The Celebration of What Is

Our slow reading through the Gospel of John brings us to chapter 9 this morning. And as I read the story of the blind man who was healed by Jesus, I was struck by one of the questions the synagogue officials asked him - How?

So they kept saying to him, "How then were your eyes opened?" (John 9:10)

I thought in response, "Isn't that a perfect picture of human nature?" Rather than celebrating a good occurrence, a good event, a Divine miracle, we are immediately suspicious and want to know the the "why" and the "how" of it. We break it apart and refuse to enter into the joy of it.

In John 9, a man who was born blind has become seeing. But no one rejoices with him in what must have been a joyous occasion for him. No one offers to throw him a party. No one offers to buy him lunch. No one offers to buy him a drink. Instead, he becomes an object to be poked and prodded and dissected. He is less than human. He is a curiosity. He requires explanation.

So they "kept on saying to him. . ." This was not a one-time asking. This was something they kept coming back too. How? How? How?

We get a sense of his eventual annoyance in verse 27:

"I told you already and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again? You do not want to become His disciples too, do you?" 

But despite his annoyance, he recognizes one, undeniable thing - he was blind, but now he sees. He cannot answer how. He cannot answer why. At this point in the story, he cannot even answer who. What he knows is that something incredible has happened to him. He has been healed - beyond all expectation, beyond all hope, beyond all experience, beyond all explanation, he has been healed.

But his neighbors, his teachers, and even his own family fail to celebrate what has happened. They are too caught up in questions that do not always have satisfactory answers. How? I don't know. Why? I am not sure. Who? Jesus.

At the end of the chapter, Jesus points out that this fixation on the "how" is actually an indicator of blindness. The formerly blind man's contemporaries are the ones who are blind to joy, blind to love, and blind to the power of God. If they cannot explain it and cannot control it, they close themselves off from experiencing it.

I pray that I would be among the seeing today - seeing the power of God at work in me and in others; celebrating what is good; rejoicing in what is wonderful; contemplating what is beautiful; in awe of what is marvelous.