A little clarity here, please

On this, April 1st, AKA April's Fool Day, we take a moment to appreciate the gospel of John because John is the master of double meaning and mis-direction.  He takes a blind man, gives him sight, and plunges the unbelieving crowd into darkness.  With John, something like 'sight' or 'sees' never has only one meaning.

The man was blind from birth.  Out of the blue, he is given the gift of sight (although truthfully it must have been an enormous adjustment for him, very unsettling).  It takes him a couple of tellings of the story to figure out that this was such a miraculous occurrence that he had to have been touched by God's servant.  We watch as he progresses from calling Jesus 'a man' to 'a prophet' to 'a man from God' to 'Lord'.  His sight came immediately but his 'sight' developed over the course of the story.

Of course the dis-believing onlookers took the journey the other direction.  At the beginning they could read the eye chart at the DMV without any trouble, but any suggestion that a miracle had occurred; any suggestion that God could be at work on the Sabbath with this man and counter to all their expectations was rejected and mocked.  In the end, Jesus points out just how blind they are because they cannot see the miracle right in front of their face.  They cannot see who Jesus is.  Their blindness causes them to be separated from God; lost.

The Pharisees don't believe any of it.  They even mock Jesus when he claims they are blind.  Isn't that the way with us?  We think we are knowledgeable, faithful, pious but in truth we can't see the hand in front of our face nor the darkness which covers our vision.  I wonder if, any time we find ourselves saying, 'Oh no, God couldn't be acting like that' we shouldn't take a moment and consider this story.  We might just be missing the miracle of God at work.

It wasn't just the anonymous man who was blind from birth.  We are all born blind - and it is only Jesus who can take a little mud and create a whole new life for us.