Day 21
I had just lost a second baby to miscarriage. Genetic testing revealed that she was a girl. While I experienced a total of four miscarriages in addition to the four beautiful babies that have grown into amazing adult children, that second one was earth shattering for me. Up to that point in my life, I hadn’t truly experienced loss or significant suffering. My theology on God’s sovereignty was incomplete and I couldn’t accept that He would have purpose in my losing that precious baby girl. I sat in the rocking chair I had hoped to rock a baby in and bitterly declared, “The God I serve doesn’t do that.” I began the mental and emotional gymnastics of trying to make sense of it all, to find someone to blame and I was the prime suspect. It had to be punishment for my sin. I deserved this and God’s hands were tied.
In today’s reading, we look in on a scene where people are coming and going, completely oblivious to the man born blind sitting in his usual spot. Then Jesus passes by. He sees the man, takes notice of him, and nothing is ever the same again!
Read John 9:1-12
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v 2) This question from Jesus’ disciples reflects an assumption, customary in ancient Judaism, that suffering could be traced to sin. The underlying concern was well-intentioned, aimed at not charging God with perpetrating evil on innocent people. For God was clear in the Torah that disobedience of the law - sin - would result in consequences.
“Do not make an idol for yourself in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them, because I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands.” (Deut 5:8-10)
We can empathize with the Jews’ assumption, that somebody did something wrong resulting in this man’s blindness from birth. “The God I serve doesn’t do that!” Yet the rest of Scripture makes it clear that suffering is not always a direct result of a specific person’s sin, but rather to display God’s glory, as the Apostle Paul so vulnerably shares in one of his letters to the Corinthian church:
“Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.’” 1 Cor 12:7-9
God in his mysterious and wise providence sometimes allows His children to go through hardship and suffering so that they can experience God’s mercy and power in delivering them. In this man’s specific situation, blindness from birth is explained by Jesus saying that God intends to reveal a glimpse of His glory through his blindness. In this case, it happens to be healing, highlighting the glory of God’s power to heal. But there is nothing that requires or promises that it has to be healing. For when Paul cried out three times for his thorn in the flesh to be healed, Jesus replied differently, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9). In other words, “I will put my power on display, not by healing you, but by sustaining you.” Healing displays the works of God in John 9, and sustaining grace displays the works of God in 2 Corinthians 12.
What is common in the two cases is the supremacy of the glory of God. The blindness is for the glory of God. The thorn in the flesh? Also purposed for the glory of God. The healing of the man blind from birth is for His glory, and the lack of healing, but instead sustaining power for Paul is again, for God’s glory. I’m immediately taken to the beginning of Psalm 115 which declares, “Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory because of your faithful love, because of your truth.” (Ps 115:1)
While It Is Day
Jesus recognizes the importance of His limited time on earth and the good work He is here to do. Because He is “The Light of the World” (v 5) His presence makes everything “day.” Jesus communicates an intense awareness of the need to fulfill all that the Father sent Him to accomplish during His ministry on earth and involves His disciples in that work as well. Jesus must do this work quickly, because night is coming, and then His work will be over. There will be a ministerial shift from healing to dying. Jesus will turn from the work of relieving suffering in the light of His glory, His presence, to the night of suffering Himself, finally submitting fully to the plan He and His Father had made from the beginning - that the Son be consumed in death by the sin and suffering of the world.
So why the mud? Even more important to me, why the spit? “He spit on the ground, made some mud from the saliva, and spread the mud on his eyes.” (v 6) I wasn’t able to find a clear explanation for why Jesus made mud and put it on the man’s eyes, but I wonder if this could be an echo of God’s creative process in Genesis, “Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.” (Gen 2:7) Could it be that we get a glimpse into the Creator of all things now re-creating, demonstrating how He will make all things new? How beautiful is that?
The man’s neighbors had become quite used to his presence. Honestly, they didn’t even see him anymore. His blind eyes were uncomfortable to look at; his affliction since birth difficult to make sense of. When he returned from washing at the Pool of Siloam and could see, they were perplexed. He looked like the blind man who had always sat right there, but it couldn’t be him, right? His blind eyes had received sight. While he looked familiar, everything about him was different. There was light in his eyes for the first time! What a magnificent expression of God’s glory displayed in his body!
“Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body.” (2 Corin 4:7-10)
Big Picture Questions for Today:
What about you? Do you consider physical ailments, loss and suffering as punishment for sin? When hard things happen to you or those you love, do you struggle with how the God you serve could allow that suffering and call it necessary and good?
How do you reconcile suffering, chronic pain, and disease with God’s sovereignty? Seriously big questions today…these might take awhile to process and answer.
“Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corin 4:16-18)
Pray that God would give you eyes to see the display of his works, the glorious gospel of Christ, in his Son’s suffering, in your suffering and the suffering of all around you as expressions of his love and glory. “Father God, show us your glory in all of it. And if not now, give us faith and courage to wait until that day when we see you and Jesus face to face, your glory and purposes fully revealed.”
Finally, please enjoy this sweet song by Matt Redmond, “One Day,” including the chorus from the old hymn, “When We All Get to Heaven.” Fair warning, this is a tear-jerker, but please listen to the end to the beautiful reminder of when there will be no more tears.
We will weep no more
No more tears, no more shame
No more struggle, no more
Walking through the valley of the shadow
No cancer, no depression
Just the brightness of Your glory
Just the wonder of Your grace
Everything as it was meant to be
All of this will change
When we see You face to face
Jesus, face to face
Matt Redman - One Day (When We All Get To Heaven) (Acoustic)
