Wednesday In The Word...John 9:18-23...Standing all alone

Our Wednesday in the Word and today it is John chapter 9 and verses 18 through 23, which read,

v.18, 19 - The Jews then did not believe it of him, that he had been blind and had received sight, until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sight, and questioned them, saying, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind?  Then how does he now see?"

We are in the midst of the account of the man born blind given his sight by Jesus.  The clay has been applied by Jesus and the command to go wash in the Pool of Siloam.  The man, now once blind, comes back seeing and people are amazed.  He is questioned first and all he can say is it was a man named Jesus who did this.  

He is questioned because he is carrying his mat on the Sabbath, a Sabbath restriction.  With his description of what happened came more Sabbath restrictions of the making of the clay by Jesus and the very healing which was considered as work.  The religious authorities ask the man once blind, point blank, "What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?"  The man's response was that this man named Jesus must be a prophet.  He was claiming that Jesus was of God.

There is division in the crowd of what has happened.  "Is this really the man who was once blind?" was the question that is raised in our reading today.  So they call in the man's parents for some further verification.  But the question is a two parter.  The first question is, "Is this your son?"  The second question is, "How does he now see?"  We will see how the once blind man's parents respond to these questions of the doubting crowd.

v.20, 21 - His parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know.  Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself."

The parents answer both questions.  Yes, they can verify that this is their son that was born blind and the one standing before them now who can see was not that way before.  Something wonderful has happened to their son.  The physical evidence points that a miracle has happened and miracles are attributed to God.  

The second question is answered with a diversion.  We want to think the best of the parents but we will be given more information in the next verses to see their true motives.  We would want to think of them in the positive as just stating that they weren't there.  They didn't meet Jesus.  They got the message from others or maybe from their son when he relayed the story to them.  So they point the crowd back to their son who is of age, probably meaning that he was over 30.  

We are not allowed by the Scriptures to stop here with our thoughts about the actions of the parents.  The Scriptures give us the motive for this type of answer in the next verses.

v.22, 23 - His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.  For this reason his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

The parents were afraid of being put out of the synagogue.  This would have been like being excommunicated from the church in our day.  They would have been treated like their son and others who were deformed or diseased and considered "unclean" by society.  Their motive was to protect themselves.

These verses also give us the weight of what the once blind man said earlier about Jesus being a prophet.  The once blind man was confessing that this man named Jesus was the Christ and therefore grounds to be thrown out of the church.  Ironic that he was cleansed to come back into the synagogue by Jesus but then a possible excommunication from the synagogue because of Jesus.  The parents are not willing to take the stand that the son was making.

We will stop the passage here and save the next encounter between the once blind man and the Pharisees for next Wednesday's "Wednesday in the Word."  But I will throw out there these questions:

1. "What are your true motives for following Jesus or maybe not following Him?"  
2. "Who are you afraid of when it comes to openly professing about Jesus as the Savior of the world?"  
3. "What is your response when others leave you standing all alone in your faith, maybe even your family members who took you to church?"  
4. "Will you follow suit and play the ignorance card about who Jesus really is?"

May these questions weigh on us today to see if we have walked away from the simple message that "I was once blind but now I see and it is because of Jesus."  May our motive be not to protect ourselves but to continue to promote who He is.  Let us pray.

"Heavenly Father, the pressure of the crowd and the laws of the land can sometimes tempt us to make You less than who You are.  May we have an awesome fear of You so that we can stand in the midst of the fear of others holding onto the fact of our salvation.  May there also be others who "see" who You are because the witness of You is being proclaimed by us.  Amen."

Pastor Adam

(p.s. - Safely in Machias, Maine and working at the Machias Valley Baptist Church.  Thank you all for your prayers!)