Jeff Englund

January 26, 2019January 26, 2019

Facts

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.”
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!”

John 9: 24-25

Have you ever noticed how some people will try and change the subject when they are losing an argument? In this story, the Pharisees are on the losing side of the argument, and whether they admit it or not, they seem to know it. When they demand to know the “truth” they are really saying that they think the truth is a lie. When they claim that Jesus is a sinner, they are making a claim to something that they really do not understand.

January 25, 2019January 23, 2019

CAUTION!

So far in this story, Jesus happened by a man blind from birth. When asked why the man had been born blind Jesus replied, “…so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Then, he healed the man. Immediately people started arguing about whether or not it was the same man. After all, it is not natural for a person who has been blind to gain their sight. The argument is continued in front of the Pharisees who, not believing the man either, demand to hear it from his parents.

“Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”
“We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. 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.” 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. That was why his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

John 9: 19-23

I give the parents full marks for caution. They literally did not “know” what had happened to their son. They answered as if they were in a court of law. (This was before Perry Mason was on TV, too!) They were wise to do this as in fact, they were in a kind of court.

January 24, 2019January 23, 2019

Disbelief

They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents.

John 9: 18

What is a formerly blind man to do when people don’t believe he was blind? Even people who knew him or had at least seen him often argued about whether or not he was the same man. To my knowledge blindness was not one of the illnesses that would be considered “unclean” so there was no need for this man to go to the temple to be declared “clean” after he was healed. Even so, he was taken before the Pharisees by those who first encountered him after he was able to see. After explaining what happened to the Pharisees, they did not believe the man’s story.

January 23, 2019January 22, 2019

Untimely Summons

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.”

John 9: 17

Have you ever had someone rain on your parade? Most of us have. You are minding your own business, enjoying life as you see fit, and **BAM** something happens to totally turn your day upside down.

In today’s verse, we rejoin the man who has just been given his sight by Jesus after a lifetime of being blind. He is, for the first time in his life, able to see the sky above, the sun, the faces of people he has known only by their voice, the colors and shapes of fruits and vegetables, people’s clothing, buildings, even the wisps of dust that follow behind people as they walk through the streets. I can only imagine his joy! Suddenly he finds himself hauled in before the Pharisees and being treated like a criminal.

January 22, 2019January 22, 2019

Work

Again and again, the issue of the Sabbath comes up as a point of contention between the Pharisees and Jesus. Jesus intentionally provokes the Pharisees on this subject over and over. Why?

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 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.”
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.

John 9: 13-16

Did it ever occur to the Pharisees that complying with rules about what you can and cannot do on the Sabbath might be considered “work” in itself? In the name of avoiding work, they had made work out of the Sabbath.

January 21, 2019January 20, 2019

Magic

Have you ever thought about why Jesus used mud when he healed the man’s blindness? After all, Jesus had already calmed the storm, walked on water, and healed the man at the pool called Bethesda simply by telling him to get up and walk.

January 20, 2019January 19, 2019

I Am the Man

When my youngest son was in high school, he had worn glasses for most of his life and as was the custom for many young people, he had let his hair grow quite long. When he decided to switch to contacts instead of glasses, he also arranged to cut his hair short so that when he went back to school the next Monday he looked like a different kid. In fact, he looked so different that nobody recognized him. For a whole day, he enjoyed being the “new kid” until his friends finally figured it out.

His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, ” Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” Some claimed that he was.
Others said, ” No, he only looks like him.”
But he himself insisted, ” I am the man.”

John 9: 8-9

January 19, 2019January 18, 2019

Born Blind

There is a story in the Old Testament about a man named Naaman. He was an important man in his time as he commanded the entire army for the kingdom where he lived. He suffered from leprosy which in those days was a death sentence.

One day he heard about a prophet in Samaria who could cure leprosy, but when he heard what the cure was, he balked. What he was told to do was beneath his dignity. Eventually, he chose to humble himself, and his reward was that he was healed.

After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,’ he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam’ (this word means “Sent’). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

John 9: 6-7

January 18, 2019January 17, 2019

The Light of the World

I confess that it is very hard for me to get my head around the idea that Jesus is God. I believe it, but I don’t understand it.

Part of the reason is that being a man, I keep wanting to stuff my image of Jesus into the limitations of what I understand being a man to be all about. But because he is God, he draws on His knowledge of what heaven is like and what his Father is like. When he speaks, he speaks in human metaphors, but he is often talking about things no human has ever seen.

As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

John 9: 4-5

January 17, 2019January 16, 2019

The Works of God

Do you ever wonder what God does with his spare time? I mean sure, He created the universe and all that is in it, and he keeps the whole thing running day in and day out. He also hears everyone’s prayers and keeps busy answering prayer and giving prophets things to say. All of these things tell us who God is and inform us about God. But does he do more?

Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’

Author: Jeff Englund