Week beginning Sunday 3rd October
The readings this week are full of emotion.
We will encounter Jesus dealing patiently with a blind man – and even blinder people who refuse to recognise who He is.
Then on Friday we come up with an angry Jesus. Really angry too!
I think we get to know the Man Jesus a little better. The man who felt emotions as we do. The hospital scenes we witnessed during the CoVid crisis, might well have left some us feeling helplessly angry. Death, the final great enemy, was seeming to get the upper hand.
Surely death is an affront to the God who made all things good. Perhaps that is how Jesus felt standing outside Lazarus’ tomb.
Read on in this wonderful Gospel to know Jesus better.
v 10. They asked, “Who healed you? What happened?”
As we have seen before, the love of Jesus transforms both people and circumstances. In this case the change in the blind man is so radical that it causes people to ask questions. And they get answers too! In fact, this now-seeing beggar is quite forthright, much to the annoyance of the Jewish leaders. They have no intention of attributing this change to the love or power of Jesus. All the evidence is there, but, Hey, there must be a different explanation. This makes the man all the more determined – YES, I was blind, now I can see, and it was Jesus who did it.
What a powerful testimony to those clever but unbelieving people!
It raises huge questions in my mind! Not about the miracle, or how Jesus did it, or even Why? did He do it. No, it is much more personal than that. (Better get used to answering personal questions as we follow this life of Jesus – He always turns the issues to this – ‘And what about You?’)
Here are two issues you need to be ready to confront.
First – has Jesus made a real, noticeable, difference to my life?
And second – how willing am I to be open, and speak about it?
(We used to talk about ‘Giving our Testimony’ but that sounds rather grand for just telling people how it is with us as we become disciples of Jesus.)
A couple stopped in front of my house this morning as I was gardening. They commented on how they noticed the changes as we put out new plants and let them develop. Of course – I can talk about that!
Lord – give me opportunities, and the willingness, to speak about the changes in my life too, as I follow Jesus.
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