Bible Passage: Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind – John 9:1 – 41 NLT

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Melissa Spoelstra

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• Melissa Spoelstra, welcome to Live Like It’s True. So excited to be here and chat with you, Shannon. Thank you. So let me just introduce you to our listeners first. You are a wife and a mom, an author and a speaker from Texas, and you’ve got four biological kids and a foster child living with you. One of your kids is married. They’re all living in Ohio. I’m sad for you about that.

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  Well, I know. The youngest is actually out in Phoenix, Arizona. I think some of them will migrate to Texas. You know, I’m holding on to belief in that.

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  But did you used to live in Ohio?

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  Is that why they’re all there?

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  I did.

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  0:37

  We did.

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  We lived there for 24 years.

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  Oh my goodness. So that was probably quite a move for you. You have a brand new Bible study coming out called The Gospel of John, Savoring the Peace of Jesus in a Chaotic World. Oh, I just love that title. And I love the Gospel of John. So we’re excited about that. Yeah, so many unique things about John, right? You’ve got the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are phenomenal. So much overlap with them. But John is 90% unique content. And so it just brings this,

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  1:11

  John, it’s one of the last books of the New Testament written in John’s very old age. I kind of picture him as like an 80-year-old man sitting at his desk looking back and remembering his time with Jesus. I think what’s interesting is that John is more the private ministry of Jesus. It doesn’t record more of the public events like the Sermon on the Mount or the Transfiguration that a lot of the synoptics tend to fall.

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  1:36

  I think John just has a uniqueness about it. It has the seven signs that are highlighted. It has the seven I Am statements of Jesus revealing himself. So, so many great things about John. I have often wondered if, and maybe you have an answer to this question that I’ve pondered for many years, the other Gospels were written more closely to the resurrection of Christ.

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  1:58

  So I’ve wondered if John has included some of these things that maybe it was dangerous to talk about, it’s so intriguing that the story of Jesus washing their feet isn’t included. It’s just so not fitting with the culture. It was so wrong-seeming. Maybe the others were like, people wouldn’t understand this, but John is like, no, people need to hear this.

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  2:23

  Do you think it’s sort of like that? Well, there’s a lot of ink being spilled by commentators deciding why John decided to write an account so late, right? And I don’t think we fully will ever know other than the Holy Spirit moved him to do that. People are like, oh, did he want to fill in the gaps for things that they didn’t record? Kind of like what you said. I never thought about it being dangerous. That’s such a great insight for some of those things. and John just felt compelled and led by the Holy Spirit to include this account, his own

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  2:50

  personal account, with his time with Jesus. And you see that in John. We find all these editorial comments, right? Like, we didn’t know it at the time, you know, but later we realized he was speaking about the crucifixion or, you know, whatever it is. And so it’s just kind of a different view that for whatever reason, the Lord in his grace knew that that would be helpful and hopeful for us to have through his words. So I’m super grateful for it.

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  3:19

  Yeah, we’re so glad he wrote it. Thank you. Yeah, Lord, you know, John. And the story we’re going to talk about today has to do with being able to see and not see like the contrast. And so we’re going to talk about both physical blindness and spiritual blindness.

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  this. But I have to tell you, I saw the cutest little video and I think you might have a story that’s similar. But I saw this video of this little baby and they’re trying to put like maybe a two year old and they’re trying to put glasses on her for the first time and she’s crying and wiggling and trying, you know, like she doesn’t want those on her face. And then all of a sudden she gets her first glimpse through the glasses and she smiles and it’s just like, oh my goodness, she’s able to see for the first time.

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  4:07

  It is just the sweetest thing. I think I’ve watched it maybe a hundred times or so. We all have videos like that, right? But yeah, for me, I mean, I was just in elementary school and struggling to see the board in fifth grade in math. And I, you know, my teacher had moved me up to the front seat and she had sent a note home to my mom,

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  4:27

  thinking, you know, I think Melissa’s having trouble seeing. So we went to the eye doctor and this was before like, you know, lens caressers get it in an hour, you know, this was way back in the day where you had to wait like a week to get your glasses back. And so I remember going back to pick up those glasses and in the car on the drive home, just looking out the car windows in wonder of like, oh my goodness, you can see all the branches on the trees. And my mom was like, well, what did they look like before?

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  4:53

  And I was like, they looked like blobs. But I thought everyone saw blobs. I didn’t know that you could see the individual branches on the trees until I got those corrective lenses. And I think that just relates with what we’re going to read in John chapter 9. Just this man didn’t see the trees as blobs.

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  5:12

  He saw nothing from birth, had no even imagination of what seeing would be like. And so it’s just such a picture for us of how we may not even realize it. I didn’t even realize it until I could see more clearly that I had blindness, that I had, you know, whether it’s partial blindness or full blindness. And I think it’s just such a great metaphor for what can happen to us spiritually where we’re missing things and we don’t even realize

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  5:40

  it. It’s such a great story. It’s one of my favorites in the whole Bible. And I’m so excited I get to have this conversation with you about it, because you’ve studied so deeply. We’re in John chapter 9.

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  5:51

  The whole chapter is kind of this story, and we’re looking at the NLT translation. So could you open us up by reading John 9, 1 through 12. It says, as Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. Rabbi, his disciples asked him, why was this man born blind?

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  6:10

  Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins? It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins, Jesus answered. This happened so the power of God could be seen in him. We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us.

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  6:27

  The night is coming and then no one can work. But while I am here in the world, I am the light of the world. Then he spit on the ground, made mud with saliva, and spread the mud over the blind man’s eyes. He told him, go wash yourself in the pool of Salome.

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  6:44

  Salome means sent. So the man went and washed and came back seeing. His neighbors and others who knew him as a blind beggar asked each other, isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg? Some said he was and others said no, he just looks like him. But the beggar kept saying, yes, I am the same one.

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  7:02

  They asked, who healed you? What happened? He told them the man they called Jesus made mud and spread it over my eyes and told me, go to the pool of Siloam and wash yourself. So I went and washed and now I can see. Where is he now?

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  They asked. I don’t know.

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  He replied.

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  7:18

  Okay, thank you. So we’ve got this blind man and the story opens with the disciples kind of walking by and noticing something about him, that he’s blind and they’re asking, is this his sin or his parents’ sin? And Jesus was like, neither. So what is surprising or what would the original audience have found really surprising about this part of the story?

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  7:39

  Well, I think initially, I look at the disciples, and they’re having a blind spot here because they’re seeing this man as an opportunity for a theological conversation, as opposed to having compassion on the man. And so that’s something I think that, you know, for those of us who love to learn and love to study and love to, you know, oh, what does this mean? And that was in the Near East at the time for the original audience, for the original culture. That would have been a very normative thought that they would have connected sourced suffering, including blindness, with personal

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  8:16

  sin. I think probably those listening and you and I can go, oh, of course, we know that it’s not, you know, God wouldn’t strike someone blind because of their sin. But I wonder if you, Shannon, have ever struggled with when something goes terribly wrong, thinking, I must have done something wrong to have deserved this. Like, I think that’s the enemy loves to use that. And so I think it’s so amazing that Jesus gives us just a clear theology that, yes, sin brings suffering in our lives in a general sense. And not to say that there aren’t sometimes natural and logical consequences for our sin.

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  8:50

  But when something is, even just recently, I was out traveling a few months ago and I hurt my shoulder really bad, lifting a bag, lifting a suitcase. And I was super stressed about it, it hurt really bad. And I remember laying in bed,

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  9:05

  one of my adult-ish daughters, my college daughter, has had shoulder pain for like a year. And as a mom, I’m super compassionate at first, but like six or seven months in, I’m like, hey, buck it up. Everybody has pain.

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  9:17

  You know, like I wasn’t that compassionate to her. And I literally had the thought, I bet my shoulder got hurt because I wasn’t compassionate enough to my daughter about her shoulder pain. And my good friend was with me on the trip. And she said, Melissa, God is not like that. He doesn’t do that.

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  9:33

  You know, he’s not out to get you because you, you know, he’ll reveal our sin. He’s kind and compassionate with us, but he’s a restorer, not a punisher. And I think the enemy loves to use that as we look at this story. Yeah, I think that idea of karma, right? Like we Christians would never say we believe in karma, right? Right, right.

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  9:56

  I mean, we just, we don’t. But I kind of like to sometimes in my mind or on paper, draw a picture of the scene, you know. So I kind of drew a little group, stick figures, of the disciples all looking down at this man who’s sitting on the side of the road, you know. He had this beggar. He’s a blind beggar. And, you know, hey, let’s stand over here and let’s have a conversation about him. And we over here, like none of us are blind, you know, so he must have done something way worse than we did. Right.

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  10:24

  Because he’s blind, you know, so that is really bad theology. I love that you pointed that out. And, you know, I think that we all are going to have to deal with suffering in our lives. And so, yeah, approaching it with compassion toward each other is so much more Christ-like, so much more godly than pointing out, well, you must have done something wrong or feeling shame.

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  10:46

  Those are the two long ways to look at hard things that happen. So we’ve got that little interaction between Jesus and then Jesus doesn’t say anything. He shows us something. I think it’s so interesting. He does this show, not tell thing and he leans down, he spits in the ground, which reminds me of when God created man, you know, he put his hands in the dirt and created man. Do you see any parallels there? Oh yeah, such an echo. It’s such an echo. I mean, we have to look at the book of John as a whole and say,

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  how does John 1-1 start? And it’s in the beginning, right? And the only other book in the Bible that begins with in the beginning is Genesis. And so the prologue of John is all of these echoes back to Genesis 1 at these themes of light and earth and light and darkness and Jesus putting on flesh and dwelling among us. And so here is just another one of those echoes where we see, I love that you pointed that

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  11:47

  out, like God gets his hand in the dirt both times and he makes the mud. It’s also where he reveals, I am the light of the world. So we’ve got these themes of earth and light again here. And of course, I’m like, okay, that’s interesting, fun fact. We all love some fun facts. But what does that say?

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  12:03

  What is it? What is the impact of that on what Jesus is teaching here? And I loved what one commentator said is he said it’s that he’s establishing that. This is not a relationship between physician and patient. This is Creator and created for us to see this isn’t just oh, I’m going to fix your earthly problem of this, but this is I am the guy who formed the whole world out of the mud and so I have the authority and the right to bring sight to your eyes.

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  12:35

  I think that’s just such a great reminder that he’s not just a good doctor, he is the great physician, he’s not just a good doctor trying to fix the temporary problem, but he is the creator who is always in the business of restoring, doing restoration. Oh, I love that, Melissa. And I, you know, when I have my problems, wouldn’t I rather go to the creator than a doctor to patch me up, you know, the one who can make me new. Right. That’s what I want. That’s what I need. That’s what our hearts all crave. So, okay, so Jesus recreates his eyes, the man goes to the pool, he washes, he comes up and he can see.

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  13:17

  It’s like, oh my goodness. Well, if we’re talking about surprising things in the story, that’s pretty surprising. That’s never happened before. This is a first. You know, we’re going to hear the man say like, this has never happened. Since the creation of the world, it has not happened.

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  13:29

  So this is amazing. And so he comes back and I love this part where it’s like his neighbors are like, is that that guy? No, that can’t be him. You know, is it him? And they’re kind of split between, is it him?

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  13:43

  Is it not him? What do you think is interesting about that? Yeah, I mean, they’d never seen someone’s sight restored from someone born blind from birth. And so it’s like, it’s the faith walk for all of us to go, it can that be true?

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  13:57

  And aren’t we sometimes trying to find a earthly explanation for something that only God can do, but it is hard to believe, right? That God still intervenes, you know? And when life has gone on for 20, 30 years and you haven’t seen a supernatural act the first time it happens, of course, we all think we’d be like, oh, my goodness. Yes, of course I would believe. But would we? You know, and I think that’s where we want to just explain it away?

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  Or would we have that kind of faith to believe? And don’t we sometimes get to a spot where we stop believing that change is possible? Because we’ve been dealing with the same sin. I think the enemy wants us to be there in that spot of hopelessness. And this passage is just a beacon saying change is possible. Eyes that have been blinded by birth can be opened. And if that’s true, anything is possible.

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  14:55

  And so that means porn addicts can be free. That means food addicts can be free. That means anxiety-ridden people can experience God’s peace. You know, that anything is possible as we lean in to our Creator God. Amen. I love that. And this is a creation story. Like you said, this is a doctor patching him up. He’s being recreated. God’s hands are in the mud. And creation is this, Eden was just this world full of potential. We have no idea what God is going to do in any of our lives. So let’s look at each other

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  that way. But okay, so it’s the Sabbath and that’s a problem for some people. And yeah, Jesus chose this particular day. He didn’t say, let’s come back on Monday, when, or I guess it would have been Sunday, when, you know, we, apropos for me to do this miracle. No, he does it on the very day. So let’s look at the next part of the story. Melissa, can you read 13 through 34? Then they took the man who had been blind to the Pharisees, because it was on the Sabbath that Jesus had made the mud and healed him.

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  The Pharisees asked the man all about it, so he told them. He put the mud over my eyes, and when I washed it away, I could see. Some of the Pharisees said, this man Jesus is not from God, for he is working on the Sabbath. Others said, but how could an ordinary sinner do such miraculous signs? So there was deep division of opinion among them. Then the Pharisees again questioned the man who had been blind and demanded, what’s your opinion about this man who healed you?

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  16:28

  The man replied, I think he must be a prophet. The Jewish leader still refused to believe the man had been blind and could now see, so they called in his parents. They asked them, is this your son? Was he born blind?

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  16:40

  If so, how can he see now? His parents replied, we know this is our son and that he was born blind, but we don’t know how he can see or who healed him. Ask him. He is old enough to speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders who had announced that anyone saying Jesus was the Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue.

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  17:00

  That’s why they said, he is old enough, ask him. So for the second time, they called in the man who had been blind and told him, God should get the glory for this because we know this man, Jesus, is a sinner. I don’t know whether he is a sinner, the man replied, but I know this. I was blind and now I can see. But what did he do? They asked, how did he heal you? Look, the man exclaimed, I told you once, didn’t you listen? Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?

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  17:28

  Then they cursed him and said, you are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know God spoke to Moses, but we don’t even know where this man comes from. Why, that’s very strange, the man replied. He healed my eyes and yet you don’t know where he comes from? We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will.

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  17:48

  Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it. You were born a total sinner, they answered. Are you trying to teach us? And they threw him out of the synagogue. I love this.

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  18:04

  This is like a lot of dialogue here, which, you know, I think when we have dialogue, that means our author is saying, I’m going to just let the characters speak for themselves, and we can listen in. And he wants us to see where these different people are coming from, versus just commenting on it. And so, again, we’ve got a split.

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  18:22

  You know, we have the neighbors split in their view of the man. Like is it the guy? Is it not the guy? But now we’ve got these Pharisees split and what are they split on here? Well, I think, you know, for us, we’re like, what’s the big deal? The Sabbath, you know, it’s not something that we are under law as believers, but for

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  18:40

  the Jewish people, this goes back to the law of the Ten Commandments given that they were to keep a day holy. And I want to make sure I say, while we’re not under Sabbath law, which Sabbath began sundown on Friday evening and went till Saturday sundown. While we’re not under Sabbath law, that doesn’t mean that God’s not still really serious about rest. Rest is a concept throughout the scriptures. As we talk about this, I don’t want to hear us go, rest doesn’t matter anymore. It matters. We’re just not in a legalistic frame of keeping this day, this particular day.

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  19:14

  But the reason this is such a big deal is that they were under the law as Jews, keeping this day. And what had happened during this time in biblical history is the Pharisees are all about the law. You know, they go all the way back. The Pharisees emerged during the intertestamental period between Malachi and Matthew.

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  19:33

  There were these 400 years of silence when the Jews were being oppressed and the Maccabees revolted. And the Pharisees originally came out of that time period of just calling people back to obeying God’s law, but like in any other danger for us, they took it too far. And so the making of the mud would have been equated with the kneading of bread, which was forbidden on the Sabbath. In fact, later, the Talmud, which is the commentary on the Jewish law, because they couldn’t just have the law. They had to add all of this explanation in great detail.

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  20:07

  And so in the Talmud, it actually specifies that the making of mud is a violation of Sabbath rest. And so, I mean, this is where Jesus talks about them just being so tangled up. And we have to think, Jesus never did anything accidentally. He purposely did these things on the Sabbath to open the eyes of spiritual blindness, to say, you’re looking at this wrong. God gave you rest as a gift,

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  20:30

  and you’re tying yourself up in slavery with it. And this is just such a great, I mean, it’s convicting to me, because God gives us all these great gifts. And if we don’t keep in constant dependent on him, and constantly looking at his word, we can take them too far. And that’s what’s happening here. So yeah. Yeah. And yeah, I think they would have been surprised in a way that we aren’t, right?

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  20:54

  To hear that Jesus was okay with doing this. Like, who is this prophet that is willing to do this wrong thing on the Sabbath? Right. You know, this is, why would he, why would he make it hard for us to believe him, you know, believe in him? Right.

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  21:08

  But so, they’ve got this interaction back and forth, though, between the whole reason that they’re calling the guy in for questioning is because, you know, they wanna hear like what happened, you know, oh, right, the mud in my eyes and now I can see. And then they’re like, yeah, but what day is this?

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  21:22

  You know, so the whole problem that they’re dealing with is the Sabbath and they go back and forth, back and forth. They call the man in twice, they call his parents in and they’re divided, you know, they’re a house divided. They’re split in half between one side of the Pharisees, I kind of picture them in two groups.

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  21:40

  One is like, this man is not from God, if he’s working on the Sabbath, and the other is like, well, how could an ordinary man do such miraculous things? So now they’re not just split on the man, they’re split on Jesus. So the conversation is all going toward Jesus. And like I just said, this would be surprising for most of the people in that day, that Jesus would be willing to do this thing.

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  22:04

  Yeah.

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  22:05

  You know, what I was noticing as I read this this morning is like this progression in the man. Do you see that too? Like how the man kind of, you know, at first they call him in, I think it’s the second time and they’re like, what do you think? You got healed, so tell us what you think.

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  22:20

  And in verse 25, he’s like, well, I don’t know whether he’s a sinner, but I know this and I love this verse. I know this. I was blind and now I can see.” So he’s like, this is all I know. I’m not going to make bold statements that I don’t feel like I have the authority to make, but by the end, here’s what he says in verse 33. He’s like,

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  22:40

  if this man was not from God, he couldn’t have done this. So I see this progression, and I kind of love his snark. Do you see a little snarkiness in him, Melissa? Oh, oh, totally. I totally see his snark. And side note, not the thrust of the passage here, but I think this is a good reminder for you and I and for all who are listening that we don’t have to know every detail of theology. You know, I see three lenses here that we can relate to that we could talk about in a minute, but one of the lenses, the lens of ignorance. He didn’t know

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  23:07

  who Jesus was. He’s like, maybe he’s a prophet, you know, and all of us have a certain lens of ignorance. I don’t know the whole scripture and understand everything about it. I’m trying to learn as much as I can. I want to know God, so I want to know and understand his word. But there’s some element of mystery, right? The scripture says, now we know in part, one day we will know in full.

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  23:26

  So we all have a little bit of the lens of ignorance. And that can sometimes deter us from sharing the gospel or sharing the good news about Jesus with people that we know because we’re like, they may ask me a question that I may not know all of the answers to about like predestination or why the innocent suffer. And so that can detract us from being willing to fully share our story of how God has changed us.

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  23:46

  And the blind man just gives us such a great, you don’t have to have all the answers. They asked him a question. He said, well, I don’t know. And I love embracing that. I don’t know. I don’t know all the answers, but here’s what I know. I was blind, but now I see. And so for us, as we’re sharing with people, we can take a cue from the blind man to say, I don’t know everything. All I know is I was lost and now I’m found. All I know is I was full of shame and guilt and now I feel peace and forgiveness. So that’s such a cool thing.

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  24:14

  I don’t know if you want to add anything to that before we move on to these other lenses. Well, I love that you have these lenses for us. But I think that is such a good word for all of our listeners because we’re all in progress. You know, we see a progression, even as this man has this conversation, and I love that you brought that out. It’s like he’s having a conversation, and as the conversation progresses, he sees more clearly. And that will happen with these conversations that we need to be having with people. You know, we’re all in progress, and you may be talking to someone who actually knows more about the Bible than you do, but you believe it

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  24:53

  Because that’s that’s right with this, you know this blinding the way I understand it is he’s blind He’s not even really allowed in the synagogue Maybe he could listen from the outside. I don’t I don’t understand exactly sure here again. I don’t know But I really surely these Pharisees knew more about the Bible than him But this blind man is willing to believe it. And so there’s something really compelling about a person who’s willing to say, you know,

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  25:21

  I’m kind of just a simple person. I don’t have any degrees here. All I know is I believe in this man, Jesus. I believe in him. And if you’re willing to have that kind of conversation, there might be life change, even in yourself.

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  25:36

  I think, you know, what I love is this man. I see the progression in himself He goes from being like I’m not sure it seems like he becomes more convinced more and more convinced by the time He’s done. He’s sort of like, you know, you all are saying you don’t know if he’s from God Well, even I can see he’s from God and I’ve only been able to see for like I don’t know five minutes ten minutes You know, I can see this thing that you guys are blind to and and that actually happens I think that’s kind of one of the thrusts of this story is a more simple faith is able

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  26:05

  to see more clearly than trying to use all of the logic in the world. But we have to approach God with a simple faith of like, I don’t know it all. Just one more thing I want to add. When my littlest, he’s now six two and 195 pounds. But when my youngest son came to faith, I think he was about seven or eight, I’ve told this story before, but he told Ken and me that he wanted us to go in a different room

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  26:34

  so that we couldn’t hear him as he was talking to the Lord Jesus. But he wanted us to go in there and talk real loud so we couldn’t hear him. We just prayed in the other room. But then he called us out and he said, I talked to the Lord and I told him, I don’t know everything that I’m supposed to know, but I do know that I have a dark heart, that I need God to wash me clean of my dark heart.

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  26:56

  And that’s all I need to know for right. We’re like, well, praise God, buddy. You know, but I just have that simplicity. And he’s still saying that, you know, he’s 20 years old and he’s like, I still don’t, I don’t get all of it, but I believe what I understand.

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  27:09

  And just recognize- And that’s all that God asks of us. I mean, there’s another spot in John where he says, you know, now’s the time to do the works and they’re like, we want to do these greater works, tell us what they are. And he says, the only work that God is asking of you that you would believe in his son. That’s the work that that’s our work is to believe and to grow that faith.

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  And so his lens of ignorance, we’re going to see it transform into the lens of faith. The other two lenses I want to touch on briefly is the lens of criticism and the lens of fear. And we see this here with the Pharisees. They begin and end with a lens of criticism because they are more concerned about turf

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  than truth. They’re concerned about the popularity of Jesus, how everyone’s following him, and they have been the people who’ve been venerated and who get the important seats and who the people look to for all of

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  their spiritual questions answered. And so because they’re more concerned about turf than truth, they are wearing the lens of criticism. And we don’t want to say, oh, we should just believe everything everyone says, and we should never discernment. We want to discern, you know, scripture says the Bereans, they searched the scriptures and they were curious, but they had an open, curious posture. And so this reminds us to be careful. I know I struggle with the lens of criticism.

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  I would love for you to share, Shannon, just in the ministry that you’re in, that sometimes we can get jaded, sometimes we can be critical, and that’s a blind spot that we need to guard against because the last thing we want to be

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  are the enemies of Jesus who are the Pharisees. I’ll just share this story real quick, and then I’ll let you jump in here on the lens of criticism. But the first time I read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, I was in high school.

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  And I remember I grew up in a very conservative church, a little bit legalistic, lots of good things that came out of that. But the first time I read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, I literally had this thought in my head. I thought, have the people, the leaders of our church read these books? Because why are we trying to be more like the Pharisees than Jesus?

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  A young person. I had that thought. I was like, wait, if this is true, why do so many Christians try to behave like Pharisees? And so I wonder if you just want to piggyback on the lens of criticism. Oh, well, that is wow. What an insightful teenage observation there. Have they read these? You know, and I think a lot of us who are majority faith need to ask ourselves, you know, contrasted turf and truth. And if we could just get rid of the whole

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  turf motivation, I have a relationship that has been restored recently. God has done some amazing things in this relationship. And there was just this division between us. And when, you know, what’s different now is I am not so jaded. You know, I have this open heart and I’m coming with the presupposition that this other person is not lying to me, has no bad intentions, and it really makes a huge difference in the

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  relationship.

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  I think if you look for the good in people, you’ll find it. And if you look for the bad in people, you’ll find it. And I am sure that all of us can relate to other people having put on the dark glasses for us. You know, when someone is wearing the sunglasses and when they’re looking for fault in us, they’re going to find it because we’re all we all have issues, you know, but certainly we want to look at God and others with a lens of being open and curious. Like that is something that enemies just love to use to divide us against each other,

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  is to assume the worst in the other person than rather assume the best. And so we do have to practice discernment. We do sometimes have to set healthy boundaries with people, but to just check ourselves and go, when I have a bad attitude leaving church,

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  when I’ve been super critical of the message, or when I’m super critical of another person, to say, do I have a blind spot where I have put on the dark glasses, where I am viewing my world like a Pharisee through the lens

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  of criticism.

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  Yeah, open the story, you know, look at the characters in the story. Who am I behaving most like, you know? Those Pharisees who are jaded and they’re not even really excited about the blind man

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  can’t see.

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  Right, exactly. And so the other characters in the story are the parents and they’re wearing a lens of fear. And for us, we’re like, why are they so excited? Can you imagine if your child was blind and they could see you? It would be all about that. So it’s hard to understand why they are like, well, they seem very apprehensive.

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  But the text actually tells us that they were afraid and why they were afraid. They were afraid because the threat had been made that anyone who believed that Jesus was the Messiah could be excommunicated from the synagogue. And for us, we’re like, so what? Go find another church, leave that place. But for the people of their day, the Jewish community, the synagogue was the center of life. It almost never happened. It was very rare in Jesus’ day that a Jewish family would have been kicked out of the synagogue.

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  And it wouldn’t just affect their Sabbath convocation and gathering and Holy Assembly. That was their connection to God. It was like saying you’re going to lose your connection to God. You’re also going to lose your connection to community. You could lose your livelihood, your family, and your spiritual connection overnight. This is a scary thing. So let’s put ourselves in the parents’ shoes and feel for them at what’s at risk here. There’s a lot at risk here. So they, out of fear, rather than go, yes, it’s our son! We can see it! We’re so excited! They are apprehensive and they fall back to the very legal Pharisees. They say, well, he’s of legal age, so you can ask him.

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  And one of the commentators said the statement, he is old enough, is an idiom, a Hebrew idiom, which expresses that a person is of the legal age to speak on his own behalf. I don’t know exactly what that would have been. There’s not full agreement, but it could have been as young as 14 or 15, You know, because the Jewish boy at 13 has a bomb, it’s fun, becomes a man. And so we don’t know exactly what his age was or how young he is, but the parents are scared and so they’re acting out of fear.

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  And boy, as a mom, oh, I can just so relate to these parents and say that sometimes out of my fear of finances, my fear of something being hard, I will miss the lens of faith because I’m so consumed with fear. And so this is a check that we need to have. And I don’t know how you can relate with the lens of fear as a parent or just as a ministry leader or just as a person. Oh, so much. And I think, too, these parents, like we have to remember what the disciples said about them. Like, was it because of their sin that this guy was that their

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  son was blind, you know, I mean, people for a long time, they’ve been under under the microscope of their whole community. And they’re like, we are not going to miss stuff right now. Like, right, right. Like, things are already bad for us. And we’re not going to go out on a limb.

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  And and yeah, fear does hold us back. But look at look at what is on the other side of fear. Like look what they’re missing out on. It’s sort of like there’s the synagogue and the Jewish leaders and all this religiosity and all of this, you know, but outside of that is Jesus and celebrating over a recreation. At the end of the story, maybe we can go there now because really that’s what happens is

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  by being a little bit snarky, the guy gets himself kicked out of the synagogue, which

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  like don’t read too quickly past that like that is a big deal for him.

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  Do you want me to read? I can read verses 35. That’d be great. Thank you. Yeah. When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked, Do you believe in the Son of Man? The man answered, Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him. You have seen him, Jesus said, and he is speaking to you. Yes, Lord, I believe the man said and he worshipped Jesus. Then Jesus told him I

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  entered this world to render judgment, to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind. Some Pharisees who were standing nearby heard him and asked, are you saying we’re blind? If you were blind you wouldn’t be guilty, Jesus replied, but you remain guilty because you claim you can see. Yeah, so Jesus puts that dividing line right where it belongs, right? Right. They’ve been divided about Jesus, but really what matters is who are the ones who believe in Jesus? Like that’s the side of the line that we need

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  to be on. And this man chooses it. That’s the difference between heaven and hell, right? Yeah. I mean, let’s just remind each other, that’s the difference between a life forever with God or a life separated forever from God. It’s just will we choose to believe? Will we let the lens of fear or criticism or ignorance keep us from the most important thing in life, which is knowing and seeing Jesus? And so this just reminds us that we have to recognize our areas of spiritual blindness

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  so that Jesus can open our eyes, because that’s what Jesus did. He opened this man’s eyes physically, yes, but so much more importantly, spiritually, he helped to open his eyes by revealing himself to him. Yeah, and the great irony of this whole story is these Pharisees who study the Word of God regularly, they miss Jesus. They are face to face with him, and they don’t recognize that this is the Messiah, that the whole book is prophesying will come. They see him, but they don’t see him.

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  And yet this blind man, who has probably not been part of their synagogue, not been part of the teaching, he’s been on the outskirts, he’s the one everybody looks down on, he’s blind physically, but spiritually, he sees. And I love that, like, he’s face to face with Jesus. Jesus seeks him out. He’s having a conversation, you know, and he’s like, who is he, sir, that I may believe

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  in him? He doesn’t recognize Jesus with his physical eyes. However, with his spiritual eyes, he already did. And he wants to put his faith in Jesus. And there, right then and there, he worships him. So I love this spiritual sight that this blind man has. What do you see in this story and in this man, the progression in him? How can we look at this story and notice any false narratives of the world that it corrects?

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  Yeah, that’s so good. There’s so many false narratives that here are addressed, you know, but just the first thing is that the world is constantly having this false narrative of you got this, you can do this, you don’t need anyone or anyone else, you know, you’re just believe in yourself, you know, that is the hyped up positive message that is a false narrative that’s everywhere. And what this, what Jesus is saying is that your problem is you don’t recognize your blindness. You don’t recognize your need for sight.

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  And that’s the first part of the gospel, right, is recognizing our sin and recognizing our need for a Savior. And so I think this just helps us remember, and we can say, oh, I believed the gospel when I was nine that I needed a Savior. But I think we need to gospelize ourselves and each other every day, you know, to remind ourselves that we are centers in need of a Savior all the time. Christians are portrayed all the time. The false narrative of Christians is that we’re Pharisees, right?

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  That we’re just out to judge and that we’re just out to think we’re right and everyone else is wrong, you know, and this, Jesus, that’s not what he taught. He didn’t teach go around and judge people and be critical and think that you’re always right. He revealed that the greatest thing that we can do, which is what this man did in his progression is not stay in ignorance, but learn the things of God and then believe the things of God, the truth about God, that he is the source of light in our darkness because we’re all walking in the darkness of living on a sinful planet where kids are born not just blind but with all kinds of hard difficulties, where

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  people die that we love, where relationships are complicated like you talked about, friendships where we become pharisaical about turf instead of truth. And so I think it just goes back to the basic gospel message of we constantly need to ask God to reveal blind spots because here’s the nature of blind spots. I can’t see mine. We’re all experts at pointing out other people’s blind spots, aren’t we? We’re like, oh, does that person know that they always interrupt people?

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  Or, oh, does that person know that she is not very friendly, doesn’t smile? We can look around and be very aware of other people’s blind spots, but the question that we need to bring before the Lord, and that’s my big take away from John 9, is to say, Jesus, where are my spiritual blind spots? Where am I looking for theology instead of compassion like the disciples? Where am I having a critical spirit like the Pharisees?

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  Where am I like the parents of the boy that are living in fear? Where am I ignorant like the man born blind was initially? And how can you, and that’s painful, right? If you ask God to reveal blind spots, he will, and it’s not fun right because he’s going to reveal things that are the most touchy in our lives that we don’t want to address and see and confess and but when we bring those things into the light that’s where

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  he is he is in the light and that’s where he can do that recreation like he did for the blind man in our own life to heal us of things to change us and then to use us and to draw us closer to him. So good Melissa. Yeah one of the false narratives that I just am seeing is I was just so struck by what you shared when you were a teenager, looking around saying, like, have the leaders in my church, have the Christian leaders of today, have they read these Gospels? Have they read these stories? Do they really like, why are they acting like the Pharisees?

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  Like, why would we do that? But then I see myself, you know, I have the same blind spots. And I need God to open my eyes to those. So yeah, thank you so much for helping bring clarity. And so how, if you could summarize, like, what is the one way that we can live like this particular story is true? Like, what’s a way that we can just be on the lookout in our own lives or in conversations we’re having with people? What’s the truth that we need to take forward into life. Yeah, I would just sum up this whole thing, kind of the big idea is when we recognize

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  our spiritual blindness, that’s when Jesus can open our eyes to see our need for him. That’s kind of the big idea from this passage, when we recognize spiritual blindness. And so I would just say when you’re in that conversation, even dialogue with the Holy Spirit and say, God, help me not to jump to conclusions. Give me a spirit of curiosity, make me a good listener, show me things that I may not see. You know, a lot of times when people are acting a way

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  that’s difficult for us, there’s usually pain underneath it. You know, to ask God to open your eyes to see them the way they see it. And even to incorporate in our prayer lives, right? We’re praying for this and praying for that. One of the things we can pray for is,

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  God, would you open my eyes to see where I’m off course? Would you show me things that I can’t see about myself that you know about me. And so I think to me that’s just a big takeaway is just curiosity and asking God those questions of ourselves. Thank you, Melissa. What a fabulous conversation.

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  So enjoyed having it with you.

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  I love talking about the Word. It’s so great. It’s so great.

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  It’s my favorite thing.