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Charley was blinded in World War II while rescuing a buddy from a burning tank. He had always been a great athlete so after the war, he took up golf. While in college I saw him play an exhibition match. Of course he had a friend line him up and give him a distance. Boswell won the National Blind Golf Championship 16 times, once shooting a score of 81. In 1958 Charley came to Ft. Worth to receive the coveted Ben Hogan Award.
Mr. Hogan agreed to play a round of golf with Charley. Charley said, "Would you like to play for money?" Hogan said, "That wouldn't be fair!" Charley said, "C'mon, Mr. Hogan, are you afraid to play a blind golfer?" Hogan was really pretty competitive so he said, "Okay, I'll play for money. How much?" Boswell said, "$1,000 per hole." Hogan said, "That's a lot. How many strokes do you want me to give you?" Boswell said, "No strokes. I'll play you heads up." Hogan said, "Charley, I can't do it. What would people think of me taking advantage of a blind man?" Boswell smiled and said, "Don't worry, Mr. Hogan, our tee time is tonight at midnight!"
John 9 The Message (MSG) True Blindness 9 1-2 Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?”
For some, the presence of difficulties and suffering in the world means that God is punishing them for something. For others, it is the sign that God is not able to do anything about the problems they face. Others wonder if he simply does not care.
The disciples pointed their fingers and asked, “Who sinned and caused this man’s blindness? Is it his fault or his parents?”
Some had the strange notion of prenatal sin. Genesis 4:7: “Sin is couching at the door.” They thought that sin awaited man at the door of the womb, as soon as he was born. Some believed that all souls existed before the creation of the world in the garden of Eden, or they awaited in another heaven to enter into a body. These souls were believed to be good, but became contaminated when they entered the body. Others believed that these souls were already good and bad. It was a coin toss as to which you would receive.
Some believed that the man’s affliction was due to the sin of his parents. This idea has roots in Exodus 20:5: “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.”
There’s the story of a minor league baseball manager who was so disgusted with his center fielder’s performance that he ordered him to the dugout and assumed the position himself. The first ball that came into center field took a bad hop and hit the manager in the mouth. The next one was a high fly ball, which he lost in the glare of the sun—until it bounced off his forehead. The third was a hard line drive that he charged with outstretched arms; unfortunately, it flew between his hands and smacked his eye. Furious, he ran back to the dugout, grabbed the center fielder by the uniform, and shouted. ‘You’ve got center field so messed up that even I can’t do a thing with it!’
When the officer pulled the car over and asked the girl why she hadn't stopped, she told him she had just had her brakes repaired and it was so expensive that she didn't want to wear them down. "My wife ran off with a state policeman and when I saw your flashing lights I didn't stop because for a second, I thought you might be the trooper who is trying to bring her back to me."
You are wearing a shirt that needs to be ironed. Instead of taking it off, you try to iron with it on and guess what? That’s right, you get burned. Shame on you right? No, it is the company who made the iron who deserves blame because they should have warned you that ironing clothes while they are on your body is dangerous.
You decide that you need to fix the electrical component in your TV. Without unplugging it, you begin your work. Uh Oh! You guessed it. You get fried! Dumb you right? No, RCA should have told you that you were at risk for electric shock!
Not only do we want to play the “Blame Game,” we want to know “Why?” something happens.
Knowing the answer to the question, “why,” gives us power and control over the situation. The media is the quickest group to find answers to the question “why.” Now instead of simply reporting the news they have to fill 24 hours a day with details. It doesn’t take them long to go from what happened to why it happened.
When covering 911 or the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, people wanted to know what was happening but they also wanted to know why a person would do such a thing. We need the answers because we need to place the blame somewhere. When we have our answers, we can wrap our heads around it. We can place it in a box and say that happened because of ______. Then we can close the box and move on.
3-5 Jesus said, “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was not the man’s fault or his parents. Trace this condition back to heaven. The reason the man was born sightless? So “the works of God might be displayed in him” (v. 3 NIV).
Talk about a thankless role. Selected to suffer. Who wants to be blind for God’s glory? Which is tougher—the condition or discovering it was God’s idea? Max Lucado
God doesn’t go around cursing people so that He can come later and show mercy, thus getting glory. God takes what has happened and turns it into good. In Genesis 50, Joseph had been sold into slavery, falsely accused by his master’s wife, thrown into prison, and left there to rot. From that position he rose to become Pharaoh’s right hand man. Later when he confronted his brothers who had sold him into slavery, he had the perspective to say, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
3-5 We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world’s Light.”
Jesus emphasized the Christian’s duty is to fill the time he has with the service of God and of his fellow-men. (Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.)
It is not the power of Jesus grows less, or that his light grows dim; it is that if we put off the great decision to become a disciple of Christ we become less able to make it as the years go on. Ages at which Americans say they accepted Christ and became a Christian
6-7 He said this and then spit in the dust, made a clay paste with the saliva, rubbed the paste on the blind man’s eyes, and said, “Go, wash at the Pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “Sent”). The man went and washed—and saw.
Picture this: The world abounds with paintings of the God-man… but I’ve never seen a painting of Jesus spitting. Christ smacking his lips a time or two, gathering a mouth of saliva, working up a blob of drool, and letting it go. Down in the dirt. Then he squats, stirs up a puddle of … I don’t know, what would you call it? Holy putty? Spit therapy? Saliva solution? Whatever the name, he places a fingerfulin his palm, and then, as calmly as a painter spackles a hole in the wall, Jesus streaks mud-miracle on the blind man’s eyes. “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” Max Lucado
Jesus took methods and customs of his time and used them. Spittle, especially the spittle of some distinguished person, was believed to possess certain curative qualities. Pliny, the famous Roman collector of scientific information wrote spittle is: A sovereign preservative against the poison of serpents; a protection against epilepsy, leprous spots can be cured by the application of fasting spittle; ophthalmia can be cured by anointing the eyes every morning with fasting spittle, and a crick in the neck can be cured by the use of spittle.
8 Soon the town was buzzing. His relatives and those who year after year had seen him as a blind man begging were saying, “Why, isn’t this the man we knew, who sat here and begged?” 9Others said, “It’s him all right!” But others objected, “It’s not the same man at all. It just looks like him.” He said, “It’s me, the very one.” 10They said, “How did your eyes get opened?”
11 “A man named Jesus made a paste and rubbed it on my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ I did what he said. When I washed, I saw.” 12 “So where is he?” “I don’t know.”
13-15 They marched the man to the Pharisees. This day when Jesus made the paste and healed his blindness was the Sabbath. The Pharisees grilled him again on how he had come to see. He said, “He put a clay paste on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “Obviously, this man can’t be from God. He doesn’t keep the Sabbath.” Others countered, “How can a bad man do miraculous, God-revealing things like this?” There was a split in their ranks.
The Pharisees begin to question the man. They wanted to know how he received his sight. They wanted to know who healed him, and they wanted to know what the man believes about Jesus. They tell the man who had been healed that Jesus cannot possibly be from God, because he broke the religious law and heals on the Sabbath. They seem to miss the point that the man’s healing was a miracle that had never been heard of before. The only thing they can do is to criticize Jesus for doing it on the wrong day. They are not sure they even believe the man was healed, so They question his parents.
17 They came back at the blind man, “You’re the expert. He opened your eyes. What do you say about him?” He said, “He is a prophet.” 18-19 The Jews didn’t believe it, didn’t believe the man was blind to begin with. So they called the parents of the man now bright-eyed with sight. They asked them, “Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? So how is it that he now sees?”
20-23 His parents said, “We know he is our son, and we know he was born blind. But we don’t know how he came to see—haven’t a clue about who opened his eyes. Why don’t you ask him? He’s a grown man and can speak for himself.” (His parents were talking like this because they were intimidated by the Jewish leaders, who had already decided that anyone who took a stand that this was the Messiah would be kicked out of the meeting place. That’s why his parents said, “Ask him. He’s a grown man.”)
The religious leaders were those prophesied about by Ezekiel when he wrote, “They have eyes to see but do not see and ears to hear but do not hear, for they are a rebellious people” (Ezekiel 12:2). For all their knowledge of the Scripture and religious practice, they missed the kingdom, and a poor blind man found it. His eyes were opened; theirs remained closed. You can NOT enter the kingdom if you Are spiritually blind. Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that You claim you can see, your guilt remains” (John 9:41).
Some time ago, there was a Wycliffe Bible translator in a remote village in Papua New Guinea. When the opening chapters of Genesis were first translated into the native language, the attitude toward women in the tribe changed overnight. They had not realized or understood that the woman had been specially formed out of the side of the man. Without even hearing this concept developed, these people immediately grasped the ideas of equality between the sexes and began adjusting their behavior.
The people heard. They believed. They obeyed. They changed. Just like that. That change doesn’t mean everyone in the tribe immediately came to faith in Christ, however. While they immediately recognized the respect God has for both men and women, the members of this tribe had their own hard-to-abandon gods and superstitions.
One of their practices was to spit on the wounds of the sick. Their medicine men were known as the spitters, and they did not want someone like Jesus to take away their status in the village. However, the attitude changed as more of the Bible was translated into the tribe’s dialect. When translators read the passage where Jesus cured a blind man in a most unusual way, the medicine men pricked up their ears. The Master spit on the ground, made a paste of mud, put it on the man’s eyelids, told him to wash it off — and the man was healed.
When these tribesmen heard this story in their own language, they saw that Jesus was not against them, but for them. They found one of their own, a Savior who was also a spitter! And they came to the Lord because of this connection.” These simple people heard the story and responded. They saw with spiritual eyes, 2000 Years after the event, what the religious people who were actually there, and saw the miracle, were not able to see.
24 They called the man back a second time—the man who had been blind—and told him, “Give credit to God. We know this man is an impostor.” 25 He replied, “I know nothing about that one way or the other. But I know one thing for sure: I was blind . . . I now see.”
26 They said, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” 27“I’ve told you over and over and you haven’t listened. Why do you want to hear it again? Are you so eager to become his disciples?” 28-29 With that they jumped all over him. “You might be a disciple of that man, but we’re disciples of Moses. We know for sure that God spoke to Moses, but we have no idea where this man even comes from.”
30-33 The man replied, “This is amazing! You claim to know nothing about him, but the fact is, he opened my eyes! It’s well known that God isn’t at the beck and call of sinners, but listens carefully to anyone who lives in reverence and does his will. That someone opened the eyes of a man born blind has never been heard of—ever. If this man didn’t come from God, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.”
34 They said, “You’re nothing but dirt! How dare you take that tone with us!” Then they threw him out in the street.
No on saw the healed blind man. The neighbors didn’t see the man; they saw a novelty. The church leaders didn’t see the man; they saw a technicality. The parents didn’t see their son, they saw a social difficulty. In the end, no one saw him. “So they put him out” (vs 34).
35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and went and found him. He asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 The man said, “Point him out to me, sir, so that I can believe in him.” 37 Jesus said, “You’re looking right at him. Don’t you recognize my voice?” 38 “Master, I believe,” the man said, and worshiped him.
39 Jesus then said, “I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind.” 40Some Pharisees overheard him and said, “Does that mean you’re calling us blind?”
41 Jesus said, “If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you’re accountable for every fault and failure.”
When Jesus revealed Himself to the former blind man, things changed again. He no longer saw things how he used to see them. He could no longer act as if he was still blind. The same old excuses are no longer going to get it. When you know better and don’t do better, therein lies the problem. Jesus implies we’re better off to be blind and know it than to think we have sight and really be blind.
As a boy Robert Louis Stevenson was intrigued by the work of the old lamplighter who went about with a ladder and a torch, setting the street lights ablaze for the night. One evening in Edinburgh, Scotland, as young Robert stood watching with childish fascination, his parents heard him exclaim, "Look, look! There is a man out there punching holes in the darkness!“ Robert Louis Stevenson summed up the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus came into this world and accomplished many great and miraculous wonders, yet His primary purpose was to punch gaping holes in the spiritual darkness of this world. He came to be The Light Of The World, v. 5.
Lessons to take away
First,we have to be willing to punch holes in the darkness, to go into action when the need is seen not when the questions are answered. Jesus doesn’t even ask, he spits, mixes, rubs and commands and a blind man can see. Jesus sees a need and fulfills it.How many others simply walk by? How many times do we rationalize ourselves out of doing God’s work? We go through the world blind to the work God is doing and the work God is asking us to do.Today, our prayer is that God will stop in front of us, spit on the ground, and open our eyes to see the world as he does.
Second, in this present world things do not always work out the way they are supposed to, or the way we want them to. There is hunger, thirst and sickness. The question is: Will we trust God, as we go through difficulties and disappointments? Will we live in hope? Or will we only see the present circumstances and allow ourselves to sink into bitterness and despair? Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
John was a blind university student. When asked how he lost his sight, John replied, “I was blinded by a chemical explosion at the age of thirteen. For me, life was over. I felt helpless. I hated God. For the first six months I did nothing to improve my lot in life. I would eat all my meals alone in my room. One day my father entered my room and said, ‘John, winter’s coming and the storm windows need to be up — that’s your job. I want those hung by the time I get back this evening or else!’ Then he turned, walked out of the room and slammed the door.
