The Man Born Blind (part 2)

This is the second part of the story of the man born blind. If you wish to read part one click the week of 10/28-11/04 and read away. The story is found in John chapter 9 and I divided the blog into two parts because of its length. If you are too lazy to click and read the previous blog on this story I will briefly describe the scene.

Jesus heals a blind man.

Now, I will tell the rest of the story in my own words.

So when the blind dude, who can now see, comes back from washing his eyes he starts telling everybody what happened, but nobody believes him. So they take him over to the Pharisees to see what they think. Big mistake. The Pharisees start askin him all kinds of questions and the used to be blind guy tells them what happened. But they don’t believe him and they keep askin him more questions.

It’s not that the Pharisees don’t believe the man; they don’t want to believe him. This Jesus character has been stealin all their thunder lately and they don’t like it much. You see before Jesus came around the Pharisees were the ones everybody looked up to, but now they are more of a sideshow. So the Pharisees were lookin for any excuse to discredit Jesus. So they started tellin everybody that Jesus could not be a prophet because He healed the man on the Sabbath. In other words if Jesus was a man of God He would have waited until the next day to heal the man and the Pharisees would have appreciated that more. Right! Like that was gonna be the case.

Some in the crowd did not believe the used to be blind guy was the same man as the guy who used to beg for alms. They figured he just looked like him. But, the used to be blind guy kept insisting that he was the same dude. The Pharisees said that he was never really blind he was just faking it so he could beg for money and not have to work like the rest of us. But the used to be blind guy kept insisting that he was blind and then the religious leaders went over to see his mommy and daddy so they could corroborate his story.

Then the Pharisees started telling the people not to believe that the used to be blind guy used to be blind. But a lot of people standing there said they saw him for many years and that he was always blind for as long as they could remember. Then the used to be blind guy said to the Pharisees, “Why don’t you believe me?” The Pharisees said to the man that he made a good livin off of everybody and that’s why he acted blind. The used to be blind guy said, “If I made such a good livin off of everybody then why would I give all that up and claim to see, because now I have to work like everybody else.” The Pharisees said, “We don’t know and we don’t care. “All we know is you are startin to drive us crazy.”

Then the used to be blind guy says, “Why don’t you ask Jesus to heal you of your craziness?” Then the Pharisees hit the roof and tell the used to be blind guy that Jesus is a sinner because He healed him on the Sabbath. So the used to be blind guy says, “Isn’t that something, you say Jesus is a sinner yet He healed me. ‘How is that possible?” The Pharisees start getting even more steamed and tell the used to be blind guy that he is no longer allowed in the temple. The used to be blind guy tells the Pharisees that he was never welcomed in their temple before, so it doesn’t matter to him.

Eventually, Jesus finds the used to be blind guy and says to him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The used to be blind guy says, “Tell me who he is so I can believe.” Jesus said to him, “You are looking right at Him.” Then the used to be blind guy worships Jesus. The Pharisees don’t like this one bit and tell Jesus that He better stop playing God. Jesus said to them, “For judgment I have come into this world so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”

The Pharisees said to Him, “Do you mean that we are blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you would admit that you can not see then you have sight, but because you think you can see and understand the ways of God you are clearly blind.” Then Jesus and His disciples leave.

Jesus was trying to point out the short sightedness (no pun intended) of the religious leaders of His day. They were too concerned about Jesus healing on the Sabbath and not concerned about who Jesus was healing. They were arguing about what conditions existed to cause the man to be born blind and not concerned about the man’s condition. This is a truly amazing story about the wisdom, power and compassion of Jesus.