Regarding Matters of Faith

On Matters of Faith

[John chapter nine part one]

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

It never ceases to amaze me how many people refuse to see the truth even when it's staring them in the face. Our current crop of American 'leadership' continues to ignore, for example, the fact that all the fanatical Muslim terrorists alive today would not be acting as they are if the US military hadn't bombed their countries back to the stone age so they could take all the oil and hold it for use by the US military-industrial complex. Another example of failed American 'leadership' would be the refusal to acknowledge the fact that the US is insolvent because the interest on the so-called “national debt” is rising at a far greater rate than the principal currently due. To put it bluntly, America is bankrupt, and it doesn't have to be this way. When I open my copy of the US Constitution (if you don't have one, get one and read it all the way through, it's a 12 minute read, and it's that important) to Article 1 section 8, it reads, “Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the proper defense and general welfare of the United States.....to borrow money on the credit of the United States.....to coin money and collect the value thereof, and to fix the standards of weight and measures”. Problem is, the Federal Reserve – which is neither – is running the show instead. Again, to put it bluntly, this is a completely illegal arrangement! Everybody knows it, I and others like me have complained bitterly about this for years, but evidently those who are in charge couldn't care less. On and on it goes – climate change, the epidemic of ADHD in ourselves and our kids, the growing scourge of autism, and America's foot-dragging regarding its collective addiction to fossil fuels are just a few more examples. So I went looking for an example of this type of recalcitrance in the Bible. It took some searching, which I like to do anyway just because there's so much wisdom found in its pages, but eventually I found a perfect fit in the Gospel of John chapter nine.

“As he went along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, so that he was born blind?' 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned', said Jesus, 'but this happened so that the work of God may be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.' Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. 'Go', he told him, wash in the pool of Siloam' (this word means 'sent'). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, 'Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?' Some claimed that he was. Others said, 'No, he only looks like him'. But he himself insisted, 'I am the man'. 'How then were your eyes opened?', they demanded. He replied, 'The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So then I went there and washed, and now I can see.' 'Where is this man?', they asked him. 'I don't know', he said'.” (John 9, verses 1-12, NIV)

There are numerous parallels between this story and the state of current events as I described in the first paragraph of this message. Everybody saw something happen, or saw the results of it, with their own eyes and yet didn't believe what they were looking at. The first lesson we can take with us as God's Word teaches it is that people aren't physically handicapped or otherwise crippled, mentally impaired, or otherwise injured because they did anything wrong. The only exception to this would be if someone were to accidentally kill themselves while driving their car at 120MPH, for example. Why, then, the nonbelievers ask, does God allow birth defects, diseases and disabilities? Jesus answers that question for us all in verse three when He said, “This happened so that the work of God may be displayed in his/her life.” Disabled people keep on living! I should know, I'm one of them. Due to some medical issues I can't work a 40 hour workweek any more, but I no longer own a car anyway, so it's really not much of a problem for me. I stay busy working in my apartment with this Web-based church, and I'm about to start another book, so I stay busy. My point here is not to draw attention to myself, but to point out that there are millions like me, and as long as all handicapped or disabled folks keep on keeping on, God is continuously getting glorified in the process. What better reason to keep on keeping on? Then Jesus makes a seemingly cryptic statement when he says, “Night is coming, when no one can work.” To make a long story short, this is a reference to the Great Tribulation prophesied about in the books of Revelation, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Matthew, Luke and others, which is the final three and a half years of human history – as we currently understand it – before the second and final coming of our Lord Christ Jesus. During this time there will be much religious persecution of Christians, including here in the US, and a lot of Christians will end up getting killed. Churches will have to go underground during this time – yes, even here in the US – hence the phrase, “when no one can work”.

The next noticeable event that occurs in the course of this story was the way in which Jesus healed this man. For the moment, let's put this in a hypothetical context. Suppose you were (God forbid!) blind like this hapless gentleman in the story. Some guy comes along and offers to heal you. You accept the offer thankfully, but you're wondering how this stranger is going to do that. Next thing you know, the stranger takes a big nasty wad of spit (as far as you know at that point), makes a mud pie out of it and puts it in your eyes, and then tells you to go wash in the “pool of Siloam”, which is about the size of a large public swimming pool and still exists today near Jerusalem. Not in a public bath or in the Jordan river, but in some dinky little pool. Anyone who would not believe that Jesus could do that would simply not be healed. Period, end of story. This should show everyone how important faith can actually be, not to mention how effective it is for the purpose of healing physically, mentally and spiritually. Needless to say, our story doesn't proceed in that direction. Everybody sees this man has been healed, and yet nobody believes the formerly blind gentleman when he tells them how it happened. The poor guy doesn't know where Jesus went, and the fact that there is no one to verify the miracle the people were seeing only reinforces their disbelief. So they decide to take this incident to the authorities, beginning at verse 13.

“They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud that opened the man's eyes was the Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. 'He put mud in my eyes', the man replied, 'and I washed, and now I see.' Some of the Pharisees said, 'This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath'. But others asked, 'How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?' So they were divided. Finally they turned again to the blind man, 'What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened'. The man replied, 'He is a prophet'. The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man's parents. 'Is this your son'?, they asked. 'Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?' 'We know he is our son,' the parents answered, 'and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him. He is of age, he will speak for himself.' His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews. For already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said, 'He is of age. Ask him'. (John 9, verses 13-23, NIV)

So the first thing that happened after this poor blind man got healed was that his friends and acquaintances didn't believe their own eyes. Basically, they were accusing this man of faking the whole thing as they argued about it among themselves. The argument gets a little out of hand, and the next thing you know this man's 'friends' are bringing him before the authorities, presumably because they thought he was acting in a fraudulent manner or something like that. So they take him to the Pharisees, the Jewish religious leadership of that day, to file their complaint. Sure enough, the 'religious leaders' side with the crowd and against the formerly blind man who had been miraculously healed. As you all must know by now, much the same thing would occur if our Lord and Savior returned today. Pat Robertson and his CBN cable network, all the phony 'faith healers' and greedy 'ministers' of the “prosperity gospel” on TBN would do the same. At any rate, the man who had been healed continues to vigorously protest against those who disbelieve his miraculous healing. So, they call some additional witnesses and along comes the blind man's parents. “We don't know how our son got healed because we weren't there to see it. Why are you asking us when you should be asking him?”, they responded evasively. At this point, the Pharisees turn back to the blind man who had been healed and begin accusing him again.

Where have we seen this pattern here in modern times? It abounds in workplaces around the world, including the US, where workers are paid the equivalent of slave wages. From the Chinese factory workers who live on the equivalent of $2.00 per day to the American workers who make at or near the minimum wage of $7.25 hourly such as here in Atlanta where I live, people are being forced to live on starvation wages while more and more liquid wealth is concentrated in the hands and wallets of the top 1%. But when the workers complain or ask for pay raises, the rich retort, “You're being paid what you're worth; now get back to work!” I continue to be surprised and dismayed at the howls and cat-calls of the rich when regular folks ask for a $15.00 per hour minimum wage. Fifteen bucks an hour? Who do they think they are? Never mind the fact that many western European countries as well as Australia already have the equivalent of that wage level if measured in US dollars. If it works there then why can't we have it here? To sum it up in one word – greed. Here's another similar pattern, only instead of greed and low wages, it has to do with a person's background, social status, and sometimes institutionalized racism. Suppose a person gets in trouble with the law. I'm not talking about the egregious offenders who rape underage kids or who kill other people, and so on. I'm mainly talking about the 53% who are nonviolent drug offenders. Once they serve their time and are released, they have that felony conviction hanging over their heads for the rest of their productive lives. They've served their time and want to reenter society and restart their lives, but no one will hire them because they have criminal records. This needs to change, and that change is already getting started, thank God! The third and final example I will use is that of our military veterans. The US military uses these men and women until they are all used up, and then they just throw them away, using the Veterans Administration as a dumping place for an entire group of men and women who have been abused in the worst possible way. For example, as I write this, there are more US military veterans dying of suicide than are being killed in battle. Many are shuffled off to the side, and are told there's nothing wrong with them when there obviously is, and the US government couldn't care less.

That's all for now. You can expect the second half of this message and study next Sunday. Until then, think and contemplate on these things, and I encourage you all to continue along and read more of John's gospel, if for no other reason than it's so beautifully written and expressed. Shalom and have a great week in the Lord.