BLIND MAN OR BLIND MEN?

It is rather frightening to see in my own life at times how easily self can blind me to the truth and to what is the true path my life should follow. I know that I can be terribly blind when I do not wish to see the truth because of the demands it will make on me.

This shines out clearly in Christ’s life which is full of many practical lessons :

“Jesus saw, as He passed on His way, a man who had been blind from his birth. Whereupon His disciples asked Him, `Master, was this man guilty of sin, or was it his parents, that he should have been born blind?’ `Neither he nor his parents were guilty,’ Jesus answered. `It was so that God’s action might declare itself in him. While daylight lasts, I must work in the service of Him who sent me; the night is coming when there is no working any more. As long as I am in the world, I am the world’s light….’

With that He spat on the ground and made clay with the spittle; then He spread the clay on the man’s eyes and said to him, `Go and wash in the pool of Siloe.’ So he went and washed there, and came back with his sight restored.

“And now the neighbours and those who had been accustomed to see him begging began to say, `Is not this the man who used to sit here and beg?’ Some said, `This is the man’; and others, `No, but he looks like him.’ And he told them, `Yes, I am the man.’ `How is it, then,’ they asked him, `that your eyes have been opened?’ He answered, `A man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes with it and said to me go to the pool of Siloe and wash there. So I went and washed and recovered my sight.’ `Where is He?’ they asked; and he said, `I do not know.’

“They brought him before the Pharisees, this man who had once been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day (Jews’ day of worship) when Jesus made clay and opened his eyes. And so the Pharisees in their turn asked him how he had recovered his sight. Why `He put clay on my eyes; and then I washed, and now I can see.’

“Whereupon some of the Pharisees said, `This man can be no messenger from God; He does not observe the Sabbath.’ Others asked, `How can a man do miracles like this, and be a sinner?’ Thus there was a division of opinion among them. And now they questioned the blind man again, `What account do you give of Him, that He should thus have opened your eyes?’ `Why,’ he said `He must be a prophet.”

“The Jews must send for the parents of the man who had recovered his sight before they would believe his story that he had been blind, and that he had his sight restored to him. And they questioned them, `Is this your son, who, you say, was born blind? How comes it, then, that he is now able to see?’ His parents answered them, `We can tell you that this is our son, and that he was blind when he was born. We cannot tell how he is able to see now; we have no means of knowing who opened his eyes for him. Ask him; he is of age; let him tell you his own story.’ It was fear of the Jews that made his parents talk in this way, for the Jews had by now come to an agreement that anyone who acknowledged Jesus as the Christ should be forbidden into the synagogue (temple); that was why his parents said, `He is of age, ask him himself.’