Sunday 23rd June
Read John 9:13-17
“They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. ‘He put mud on my eyes,’ the man replied, ‘and I washed, and now I see.’
16 Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’
But others asked, ‘How can a sinner perform such signs?’ So they were divided.
17 Then they turned again to the blind man, ‘What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.’
The man replied, ‘He is a prophet.’” (NIVUK)
Have you ever wondered how many people would know who Jesus was if you asked them? Maybe they only know it as a word people say when they are exasperated or angry. Maybe they know He has something to do with Christianity but not much more than that. Even Christians avoid saying His name in general conversation, for a range of reasons perhaps, but maybe to avoid embarrassment too?
I have been reflecting on that question as we consider John 9. If you read the whole story carefully, you will find Jesus at the beginning, answering the disciples’ question and granting sight to the man born blind, and briefly in the blind man’s first response to questioning, ‘The man they call Jesus…’ (v11), but after that He is not named at all. There is an almost deliberate refusal to say His name. Jesus is the ‘who’, the ‘this man’, who was not even there.
If you read ahead in the chapter you will see Jesus does not appear at all until the events have unfolded fully (v35). Jesus seeks the man out when He hears his fate. Unlike the earlier Sabbath healing controversy (John 5) the witnessing is left to the man born blind, and he is learning how to do it as he goes! But throughout the story, the Pharisees refuse to say His name – He is ‘this man’, ‘this sinner’, ‘this fellow’, a nobody from nowhere.
I pause and think any time I find myself avoiding Jesus’ name. I wonder what my witness looks like.
