The joy of an eye-opening miracle creates immediate awe and attention. The clamor almost overshadowing the life-changing experience itself. How could a man born-blind have sight? Fake news pundits were decrying the event and even the identity of the healed man.
“Think not that I came to bring peace…” said Jesus. A choice is mandated of those who receive a visitation by God, the receiver of the gift and of the watchers.
Every act of obedience to the Father by Jesus declared, “It’s not like you think.” Quite a challenge to those who are professionals in “God’s business”. Established circumstances, regulations, and protocol dictates who is and is not eligible to receive from God.
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60: Jesus Heals The Man Born Blind
John 9:1-41
As Jesus walked along on a Sabbath he saw a man who had been born blind from birth.
Jesus’ disciples said to him:
“Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus answered them, saying:
“Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day. The night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
As soon as he had finished speaking, Jesus spat on the ground, made a soft mass of clay with the spittle, and placed it, as an ointment, on the eyes of the blind man.
Then he said to the man:
“Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.”
The blind man went to the pool, and when he had washed his eyes he could see.
Acquaintances who saw him said:
“Is this not he that sat and begged?”
Some said:
“This is he.”
Others said:
“He is like him.”
The man who had been blind said:
“I am he.”
Thereupon he was asked:
“How were thine eyes opened?”
He replied:
“A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash.’ And I went and washed, and I received sight.”
The man was asked:
“Where is he?”
He answered:
“I know not.”
The people who had questioned him took the man who had been blind to the Pharisees.
When the Pharisees asked him how he had received sight, he replied:
“He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see.”
Some of the Pharisees, speaking of Jesus, said:
“This is not a man of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day.”
Others said of Jesus:
“How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?”
There was a division of opinion among them.
Then the Pharisees asked again of the man who had been blind:
“What sayest thou of him, he that opened thine eyes?”
The man replied:
“He is a prophet.”
Some Jews doubted the statements of the man that he had been blind, and had been cured. So they called the man’s parents before them. They asked the parents:
“Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? How then doth he now see?”
The parents answered:
“We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind. But what means he now seeth, we know not. Or who hath opened his eyes, we know not. He is of age. Ask him. He shall speak for himself.”
The parents spoke these words because they were afraid of the authorities; for an agreement had been reached by the leaders that any man who thought Jesus was Christ should be driven from the synagogue.
Accordingly the man’s parents said:
“He is of age. Ask him.”
Again the Pharisees turned to the man who had been blind, saying to him:
“Give God the praise. We know that this man is a sinner.”
The man who had been healed replied:
“Whether he be a sinner or not, I know not. One thing I know; that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”
Then the Pharisees asked him again:
“What did he to thee? How opened he thine eyes?”
The man replied:
“I have told you already, and ye did not hear. Wherefore would ye hear it again? Will ye also be his disciples?”
Then the Pharisees reviled the man, saying:
“Thou art his disciple, but we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses. As for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.”
The man answered, saying to the Pharisees:
“Why herein is a marvelous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth not sinners. But if any man be a worshiper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.”
The Pharisees answered:
“Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?”
The man was ordered to leave. Jesus heard of this, found the man he had healed, and said to him:
“Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”
The man replied:
“Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?”
Jesus answered:
“Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.”
The man revered Jesus and said:
“Lord, I believe.”
Jesus said to him:
“For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.”
Some Pharisees, who heard the conversation between Jesus and the man, asked Jesus:
“Are we blind also?”
Jesus replied “If ye were blind, ye should have no sin. But now ye say, ‘We see’; therefore your sin remaineth.”