Verse 13, They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees.  Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.  So the Jews had a problem here.  On one hand they have an undeniable miracle.  A man, blind from birth, now sees.  But on the other hand, they have a miracle worker who is working on the Sabbath.  So they’re in a real bind.  There’s no way they can accept that this healing is a divine miracle without renouncing their legalism!  According to their law, work was unlawful, sinful on the Sabbath…yet, undeniably, this man was healed. 

So you see their dilemma?  It’s really a decision point.  Renounce their law and embrace Jesus as the Christ or condemn Him.  There was no in between and I believe that was quite a deliberate dilemma.  Jesus didn’t have to heal on the Sabbath…He was making a clear statement.  A statement that we find in Mark 2:27.  “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.  Therefore, the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.” 

Well what does that statement by Jesus mean, Matt?  Why would Jesus do something seemingly against God’s commands?  Why would He walk, and heal, and teach, and work on the Sabbath when God said in the Law that no man should work on the Sabbath?  Here’s the point, here’s why…because Jesus is no mere man…He is God Himself.  And so by doing this, very deliberately, Jesus is very unambiguously (without mystery) stating that He Himself is the same God that had originated, commanded, ordained the Sabbath and therefore indeed, He is no mere man…but God Himself.

So their dilemma, being made very clear by Jesus…believe that I AM and have your eyes opened, or deny Me and embrace your chains of bondage.  That goes for us today also.

Verse 15, Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight.  He said to them, “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”  (And we know from our previous study that what he just said is “Jesus touched me, Jesus told me what I should do, I did it, and I can see clearly now!”)

Verse 16, Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” Ok so here’s one side of the house.  They say “this man” which limits Jesus, displays their disbelief in His claims to deity and therefore He is rejected as Godly, rejected as the Truth.  But the house is divided, check it out…

Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?”  And there was a division among them.  They said to the blind man again, “What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?”  He said, “He is a prophet.”  (In other words, He IS from God)  So real quick, I see a subtle yet sure advancement of this beggar.  An advancement that I also see in the lives of Christians today.

Remember when the people asked him how he was healed, what was his response?  Back in verse 11 he says, “a man called Jesus…here’s what He did.”  Now the Sanhedrin ask him and what does he say of Jesus?  A man?  No, a prophet!  You see at first he had been occupied solely with the work of Christ, now he is beginning to discern the glory of His person!

When we are first freed by the love and grace and salvation of Jesus Christ, we so often are still very carnal, concerned so passionately about the circumstance of the physical present…but as you learn of God through His Word and as you walk with God by faith, you begin to draw near to Him personally, and what you’ll find is that the cares of this world grow strangely dim.  Circumstance and situation will cease to be your source of stillness or your cause for concern…rather it will be the person and power of God Almighty that provides unfailing joy, indescribable purpose and blessed assurance.

The opposite is however very true.  Jesus said in Mark chapter 4 that the cares of this world will choke you out!  Take away your wind…ever had the wind get knocked out of you?  You’re useless, paralyzed…Madison can put me on my knee…a 5 year old, if she catches me in the Bread Box…the diaphragm, and knocks the wind out of me…I drop to my knee and choke for air.  That is what the enemy wants to do to you and to me…but God, Jesus Christ…as you draw near to Him, and learn of Him, and walk by faith…batting left handed…strength will rise, fear will subside and look, just like this man, intelligence, knowledge of the truth will grow!

Eyes will be opened.  It is so often when I encounter someone travailing, groaning, locked in a compartment of complaint and you know, nothing I say to them seems to hit pay dirt…they’re choked and the worst part of it all is that they don’t even know it…I have learned that the most effective form of ministry…is prayer.  Prayer in faith…waiting upon the Lord, being renewed in strength and believing that what God has said is sufficient, that love never fails…but my prayer is that they would draw near to God…not in word or in tongue but in deed and in truth.  Which is simply and only and solely a work of the Spirit…and if that be the case…my role is to love, to pray and to be patient.

But oh how sweet it is when someone breaks.  When they start actually doing what they said they’d do…when they start simply being faithful in the moment…and when the moment turns to moments, and moments turn to days, and days to weeks, and weeks to months…then you watch your friend, your brother, your sister grow up into a vessel of honor prepared for every good work…I see that progression even here in this man that was healed…I see this all the time in you all and I’m just so excited about what God is doing with our fellowship family!

Verse 18, But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight.  And so it would seem that they have made their dilemma decision.  They reject the miracle altogether and seek to disprove the previously hopeless condition of the blind man.

Verse 19, And they asked them saying, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind?  How then does he see?”  His parents answered them and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know.  He is of age; ask him.  He will speak for himself.”

 It’s interesting to me that the parents not only say, “by what means he now sees we do not know” but also they say “or who opened his eyes we do not know.”  That gives us a clue that they had already seen their son, spoken with their son, seen that their son was healed and heard that a man, Jesus, had done it…why else would they say “who?”  But we also see here that by the way they answer the Jews, they themselves don’t believe.

We so often feel that if we could just show someone a miracle, or wish that someway Christ would even just show up and then they would believe…ya know, that person that you’ve been witnessing to…but we underestimate the deception of sin and the density of a hard heart.  We must be on guard that we ourselves protect our own hearts lest they grow hard. 

But the rich man and Abraham were having a conversation which you find in Luke 16 and the rich man who had died was in torment and he wished to go to his family and warn them.  This is Luke 16:27-31…“Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’”

Understand, when someone comes to faith, when someone is set free from the power and penalty of sin, it is truly a miracle…because even though one rise from the dead and they see it with their very eyes, the carnal heart is yet unable to believe.  Your faith today, your belief in God today, is a miracle…a gift from the Author of your faith.  And also, hang in there…with your mom, your dad, your friend, your coworker…don’t feel as if you’ve failed if today they still deny Jesus…you haven’t failed…you’re not the giver of the Holy Spirit, trust in God…that He is at work and that it is He Himself who will work the miracle, not you.  Just live unto the Lord yourself and God will bring the increase.

So the parents say, leave us alone…ask him your questions!  Why, why not just say what they had been told by their son?  Again, they didn’t believe and unbelief is the land of the fearful.  Look at verse 22, His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if any confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.  (a major issue with religion…control, power…do what we say even if it isn’t what you believe or we’ll separate you from God)  Therefore his parents said, “He is of age, ask him.”

Verse 24, So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, “Give God the glory!  We know that this man is a sinner!”  Oh you know?  You’ve experienced Him sin…nope.  You’ve see Him sin…nope.  So what are you saying?  Well, that word for “know” in the Greek…it doesn’t mean “know by experience.”  It’s actually the word eido which means to perceive and to conclude.  It’s a follow your feelings type of word…and so they have made a definitive conclusion based on their perception, based on their feelings…not based on truth…

Verse 25, He answered and said to them, “Whether He is a sinner or not, I do not know.  One thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see.”  Interesting, he uses the same word in the Greek that the Jews did however this time he uses it with righteous application.  “I know not.”  I have not made a definite conclusion based on finite here-say or even my own perception.  I mean…it was the Sabbath, this man was a Jew…he must have known that Jesus’ action was not in accordance with their law…but notice…his eyes are open!  And so he says to them, there is much that I am not sure about, much that I do not know…but one thing I do know…I can see.

This beggar, this formerly blind man, he is really a great example.  Check this out, the Jews had sought to disprove the miracle by calling his parents…come on, just tell us, he was faking from birth wasn’t he?  He really could see and therefore there’s been no miracle here…but that didn’t work.  So they changed the subject.  They began to attack Jesus Himself!  And that is always what the mind of the enemy will do…undermine and warp and pervert and ultimately attack God Himself…

He’s a sinner…give glory to God and renounce Jesus!  Attack!  They were failing and failure brings fury and so they were trying to change the issue to one that they may be able to win…but this beggar acted with courage, with honor and with truth, why?  He kept the conversation on the indisputable fact that he had been miraculously set free!  They could not deny that his eyes had been opened!

We are often so suceptable to following the world down a path of useless philosophy or logic or whatever…attempting to convince someone that Jesus is Savior…and we are taken off of the centrality and essentiality of simply proclaiming the gospel.  Not this man…I was once blind, but now I see!  There are many things that this young believer has little knowledge about:  theology, prophecy, eschatology, creation…he hasn’t even ever read the Old testament or the Torah…but one thing he does know…his eyes have been opened and Jesus did it. 

Don’t hold your tongue because you don’t have an answer for every question.  That is to be ashamed.  Share the love of Christ.  Share the truth of Christ.  Tell them what you do know…that God so loves you and so loves me, that He gave all that He ever had…He sent His only family, His only fellowship, His only Son to live a sinless life and die as a perfect sacrifice for our sins and that the moment you believed that, you were changed.  Transformed into an eternal citizen of heaven…born again unto God and now you know Him.  You hear Him, you see Him, you feel Him and you walk with Him…and now you see…keep the message the cross and there is no doubt that you will bring honor to God.  Just like this beggar…all I know is that I was blind and now I see.  That’s plenty.