When Jesus Comes

John 9:1-12 NKJV
1 Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. 4 I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. 7 And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.
8 Therefore the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind said, “Is not this he who sat and begged?”
9 Some said, “This is he.” Others said, “He is like him.”
He said, “I am he.”
10 Therefore they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?”
11 He answered and said, “A Man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and I received sight.”
12 Then they said to him, “Where is He?”
He said, “I do not know.”

Dear Jesus,

Thank you for the invasive power of Your Gospel.  Thank you that when You come into my life, You turn everything upside down. You are in the habit of doing exactly that.

And the change!  So often the transformation You bring is startling.  It is hard to recognize the transformed from their previous visage.

People don't know what to do with transformed folks. Families restrain the freshly sighted from fanatical proclamations of transformation from darkness to light. Friends restrict the once blind from their sighted path, uncomfortable by a sudden and convicting revelation of light. Society demands sameness. The sinful culture insists that the most vile among us change, and when You effect that change through Your great salvation, they deny the possibility of that very change! Incongruous, but very human.

The blind man dealt with the same response. Once healed, people did not even recognize him.  A face once etched with blindness, now gleamed with joyful sight. Some pointed at him and doubtfully said, "That man looks like the blind guy who was just here, but that can't be him! Same clothes.  Different guy. It's a case of mistaken identity."

Others proclaimed with confident certainty, "It is he."

The contention was only silenced by the word of the once blind man testifying, "I am he."

Transformation. Our culture longs for people to change. But when change comes, whether self-initiated or divinely wrought, we frequently reject it as impossible. In a media age, the sins of our past ever live to haunt us, permanently etched in the memory of cyberspace. 

"Once a sinner, always a sinner," the pundits proclaim.

Then Jesus comes!  You come on the scene and proclaim wholeness. You order a washing away of sin. You afford regeneration from death to life. Transformation.

One sat alone beside the highway begging,

His eyes were blind, the light he could not see;

He clutched his rags and shivered in the shadows,

Then Jesus came and bade his darkness flee.

When Jesus comes the tempter’s pow’r is broken;

When Jesus comes the tears are wiped away.

He takes the gloom and fills the life with glory,

For all is changed when Jesus comes to stay.

(by Oswald Jeffrey Smith)

So we wash, and see.  Thank You. 

In the Name of Jesus, our Savior,

Amen.