At a marriage conference I went to last weekend, Michael Todd, pastor of Transformation Church in Tulsa, OK, was the keynote speaker. John 9:1-3 was the topic.
“As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
There is so much truth wrapped up in this story that I have missed most of my life. The disciples were analyzing the man’s problem. He had been blind from birth so obviously he did nothing wrong to earn this blindness. It must have been his parent’s sin. To have been born blind seemed like a punishment for something. However, Jesus says, “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
Are there times in your life, maybe even your marriage, that you try to decide why are you being punished? You may think that perhaps your problem in marriage is caused by your sinful choices and that may very well be true. Maybe you put the blame on someone else like your parents got a divorce and so you did not have a good example. Or you just blamed it on your spouse. They never changed and you counted on them to become more mature or less selfish. Plenty of blame to go around.
Once we pull this story away from being about blindness, we may relate to it in a different way. There was a huge problem and the disciples wanted to place blame on someone or something. Once we place blame, we try to make plans on how to solve that problem.
But now we can hear what Jesus says in a different light.
Jesus says, “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
Wow! Maybe the punishment is not a punishment at all but a way to provide a platform for Jesus to be amazing, transforming, and miraculous. Pause for a minute and read that again. This crisis that you are going through may not be punishment for what you or someone did. Maybe this can be viewed as a way to open our eyes up to “see the works of God displayed in our life.” Our eyes are temporarily blind to God’s power. But they can be opened.
Okay, here is the good part.
“After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.” Verse 6
(The speaker brought this to life. He actually took dirt and spit in the dirt and put it on a guy’s eyes. Literally!)
What does this make you think about? How would you feel if the doctor told you that the cure for your problem was some dirt? What if he put some dirt in his hands and literally spit in his hands? I know you would have his license taken away. 😄😄😄
On the other hand, what if you had terminal cancer and this really was the cure? You would do anything. When Jesus took dirt from the ground and used his own saliva, that guy could have heard the spit with those blind eyes. (We heard it from the audience.) Other people in the Bible received their sight with a spoken word. Jesus used a really messy treatment...dirt and spit.
Brings us to a question...how bad do you want your problem cured? Is it worth getting really messy and embarrassed? If it is not a simple fix, do we decline the offer to have our sight restored and our marriage restored? If it involves hard and messy work, do we say ,”Never mind. I would rather keep my blindness.”
Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.”
John 9:1-3, 6-7 NIV
Notice that Jesus did not walk him to the pool to wash off his eyes. I bet it was a moment or two of total silence when the guy had to find his way to the pool. The speaker made a great point here. When God is silent, it’s like the teacher of a class and we are taking a math test. It is total silence in the room. God is waiting on us to be obedient to what he told us to do.
This blind guy got released! Jesus did not see the guy as the “blind guy.” He saw him as a guy who had the potential to see. He doesn’t see our marriages as too far gone. He sees us as two people who could receive release from our blindness. And he would get all the glory because the impossible just happened!
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