Friday 21st June
Read John 9:8-12
“His neighbours and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, ‘Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?’ 9 Some claimed that he was.
Others said, ‘No, he only looks like him.’
But he himself insisted, ‘I am the man.’
10 ‘How then were your eyes opened?’ they asked.
11 He replied, ‘The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.’
12 ‘Where is this man?’ they asked him.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.” (NIVUK)
The blind man now finds himself, through his simple act of obedience to Jesus (v11), in a rather questionable position. The change in his circumstances is so great that people question whether he is even the same person. They knew him as he once was, but the transformation is so amazing they question their own eyes!
The blind man had but a glancing encounter with Jesus, all he knew was Jesus’ name and that Jesus granted him sight. He will learn, and we will learn with him, what it means to witness to Him. At the beginning of the story though John challenges us to consider what it means to be transformed by encountering Jesus.
We too are called, and even placed, in the same questionable position. Did your encounter with Jesus transform you in such a way that people who knew you before doubted whether they knew you at all?
