June 16 - It Was a Sabbath

Read: John 9: 13-17

Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. (John 9:14 ESV)

Jesus had healed the man born blind. It caused an uproar in his community because everyone knew him to be the man who used to be a blind beggar. Some wanted to know if the man had actually been healed. Others just wanted to know if the Sabbath Day had been violated.

Jesus is The Lord of the Sabbath. Men had corrupted it, but Christ restored it to meaning. For the blind man the Sabbath took on an incredibly special significance. It was the day that he saw the world for the first time. It was the day that darkness became light. Blackness became color. Hopelessness found hope.

We are all born into darkness. We enter this world blind. Only Christ can open our eyes. Only Christ can restore our world to light. Only in Jesus can we rise above the silly inconsistencies of bad religion.

That day was a good day. It was a day of hope. It was a Sabbath.

June 15 - How?

Read: John 10:1-12

So they said to him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" (John 9:10 ESV)

Unfortunately, at least for people like me, not everything can be figured out. The trick is in coming to realize that this is actually a good thing. When Jesus healed a blind man the know-it-alls and elitists felt compelled to gain an intellectual understanding of the situation.

The man was known to have been blind all of his life and all-of-a-sudden there he was with the ability to see. How did it happen? That's what the mob was interested in knowing.

And its not the first question they asked. They had previously asked about the sinful condition of a man in need of healing. Jesus used the situation to teach them the powerful truth that transgression and tragedies are not from God.

Jesus demonstrated how God takes affliction and uses it for glory. The blind man was healed. Ad everyone wanted to know how. Jesus' point was not to be found in the how but rather in the why. It's much more interesting, to understand why God would want to do something amazing for you than how he would do it.