2017 Belmont University Lenten Devotional GuideSample

The passage from John today is one of my favorite stories in the Gospels. I love the blind man’s honesty about who he knows Jesus to be. The religious leaders try to force him into a theological debate about whether or not Jesus is a sinner and the blind man sidesteps the whole issue with a brilliant response. He tells them “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” He doesn’t know with certainty who Jesus is, but he does know that Jesus healed his vision. He had eyes to see Jesus for who he was and therefore found healing.

The irony of this story is that those with physical sight are blind to who Jesus was and the one who was physically blind saw who Jesus was. Jesus made claims and did things that shook up the social order and upset expectations, and therefore didn’t fit into the framework that some of the religious leaders had made. The blind man on the other hand allowed whatever framework he had be reshaped by who Jesus revealed Himself to be.

We face the same challenge today that the blind man faced then. We often feel forced, or force ourselves, to have a watertight response to every theological issue that arises. We struggle to sit in the tension between what we know and what we are uncertain about. Instead God calls us to bear witness to all that is “good and right and true” even if we don’t grasp the full picture, and perhaps especially when it challenges our current framework. In this season of Lent, I pray that we find the grace to loosen our white-knuckled grip on our current understanding of Jesus and let Him reveal Himself in new ways.

JOSH RIEDEL
Assistant Director of Spiritual Formation
University Ministries