How extraordinary!

Readings:
I Kings 11
John 9:6-41

Focus:
John 9:30:"How extraordinary! Here is a man who has opened my eyes, yet you do not know where he comes from!"

I love this story of the man born blind who is healed by Jesus. I love it partly because there is quite a bit of ironic humor in it. People try to duck the real issues just to stay safe, and they profess not to understand what is going on, because they are trying to keep Jesus down. But the man born blind cuts right through their pretensions and calls them on their obfuscations.

There is more than that, though. Jesus comes to a man who has been blind all his life, and takes away his blindness. This is an astonishing healing. And yet the Pharisees and religious leaders of the time are taken up with concern about procedural details; they are bothered that Jesus healed on the Sabbath. As the man born blind says, how extraordinary! They miss the wonder of the miracle because they are too concerned with trying to oppose Jesus. The sad thing is, Jesus is there for them to see. As he says, if they were truly blind, they would not be guilty, but because they claim to see, their guilt remains.

This is why, if we claim that we can see, we must look to God and ask him to clear away our blindnesses, so that we will truly see what he wants us to see, and not what we think we ought to be seeing. Even Solomon, the wisest king, son of David, who was a man after God's own heart, became unfaithful to God. His wisdom was not sufficient. We must always keep asking God to keep us looking the right direction.