Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passages of Scripture. Reread them. From memory, determine the central points.
- A man born blind is forced into becoming a beggar on the streets of Jerusalem. We are not certain of his age, but we know his parents were yet living.
- One day while walking through the city, Jesus and His disciples come across a blind man and the issue comes up about whose sin caused the man to be blind. There were a number of ideas about on this issue in that day and this.
- Jesus rejects all the usual concepts and simply states that this man’s blindness will turn out to be for the glory of God. Jesus thus sweeps aside all philosophical ideas.
- Jesus’ focus for His disciples is on the work they will be sent to do, to announce the One who is the Light of the World.
- Jesus proceeds to “anoint” the man’s eyes with clay, the product of dirt and His own spittle. We note, that in another account of Jesus healing a blind man, no clay is used. (see Mark 10:46–52)
- A controversy arises since it was on a Sabbath when the sign/miracle occurs. A group of Pharisees, not the full Council of Israel, the Sanhedrin, are offended that “work” was done on a Sabbath by someone no less than Jesus who was already in the cross-hairs of the legalists. (Yes, one of the 39 Sabbath laws was broken by Jesus.)
- Upon questioning by the authorities, neither the man healed of blindness nor his parents, give any information that might be used against Jesus.
- We learn however, that if anyone were to “confess Jesus to be the Messiah,” they would be put out of the synagogue.