temple for sacrifices, and the one for whom they were building this Temple passed between them, not recognizing Him. The paradox was that the Jews had become so religious that they thought this was what God liked. As we know from history in AD 70, there was no stone left after this Temple, and to this day no one has rebuilt it. Why, because the real Temple walked between them. However, the eyes of the seers were blinded, which is why Jesus performed a miracle for a man to whom there was no chance to regain his sight, to illustrate the deep truth of his mission. To carry out the works of God that speak powerfully to us today.

Syloe is a body of water, recently discovered again, which was approx. 600 m long. the waters led wide stairs, as in some places they lead, for example, to the Vistula River. Jesus did not even ask the blind man if he wanted to be healed, as he had done in other cases, the blind man would not even have imagined that it could happen, but Jesus made mud from his spit and earth and smeared it on his eyes, then told him to go wash up to Syloe. I wonder how he paraded with that mud on his face? After all, Jesus did not tell him what to go and wash for and what would happen. However, the blind man listened attentively and had no qualms about doing what Jesus expected. Maybe he heard whistles, some jokes, what are you going there for, you will still drown, but he was going and he knew it was the best for him.

The Warsaw Bible speaks and he came back with his sight regained, the rest of the translations say , he came back seeing which seems to correspond better with what happened. Because he couldn’t get back what he didn’t have. This change was such a shock to people that they didn’t even recognize it. Nobody in their boldest thoughts foresaw such a turn of events. But the blind man remembered the name of the one who did it, Jesus did it, he knew it, although he could not see Him, but he knew and believed deeply in his heart that this was a man of God, that this was a special person. Nice problem, the Feast, the Sabbath, the temple, Herod, and there is something going on in front of them that they couldn’t comprehend.

Pharisees, were the right people to judge it, they know it, and it’s the same today. You have to go to spiritual specialists, they were interested in how it happened and by whom, they investigated and they already knew. We know that this man (Jesus) is sinful (v. 24c). So it was not about a miracle, about the person saved, but about the fact that sometimes no one would compete with them. After all, they can’t do such things, God doesn’t use them, they can make sacrifices and make up for themselves. And if they do not understand something, it is not they who are guilty, but the one who does it, you can even say it illegally, because on the Sabbath. Law above all else, a blind religion that strikes with all its force when it clashes with Grace.

The former blind man even scoffs of their unbelief, quoting the words from Isa. 1:15 and Prov. Sal. 15, 29 from which it is clear that God does not listen to sinners. But who would care in such a situation what the Scriptures say, tradition is more important and our judgment. A former blind man pays for his faith and devotion by expelling from the community. However, he is not alone, because Jesus immediately finds him and reveals himself to him in such a way that the former blind man worshiped him, the testimony of Jesus made him convinced that he was someone extraordinary, after Jesus introduced himself that he was the Son of Man, that is, the Messiah without murmuring whether hesitating recognizes him and entrusts his life.

This is a wonderful scene, should always be an example for us to be grateful to Christ for salvation, for life, for the miracles he performs in our lives that, although sometimes rejected by relatives and friends because of their faith in Jesus, they are relatives and important to Him. We can also see that this miracle caused a doubling, what Jesus emphatically spoke about in Matthew 10:35, sometimes among the closest ones. Therefore, he concludes this story with the words about seeing and not seeing. We are getting the truth that we can be extremely religious people, but blind people who obey the regulations of one church or another. We can keep the commandments and lead a moral life and miss Jesus completely. We can discredit, spit on, and even destroy His works and people in the name of our own religion, thus saddening or opposing the Holy Spirit. Therefore, those who think they can really see are blind as we read in Revelation 5: 17-18.

A picture of a blind man The who is endowed with sight should always make us aware that we need God’s ointment again and again to see, God’s mud, the pools of Siloe, to wash our spiritual eyes, to see not with the body but with the spirit. The people gathered in Jerusalem at the dedication of the temple, in fact, celebrated their blindness, they did not notice that God is among them, that among them is the one to whom they put this temple. They didn’t even see it as He was doing God’s work, but they clung to religion and their traditions. May this never happen to us.

Yours in Mr. Kazik J.

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