Man born blind

When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent , certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.’

C.S. Lewis - A Grief Observed


This has been a tough couple of weeks for Shannon and I. A couple of weeks where God seems silent, and when the thing prayed so earnestly not to happen, in fact did happen. A time when one is tempted to say, "here is an instance of pointless, arbitrary suffering." This morning I read John 9. Here we see Jesus responding to the disciples' speculations about the reason for a man being born to a lifetime of suffering as a blind beggar. They understandably ask, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him..."

Like the disciples we're prone to speculate and ask questions like "Rabbi, who sinned, us or our parents, that this happened?", "Rabbi, what could we have done to prevent this?" or most pointedly, "Rabbi, why didn't YOU prevent this?" I think this story points us to a possible answer, "that the works of God might be displayed". Yes. Jesus chose to heal this man of his blindness, but sometimes he chooses to display the works of God by not healing us of our physical pain or by not preventing us from experiencing profound loss, because his ultimate aims are worked out in far different ways than we would desire. Even though Jesus healed the man's blindness, this was not his ultimate aim. His ultimate aim becomes apparent later in the chapter as he uses the miracle of restoring physical sight to expose the spiritual blindness of the Pharisees, and then grants spiritual sight to the man. In reply to Jesus's question, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?", the man born blind affirms, "Lord, I believe". At this point John simply writes, "and he worshiped him". The Son of God has granted to this man the spiritual sight that he would not grant to the unbelieving Pharisees. This is the far more profound miracle of John 9.

Jesus ultimate aim is to create worshipers, not to deliver us from temporal suffering. Like the disciples we often miss this point. Jesus healed a number of blind folks in Palestine, but he is the Light of the World, he turned the water into wine in Cana, but more importantly he is the Living Water, he fed thousands with a few loaves and fish, but he is the everlasting Bread of Life, he raised Lazarus from the dead, but more spectacularly he makes new creations ex nihilo of people dead in their sins. Thankfully, God often does heal us and spare us from suffering, but the child of God has the sweet promise that even when he doesn't take away the cancer, restore the broken relationship or heal the broken heart, these sufferings are "preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison" (2 Cor. 4:17-18). Paul even goes so far as to call these earthly afflictions "light" and "momentary". Even when God is silent, and the best thing one can say is "I don't know", we can affirm that there is a point and that it just might be that the works of God are being displayed in us at the point when he seems farthest away.