S166P4 – The good disciple: the sensible stalwart
Jn. 9:27-33
[The man] answered [the Jews], “I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples?” Then they reviled him and said, “You are His disciple, but we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we do not know where He is from.” The man answered and said to them, “Why, this is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes! Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him. Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing.”
After the man gave the account of his healing, these fellow Jews questioned his parents. This healing was not palatable to these people who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged Jesus as the Christ would be removed from the synagogue. When they grilled his parents, something happened. His mother and father certainly knew his history of blindness, but they were faced with fear. They knew that telling the story and acknowledging the healing of Jesus would make them pariahs in that community. To avoid the conflict, the man’s parents sent these Jews right back to him with their questions. He, on the other hand, did not respond out of fear.
The man used no kind of crafty logic or argument to convince anyone that Jesus is the Christ. All he did was tell the simple truth. He gave his accurate account of what happened, and that was all it took to stand his ground. He faced the same challenge that his parents faced, but he did not back down. This man was able to articulate what the Lord had done for him, and that was the only proof he had to give. In this instance, the facts are incredibly compelling, and the man’s reasoning is clear. Jesus could not have healed him but for the power of God in him. The Jews’ prior demand that this man thank God for his healing was fulfilled by the story he told, but that was not exactly what they wanted.
It can be easy to get caught up in debates about the truth of our God with a worldly approach to argument and reasoning. We might feel the need to take on the scientific experts and philosophical leaders to try and prove our God through their methods, but we do not need all that. We only need the testimonies of the things God has done for us which only God could do for us. We might not have been cured of blindness, but we certainly have been touched by God in many ways, and those stories are proof enough. Father, quicken our memories with the testimonies of your great works in our lives so that we can stand firm with a simple answer.