It was late autumn. The year? 1943. Nighttime. The entire city of London lay in inky darkness due to a strictly enforced blackout in the midst of World War II. All windows were covered. No lights were to be seen anywhere on the streets, for any light would give the enemy war planes a target on which to drop their bombs.
On such a dark night a father and his eight-year-old son were taking a walk after supper in order to get a bit of fresh air. Together they walked down the darkened streets, the lad gazing intently into the skies. Suddenly he remarked, as if he had made an unexpected discovery, “Father, we never saw the stars over the city until the lights went out!” How true!
When we first moved to Nixa years ago, Nixa was a small town with barely 4,000 in population. We moved into a house on the outskirts of town, where the new developments were just going in, only a few streets and hardly any streetlights. Ours was one of the first homes. At night you could go out back and see a whole canopy of stars dancing brightly overhead. Today, with the population 5 times what it was then and lights from new restaurants and businesses glowing, you can hardly see a star. But when the lights went out in the ice storm last year, sure enough, they were there. It took the lights to go out for me to see again what had always been there. We didn't see it until the lights went out.
How true! - Not only of our dark city nights, but true also of the dark nights of sadness, sickness, loneliness, worry, ignorance or despair that can settle over our individual lives. Sometimes it takes dark times to bring out all the more the radiant brilliance of God's Gospel promises. In the broad daylight of prosperity, when things go our way, when health, wealth, and happy times cheer us, our eyes can lose sight of His promises. But when dark times fall, we are more apt to lift our eyes heavenward and exclaim, “O God, I never saw Your “stars” over my life until the lights went out!”
(I. Lord Jesus, Help Us to See Your Ways because we are blind.)
I wonder how often the disciples in our text might have thankfully raised such a sigh to the heavens years after this account took place. I wonder how often the blind man might have marveled over that truth. It may have affected him a little differently than it did the disciples because for him it was more personal. The lights had never been there for him to see because
he was blind . He had lived in darkness, complete darkness ever since he was born - until the day that the Lord Jesus arrived. That day he saw light for the first time. It happened this way.
The Lord Jesus was walking along with His disciples when He came across this blind man, begging on the side of the road. Now, here was a curious thing from the disciples' point of view that revealed their own blindness towards God's ways. How did this man get that way? Like many people today, they came to a wrong conclusion: If something goes wrong in a person's life and a bad thing happens to him, it must be the result of something evil that he did. So they turned to the Lord Jesus and asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents so that he was born blind?”
Why do we human beings come up with such conclusions, as though we have an inside track in understanding God's divine activity in people's lives? Have you ever thought a similar thing when you saw tragedy hit the life of another individual, or group of people? In self-righteous pride it isn't hard for any of us to think that when we see something bad happen to someone else, it shows that he was a terrible sinner. “God is getting him.” Why do we think like that? Perhaps it tends to make us feel better about ourselves. But, in sin we are as blind to God's ways as the next one, unless God Helps Us to See His Ways and reveals His purposes to us.
In this circumstance Jesus told His disciples, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. But this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”
“Neither sinned?” Of course they had sinned in their lives – many times over. Jesus knew that because He knows what's in the heart and life of every individual. He knows that there has never been any perfectly holy individual that has lived in this world, except for Him. So, when Jesus said that neither this man nor his parents had sinned, He was addressing what His disciples were blindly thinking – that someone had done a really bad sin and God was “getting them for it” by striking their son with blindness.
Jesus had to help His disciples see God's way and correct their own blindness by saying, “No, neither sinned. But this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”
This man was blind so that His blindness could serve the purposes of God and display something great about the Lord Jesus. How about that, dear friends! Who would have ever thought that a man's blindness from birth would serve a good purpose? Most people would see it as a terrible tragedy. Some might even blame God for allowing it. The Lord Jesus sees it and uses it as an occasion to bring out God's glory for the blessing of an individual.
The sicknesses, the pain, the bad things that fall to us the Lord Jesus always turns into occasions to glorify His name and His work in our lives. And He blesses us through them. O Lord Jesus, Help Us to See such truths because we are so blind to it!
Who of us would ever think that a disease like cancer would serve His glorious purposes? Who of us would ever see a bad deformity in a new-born baby serve God's divine ways and be useful to Him? Who of us would ever see the untimely death of one close to us in this life as glorifying the Lord Jesus? By nature we don't see such things and our human thoughts all too often blind us to the saving purposes of God in all the situations of our lives.
But remember, dear friends, for those who trust Him He promises that all things will turn out for their good (Ro.8:28). If that is true, can you ever feel badly about unhappy things that happen? No, rather see them as a way that God works perseverance in your life. It will turn out for His glory and your eternal blessing – always (Ja.1:2.12).
O Lord Jesus, Help Us To See Your Ways because we are blind to them.
(II. Lord Jesus, Help Us to See Your Ways because You have what we need.)
It's because we are so blind that Jesus helps us; He gives us whatever we need to see our lives under Him correctly.
So it was in our text that He first helped the primary figure – the man who had been blind from birth. Grabbing a bit of clay from the ground, He spit on it, made some mud, and dabbed it on the man's eyes. At the same time He told him, “Go and wash in the pool of Siloam.” So the man went and washed. Lo and behold, he could see! The Lord Jesus had what he needed, the power to cure, and He used it for the man's blessing.
People couldn't believe it. Ever since he was a baby, this man was blind. Now he could see. His neighbors were astounded. Some didn't even think it was the same guy. How did this happen?
The Pharisees, who didn't like Jesus, got into it with the man. Some thought he had been faking blindness all along. You see, they couldn't acknowledge that Jesus had something that people needed and would help them with it. They didn't want His help.
Others couldn't deny the miracle, but they could deny the miracle worker His glory. So they accused Jesus of doing things that He shouldn't have done on the Sabbath, since it was supposed to be a day of rest and He had broken it by working.
Now, isn't that a ridiculous accusation. They missed the good Jesus had done, and found only something to criticize. Have you ever known someone like that, always criticizing, never seeing the blessing? You know, to be honest, we all fall into that weakness sometimes. Boy, do we need help there, with our criticizing spirit..
Others were impressed and figured that Jesus must be a man of God; otherwise He could never have helped the man in such a way. But they all refused to believe in Jesus. So they decided that they had to ask the man what he thought. He didn't see the full truth yet, either. But he understood this much: If Jesus could help him with what he needed when nobody else could, He was special; they ought to follow Him. What a howl that caused! They threw him out.
How confused, perplexed, astounded the man must have been. His own religious leaders threw him out because Jesus had graciously helped him with what he needed. But he needed more. So the Lord Jesus went out of His way to find him. The Savior had much more to offer. Eyes that see are of little lasting value unless those same eyes also see the Savior and the eternal gifts He offers.
In a similar way the Lord Jesus comes looking for us because He has what we need. To tell you the truth, dear friends, we don't need healing from illnesses; we don't need help with the difficulties of everyday living; we don't need most of the things we think we do. But we need help from our sin otherwise we are lost eternally. The Savior gives it through His life and death for us. And we need help to see Him as the highest value and blessing in our lives, the greatest thing that we have to share with others.
To that end He continues to come to us through His Word in order to open our eyes to see Him and His ways that bless us. At times we don't see it until the lights go out. When such dark times fall (and even if they don't) may He enable us to look heavenward and pray, Lord Jesus, Help Us to See Your Ways because we are blind to them and You have what we need eternally.