John 9:1-17
Be Still: Father, hold me today in your kindness and love. Let me rest in the knowledge that you are with me right now and long to make yourself known.
Read: John 9:1-17
His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' (v2)
Encounter: When something bad happens in our lives or someone else’s, we try to make sense of it – what’s the meaning of it? What’s behind it all? How did we/they deserve this? The human response is to try to look for reasons. We all want the world to be fair, to make logical sense. If we do the right things, live healthily, watch our finances, we believe things should go well. But that’s not always the case and then it seems unfair.
In this Bible story, Jesus comes across a man who has been born blind. In most cases of healing in the gospels, people have directly asked Jesus to heal them or their loved ones, but this doesn’t seem to be the case here. Rather the disciples seem to draw Jesus’ attention to the man as an ethical example for their theological education. But Jesus is having none of it. He sees the man as a person and immediately reaches out to him, explaining that he has done nothing wrong, but rather God’s goodness and power will be revealed in him. Life’s not fair but God is good.
Through this healing, Jesus reveals himself as the Messiah, the ‘Light of the World’ (as we saw in v5 of Wednesday’s reading) who has been prophesied about for centuries and is God in human form – the light of God showing up the spiritual blindness and darkness around him.
Apply: The pharisees thought that you got what you deserved. Many people still believe that today. But the truth is that if we each got what we deserved, we would be in big trouble!
Jesus came to die on the Cross – he took everything that we did that was wrong and took it on himself. It’s as if he were the dustman for the whole world – all the world’s rubbish and darkness and mess were loaded on him even though he deserved none of it.
And we were set free from it all – was that fair? No!
That is the whole point of grace – it is a free, undeserved gift. A life of freedom, the opportunity to stand entirely blameless in front of God. Entirely undeserved and freely given.
Devote: Father thank you so much that you died a totally undeserved death to bring me life and hope and freedom. Thank you that you are light in a dark world. Strengthen me and help me bring that light to others.