"Open Your Eyes!"

This is what Jesus tells the blind man in the lovely story of healing in the 9th chapter of St. John's Gospel. This is AFTER, of course, onlookers ask Jesus what "sin" the man, or his parents have committed that he would be so stricken. Isn't this always the case? We, in our humanity, always seek to find some logic in tragedy. And our feeble human logic usually starts with cause and effect: in other words, who/what is to BLAME? The reality is, this is fruitless, useless and down right illogical. Things happen. Life is life. We are not God, and although it is permissible to ask why, we have to be content with Jesus' answer: Nothing. Neither the young man, nor his parents, did anything, any 'sin' to cause his malady. Rather, Jesus says, "it is so that God's works might be revealed in him." What if we applied this to every "why" question we ask when we encounter suffering, loss and tragedy in our own lives, the lives of those around us, and in this world? Perhaps, we would learn to ask the right question, not "why" did God do this, but rather "what" is God doing in the midst of it? In the blind young man's case, God was healing through presence, power and the love of another -- God's own son, Jesus of Nazareth. Perhaps, this week is an opportunity for us to finally SEE how God operates in Christ: compassionately, kindly, lovingly, and CONSTANTLY. As His disciples, we are called to no less on his behalf. Pastor Brady Waters brings a good word on this Sunday in his examination of this passage. Come -- and SEE! a.