WEEK FOUR INTRODUCTION 
TITLE: THE PHARISEES CHALLENGE CHRIST  (JOHN 9–11)                                          
March 12–March 18

The powerful wonders and signs of Jesus, while endearing him to the masses and cementing their relationship to him as a rabbi/prophet like none other, drove the religious leaders mad. The healing of the blind man on the Sabbath (John 9) caused an uproar from the Pharisaic community. Their poignant response—“So we’re blind, too, are we?”—revealed the difference between those who insist they have spiritual insight but are in reality blind to the things of God as opposed to those who can truly see and believe. 

In John 10 Jesus presented himself as “the good shepherd” and “the door for the sheep.” In contrast, he characterized the spiritually blind Pharisees as “thieves and rogues”—those presumptuous legalists whose chief concern was the safeguarding of their own ranks and positions. The more they interacted with him, the more the religious elite came to the conclusion that this revolutionary leader had to be killed. To them, his blasphemous claims of oneness with the Father were sufficient proof of his false teaching and ultimate guilt. 

Christ’s greatest and culminating miracle, the raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11), brought everything to a boiling point. Word of this wonder spread like wildfire. Many more believed in Christ as a result. Upon hearing the news, the Sanhedrin immediately called the ruling men of Israel together to determine what should be done to one who claimed to be “the resurrection and the life.” In their eyes, Christ had become a national security threat. Caiaphas, the high priest, predicted that Jesus was going to die for the nation’s sake—“You plainly don’t understand what is involved here. You do not realise that it would be a good thing for us if one man should die for the sake of the people—instead of the whole nation being destroyed” (John 11:51–52). Indeed, his unconscious prophecy came to pass. At the end of John 11 the plot thickens as the authorities  issue an edict for Christ’s arrest.

Day 19 - Sunday, March 12
Title: PHYSICAL & SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS
Scripture: John 9:1–41
Later, as Jesus walked along he saw a man who had been blind from birth. “Master, whose sin caused this man’s blindness,” asked the disciples, “his own or his parents’?” “He was not born blind because of his own sin or that of his parents,” returned Jesus, “but to show the power of God at work in him. We must carry on the work of him who sent me while the daylight lasts. Night is coming, when no one can work. I am the world’s light as long as I am in it.” Having said this, he spat on the ground and made a sort of clay with the saliva. This he applied to the man’s eyes and said, “Go and wash in the pool of Siloam.” (Siloam means “one who has been sent”.) So the man went off and washed and came home with his sight restored. His neighbors and the people who had often seen him before as a beggar remarked, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” “Yes, that’s the one,” said some. Others said, “No, but he’s very like him.” But he himself said, “I’m the man all right!” “Then how was your blindness cured?” they asked. “The man called Jesus made some clay and smeared it on my eyes,” he replied, “and then he said, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So off I went and washed—and that’s how I got my sight!” “Where is he now?” they asked. “I don’t know,” he returned. So they brought the man who had once been blind before the Pharisees. (It should be noted that Jesus made the clay and restored his sight on a Sabbath day.) The Pharisees asked the question all over again as to how he had become able to see. “He put clay on my eyes; I washed it off; now I can see—that’s all,” he replied. Some of the Pharisees commented, “This man cannot be from God since he does not observe the Sabbath.” “But how can a sinner give such wonderful signs as these?” others demurred. And they were in two minds about him. Finally, they asked the blind man again, “And what do you say about him? You’re the one whose sight was restored.” “I believe he is a prophet,” he replied. The Jews did not really believe that the man had been blind and then had become able to see, until they had summoned his parents and asked them, “Is this your son who you say was born blind? How does it happen that he can now see?” “We know that this is our son, and we know that he was born blind,” returned his parents, “but how he can see now, or who made him able to see, we have no idea. Why don’t you ask him? He is a grown-up man; he can speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews who had already agreed that anybody who admitted that Christ had done this thing should be excommunicated. It was this fear which made his parents say, “Ask him, he is a grown-up man.” So, once again they summoned the man who had been born blind and said to him, “You should ‘give God the glory’ for what has happened to you. We know that this man is a sinner.” “Whether he is a sinner or not, I couldn’t tell, but one thing I am sure of,” the man replied, “I used to be blind, now I can see!” “But what did he do to you—how did he make you see?” they continued. “I’ve told you before,” he replied. “Weren’t you listening? Why do you want to hear it all over again? Are you wanting to be his disciples too?” At this, they turned on him furiously. “You’re the one who is his disciple! We are disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this man, we don’t even know where he came from.” “Now here’s the extraordinary thing,” he retorted, “you don’t know where he came from and yet he gave me the gift of sight. Everybody knows that God does not listen to sinners. It is the man who has a proper respect for God and does what God wants him to do—he’s the one God listens to. Why, since the world began, nobody’s ever heard of a man who was born blind being given his sight. If this man did not come from God, he couldn’t do such a thing!” “You misbegotten wretch!” they flung back at him. “Are you trying to teach us?” And they threw him out. Jesus heard that they had expelled him and when he had found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” “And who is he, sir?” the man replied. “Tell me, so that I can believe in him.” “You have seen him,” replied Jesus. “It is the one who is talking to you now.” “Lord, I do believe,” he said, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said, “My coming into this world is itself a judgment—those who cannot see have their eyes opened and those who think they can see become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him overheard this and said, “So we’re blind, too, are we?” “If you were blind,” returned Jesus, “nobody could blame you, but, as you insist ‘We can see’, your guilt remains.”

Poetry & Poet: 
“Idiot Psalm 6” 
by Scott Cairns

And yet again the wicked in his arrogance,
            in his acutely hemmed and tapered sense
            of self has found
            sufficient opportunity to hound 
            the lowly.
And yet again, Great Enabler, the lowly,
            draped in their accustomed modest
            and threadbare suits bereft
            have seized the chance to suffer quietly, stage
            left.
Therefore, now again, I puzzle why,
            O Holy Silence, why
            do You appear to bide unheeding
            some great distance hence?
Why, O Blithely Unapparent, do you remain
            serenely imperceptible, even to our thinning
            crew who stand here blinking at the sky?
I have no stomach for the newspapers, no heart
            for the brilliant, lit flat-screen catalog
            of woes, though every item flickers,
            one admits, wondrously produced
            and duly sponsored.
See here.  The wicked boasts about his late
            successes, the grasping man complains
            that he is cheated of his share, while all
            the while the self-concerned continue
            banking largely on Your accustomed reticence,
            and must needs let out their trousers still
            several measures more, having wagered well.
Pinched beneath their spinning machinations
            and all their neat machines,
            we grind our teeth,
            yea, even as we sleep.

BLIND IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE

I am tired. It is well past midnight. My contact lenses are drying out, making it difficult to see my words. My fingers ache with early onset arthritis, not completely uncommon for someone with an autoimmune condition. My mind turns to the realization that it has been almost a decade since I was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease. I know there are people who tire of my efforts to raise awareness of the disease. I tire of it too. But like those who Jesus healed, how can I stifle the story of how He changed me through the disease? 

The onset of symptoms proved a pivotal shift in my life, reorienting the way I saw the world. Jesus is great at this. He takes what we think we know, turns it on its head, and reorients us to a better way of living. I am not the same person I was a decade ago. I had never heard of IBD. I was blind to so many things and had no idea. It was through the process of suffering that the scales over my eyes began to shed. I became more aware of the pain of others––challenges in life that I would likely never see, nor fully understand. It is humbling to realize how little you know, more humbling still to accept how much you will never know. 

My daily prayer is one in which I ask God to continue to renew my heart and mind. It is not exactly Open the Eyes of My Heart, but a similar sentiment. I want God to continue to reveal my blind spots to me––but that takes humility, which does not come naturally. In his book Three Kings, author Gene Edwards points out that Christians look on King David with admiration, whereas Saul receives no such love. It is human nature to use storytelling to project ourselves onto characters. We tend to see ourselves as David … we rarely stop to consider the moments we are Saul.  

Art historian Lisa Trockner notes about Bruno Walpoth’s Silent Witness sculptures that the figures “appear introverted, static, and unaffected by their surroundings. Sometimes their gaze is averted and other times it is straight ahead…Their eyes do not wander in search of contact.…they are fixed in concentration and directed inwardly.” Sounds like a commentary on modern society. Everyone’s attention scattered this way and that yet looking inwardly. More connected than ever, yet still so alone. The poetry reading today is Idiot Psalm 6 from Scott Cairns. I cannot say for certain Cairns intended to reference the original Psalm, but his piece echoes a similar sentiment of exhaustion incurred by the evils of this world. 

I, too, am tired. Tired, repulsed, and disheartened by how ugly we can be to one another in society today. I remember when the general rule of thumb in comedy was, “Never punch down. Always punch up.” And yet it seems culture is consumed right now with punching any which way if it means defending our perception of a right to say and do as we want. Why do we fight so hard for the right to say and do horrible things to one another? How is it that in a world full of suffering, we remain so blind to the pain and perspectives of others?

Prayer:
“God, I do not know what I do not know. Please help me to see what my blind spots are. I am blind. So terribly blind. But I want to see.” 

Zachary Bortot, M.F.A
Associate Professor of Theatre
Collinsworth School of Performing Arts
California Baptist University
Riverside, California

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