There’s a particular story in the Bible that speaks to me about my own journey these days. I’m talking about the man born blind, whom Jesus healed. (I’m going to summarize his story in my own words here, but you can find the actual account in John chapter nine if you want to check my facts.)

The story goes that as Jesus was walking by, He saw a man who had been born blind. He spat in the dirt and made mud out it, put it in the man’s eyes, told him to go wash in a certain pool, and when the man did it, he could see. It’s an interesting way to perform a miracle, and discussion Jesus had with His disciples concerning it is interesting, also. But what really has gotten my attention is what is in the rest of the chapter, all the stuff that happened to the guy after he got healed.
You see, the Jewish leaders had a problem with Jesus; His presence was becoming a threat to their influence and to their way of doing things. So they were already looking for something to nail Him on. With this miracle, Jesus technically broke one of their rules by healing this man on the Sabbath (I guess they considered it “doing work”). They wanted very much for this so-called healing not to be legitimate, because it would legitimize Jesus Himself. So they decided to capitalize on this “obvious” disregard for the Law, and do everything they could to discredit Jesus.

They started by interviewing the man. That didn’t help much, because all he could say was, “He put mud in my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see,” and that He believed that Jesus was a prophet.

Then they tried to say the man was faking it, that he really hadn’t been blind, so there really hadn’t been a healing at all. (After all, God certainly wouldn’t have violated His own Sabbath rule to heal someone.) That idea fell flat when his parents were summoned, and they attested that the man had, in fact, been born blind, and they declined to give further comment on how he could see now (today, we Americans call that “pleading the Fifth”).

So the religious leaders’ next tactic was to interview the man again, and basically say, “Okay, so you’re healed. We can’t explain why God used a sinner to do it, but give glory to God, and not to this man we know to be a sinner.” To that, the formerly blind man simply said, “I don’t know if He’s a sinner or not; all I know is, I was blind and now I see.” In other words, the evidence speaks for itself.

By this time I think the religious leaders were getting desperate and nervous. I say this because when I’m nervous I have a tendency to repeat myself, and that’s just what they did. They asked the man again how Jesus had healed him, to which he answered, “I told you that already; why are you asking again? Do you want to become His disciples, too?” That word “too” was very important, because in that one word, the healed blind man took a stand, and let it be known that he was now a follower of Jesus.

The lines had been drawn, and at that point nervous desperation boiled over into open hostility. The Jewish leaders “reviled” the man for his profession of faith, which basically means they abused him verbally. They let this guy have it, and I personally believe they were saying things they wished they could say to Jesus Himself, but were afraid to because He was so popular.

Emboldened by his own profession of faith, the once-blind man said a few more choice things that essentially affirmed the validity of Jesus’ miracle and exposed their hypocrisy. At that point, the religious leaders did the only thing religious leaders can do when faced with someone they don’t know what to do with: they kicked him out. And I don’t mean they asked him to leave; they kicked him out of the synagogue for good, essentially excommunicating him.

Now here’s my favorite part. When Jesus found out what happened to this guy, He went and sought him out. He asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

“Who is He, that I might believe in Him?” the man answered. (Remember, the man had still been blind during their previous encounter, and had never actually seen Jesus.)

Jesus said (in so many words), “It’s Me.” And the man worshiped Him.

Don’t miss the significance of this. When the religious system rejected this man, God Incarnate went and found him and invited him into relationship apart from the religious system. Most people go to the religious structures to find God, but here, outside the system, God actually went and found the outcast. As a result, the healed blind man found a relationship more real and pure and powerful than anything the Pharisees could boast about. And then Jesus drives the point home with an incredibly profound statement:

“For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see; and that those who see may become blind.” (Jn. 9:39, NASB)

In this statement, Jesus reveals why He brought healing to this man the way He did. He did it out of compassion for the man himself, but He also used the healing of this man’s physical blindness to expose the spiritual blindness of the religious leadership. You see, the real reason the Jewish leaders were so infuriated with the once-blind man was that his very presence exposed who could really see, and who was really blind; and they simply could not stand that. When the blind man saw, he saw more than just the physical; to him, it was apparent who Jesus was, and even before he saw his physical being, he believed in Him. But the Jewish leaders grappled with their technicalities and stumbled over the miracle; their spiritual eyes blinded by religious mindsets, they simply couldn’t accept the obvious truth that stood before them.

That’s exactly what religion does to us: it blinds us. The religious forms of Christianity have a way of putting filters over our eyes so we often can’t see the real Jesus for who He is. So when God shows up outside our systems, we simply don’t know how to handle it. (The problem is, God shows up outside the walls all the time.)

I relate to the healed blind man for several reasons. I relate because I know what it is to be spiritually blinded by religious mindsets; I used to be the Pharisee that would have thrown him out. I relate because in my journey, I feel like Jesus has put mud in my eyes, and all of a sudden my religous formulas were failing me. I relate because when the cleansing waters came, the religion washed off my eyes, and I could see things through a whole new lens. And I relate because now that I can see differently, I have encountered the hostility and rejection of religious leadership.

But most of all…I relate because I have found Jesus, alive and well, outside the religious systems, or rather, He has found me. And I have a deeper walk with Him outside of religion than I could ever have had inside it.

My spiritual blindness has come off in layers; every so often I feel another application of mud, and I have to go wash again. But each time, I see more clearly. And when I see, I simply cannot go back to the way things were, nor do I want to. I was blind, and now I see, and some people will not like that. But Jesus has met me outside the walls, and invited me to believe in Him all over again. It turns out Jesus can still be found walking around outside our institutions. He still is among the prostitutes and sinners, even when they don’t recognize Him. And He is still helping blind people see.

I never knew Jesus was out here. He is beautiful in this light.

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Musician. Composer. Recovering perfectionist. Minister-in-transition. Lover of puns. Hijacker of rock song references. Questioner of the status quo. I'm not really a rebel. Just a sincere Christ-follower with a thirst for significance that gets me into trouble. My quest has taken me over the fence of institutional Christianity. Here are some of my random thoughts along the way. Read along, join in the conversation. Just be nice.