The Seeing Blind

Being With Jesus:
John 9:39 (NLT)

Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind.”

Helen Keller, who with the help of Anne Sullivan, overcame deafness and blindness to become one of the most inspirational figures in modern history, made this profound observation:

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”

Of course, Helen was speaking out of her own courageous and overcoming experience, but I wonder if she was thinking about the Pharisees who rejected Jesus’ healing of the blind man in John 9. Truly, these who were experts in the Old Testament Scripture and obedient to it even beyond what it required were in reality, more blind than the blind man before his healing. They could physically see, but in the realm that counts for all eternity, they would have made a bat seem like a seeing-eye dog.

Though it doesn’t have to, that often happens as people react to Jesus. He came into this world for judgment—according to his own words—but that judgment didn’t take the form you might expect of a judge. Jesus didn’t have to sit behind the bench, hear the evidence, deliver the verdict and pronounce the punishment; the Pharisees did it for him. In their reaction to what was clearly an outstanding and undeniable miracle (John 9:24-34), they stubbornly clung to the company policy: You can’t heal on the Sabbath! Jesus simply brought the evidence against them to the surface; they judged themselves.

They were seeing, yet blinded by the truth that was right before their very eyes! How sad.

The truth is, when people are exposed to Jesus—his life, ministry, miracles, teaching, life, death and resurrection—a reaction is forced. They are forced to make a judgment—but that judgment is really self-judgment. How we respond to Jesus does not reveal anything new about Jesus, it reveals news about us—either the Good News that we have by faith believed (or are willing to believe) in who he claimed to be, or the bad news that unless we have a change of mind and heart, we will be self-condemned to an eternity separated from Christ.

When exposed to Jesus, if a person finds nothing to desire or admire, then that one has already condemned him or herself. But when they see something in Jesus that causes them to bow in surrender to his awesome and obvious Divinity, then they are on the path to eternal life.

Perhaps the greatest attribute that you and I can present before God is a conscious awareness of our own spiritual blindness. To humbly acknowledge before God that because of our own fallen nature we cannot see, we are on our way to sight. If we long to see the things of God, Jesus will open our spiritually blind eyes just as much as he physically opened the blind man’s eyes to 20/20 sight.

What a gift: To know that we are blind apart from our openness to Jesus. It is only those who once were blind—and know it—that now can see. And see they do! Opened to them through Jesus is the sum total of all the grace, truth and glory of God—and what a sight to behold!

“Was blind, but now I see.” (John Newton)

Getting To Know Jesus: Ask God to help you see where you may be persisting in spiritual blindness. Then bring your blind eyes to Jesus for healing. He was pretty good at that, you know—still is!

Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.

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