I was sitting there eating my lunch while my brain went a million miles an hour thinking about the enormous homework assignments I had to tackle after class, when the person sitting next to me leaned over in my direction and held out their phone.
“What do you think of this message?”
Taken off guard, I took the phone they were offering and started to read the words on the screen.
“She’s always talking to me about Jesus and how much I need him in my life. How He’s going to fix something in me somehow. What do you think?”
It’s been a rare occurrence when someone walks up to me and initiates a conversation about what I think of Jesus. There are only two instances specifically that I can recall of when it was so blatantly asked and where it led into direct conversations about the gospel. One of these instances just recently happened, and the other took place during my study abroad summer in Mexico. But in each of these, I walked away from the conversation with this intense feeling, “Jesus is going to save them. Man, is He going after their hearts!”
In my study of the book of John I spent this last week in chapter 9, an entire chapter dedicated to the story of Jesus healing a blind man. I have been asking the question, “What makes this story so unique that John would spend over 40 verses in detail about this man and his interaction with Jesus?” And this morning some of those answers seemed to start coming.
After Jesus heals a man who has been blind from birth (9:7- (the man) went and washed and came back seeing), the Pharisees are enraged that he would dare to do so on their Sabbath. John writes that even this man's neighbors and all those who had seen him blind for so many years were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg? How were your eyes opened?”
The Pharisees proceed to call his parents in for questioning, and finally the healed man himself as they demand that he confess that Jesus is not God, but rather a sinner.
As the man refuses to do so, it says in John 9:34, “And they cast him out.”
First rejected by society because of his blindness, he is now rejected and cast out because of his claims of this Jesus person who has caused him to see.
But when Jesus heard that they had cast him out, it says he went out and FOUND the man.
“Do you believe in the Son of Man?” - Jesus
“And who is He sir, that I may believe in him?” -man
“You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” - Jesus
“Lord I believe!” AND HE WORSHIPED HIM.
He worshiped Him. Meditate on that.
You see, the Pharisees in this chapter had an opportunity to do the same, but they refused to submit their hearts to him. While their hearts were filled with blasphemy, this man was filled with worship.
This is the story of Jesus claiming a blind man and making a worshiper out of him!
“Jesus was taking the blind man from blindness to the blazing deity of Jesus.” – Piper
I’ve gotten to have a lot of conversations with the spiritually blind in the past few months, and have always walked away asking “Why me Jesus? What is it that my heart has understanding, that my eyes have been opened, that this somehow makes sense to me and doesn’t sound crazy like it does to them?”
And every time I ask that, He takes me back to a scene where I was the spiritually blind man on the side of the road, and the day I can’t explain but that I went, and washed, and came back seeing. I was blind, but then I saw. The only answer I have is Jesus claimed and Jesus saved. It was nothing I did. He took me from blindness to the blazing deity of himself. I became a worshiper.
And right here in this little village ‘hood, He’s placed a few of us in the middle of a community of the blind. And we remember that not too long ago that was us without sight, that was us without understanding, and that was us without hope and freedom. And because our eyes have been opened to the blazing deity of Jesus, we long for others to be healed as well.
And so, we’ll keep praying like crazy over this place.
And we’re going to keep loving like we’ve got nothing to lose.
And when they reject us and tell us to stop, we’ll rejoice and keep going anyway.
And we’ll keep worshiping, keep pressing on, keep pursuing the Lord.
And someday I’m going to write a blog about those we got the privilege of doing life with for a short while here- and the crazy stories of people that went and washed, and came back seeing. Or maybe I won’t hear their stories until the banqueting table of Heaven, and I can promise you that will be so much more amazing than any blog I write on this side of things.
So today I rejoice- that Jesus chose to claim a blind man such as myself, and made me into a worshiper.
From blindness to the blazing deity!
