Wednesday, October 7, 2015

EmmDev 2015-10-07 [Month of Mission 2015] A blind man sees with more than his eyes

A blind man sees with more than his eyes

He answered, "I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?"
28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, "You are this fellow's disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from."
30 The man answered, "Now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."      (John9:27-32)
The story of the man born blind and later is healed by Jesus is intriguing. The theology of the time about healing was simplistic, raising the question of who sinned between the man blind and his parents. Similar attitudes prevail in these contemporary times. The healing of the man born blind was met with the cold climate of unbelief and doubt even after the healing.

The Pharisees of the time questioned the authenticity of the miracle strongly, to extent of insulting sarcastically the healed man. The lame, blind, disabled are all the handiwork of God as Moses was told by God as he resisted the call. He being the sovereign God has power to heal. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. Jesus dispels the myth by saying neither the man nor his parent sinned, but that his condition was to bring glory to God.

In John 8:12 Jesus says, "I am the light of the world. Whosoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." After smearing the mud from the ground, which was mixture of his spit and ground, which is silicate- sand-mud, was sent to go to the pool of Siloam to wash. Some say Jesus made the first spectacles in this action.

This washing changed the man born blind permanently. The Creator-power of the Lord Jesus healed the blind man. He got his miracle which was controversial to the Pharisees' cold unbelief, that rejected the working of God among men. In so doing they declared themselves spiritually blind though physically seeing.

Even today some blinded spiritually fail to see the handiwork of God in our time. In the light of Jesus, you not only get your sight back, but hindsight, your insight and foresight which is all your vision restored.

Spiritual blindness is failing to see what God is doing among us. The man whose sight was healed was bearing testimony to his miracle gift. The gift of sight is wonderful. The perception of spiritual insight in life, is by seeing God's doing in the inner person by his Holy Spirit in changing him/her through rebirth.

The man born blind defended Jesus and the miracle he did in granting him sight. Jesus opened the eyes of the blind and he can open yours too. you can say together with the man born blind, "whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"
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Robert Munthali is our General Assembly Moderator-Elect and minister of Gooldville mission Presbyterian church. He loves travelling and reading, blessed with lovely wife and precious children.



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Theo Groeneveld
Emmanuel Presby Church
theo@emmanuel.org.za Cell: 082-5510752