Daily Lesson for Tuesday 8th of October 2024
Read John 9:1-16. What did the disciples think was the cause of this man’s blindness, and how did Jesus correct their false beliefs?
The disciples made a connection between sickness and sin. A number of Old Testament passages point in that direction (compare with Exodus 20:5, 2 Kings 5:15-27, 2 Kings 15:5, and 2 Chronicles 26:16-21), but the story of Job should have led to caution about whether such a connection always occurred.
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Jesus sets the matter straight, not denying any connection between sin and suffering but, in this case, pointing to a higher purpose: that God would be glorified by the healing. The account contains certain affinities to the Creation story, that of God’s forming the first man from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7), just as Jesus makes clay to provide the blind man what was missing from the womb.
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, miracle stories follow a common pattern: an expression of the problem, the bringing of the individual to Jesus, the cure, and recognition of the cure with praise to God.
In the story in John 9:1-41, this sequence is completed in John 9:7. But typical of John, the significance of the miracle becomes the much wider point of discussion, leading to a long interaction between the healed man and the religious leaders. This striking discussion revolves around two intertwined contrasting pairs of concepts—sin/works of God and blindness/sight.
The narrator does not tell the reader until John 9:14 that Jesus did this healing on the Sabbath, which, according to tradition and not Scripture, violated the Sabbath. And thus, He was counted as a Sabbath breaker by the Pharisees. Their conclusion was that He was not from God because they maintained that “He does not keep the Sabbath.” But others found it troubling that a sinner could do such signs (John 9:16).
The discussion is far from over, but already a division appears. The blind man is becoming more and more clear about who Jesus is, but the religious leaders are becoming more and more confused or blind as to His real identity.
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What should this story tell us about the dangers of being so blinded by our own beliefs and traditions that we can miss important truths right before our own eyes? |
(0)Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24d-02-the-healing-of-the-blind-man-part-1/
