Читать книгу Encounters with Jesus - Ben Witherington - Страница 11

CHAPTER FIVE

THE MAN BORN BLIND

It is impossible to tell you what total darkness is like unless you have spent a long time deep in one of those caves in the cliffs of Arbel near the sea of Galilee. Your mind still has ideas about shapes of things since you can pick them up and feel them, but even the sense of touch can be deceptive. You remember the old story about three blind men who approached an elephant and were asked what he was like. One touched the elephant’s ear and said an elephant is like a large palm leaf. Another felt the elephant’s tusk and said the elephant was like a shophar, a ram’s horn which we hollow out and use as a horn to blow at festival time. Still another one felt the elephant’s tail and said an elephant was like a rope. Of course they were all basically wrong. The elephant as a whole was not really very much like any of these things.

But there are other problems with being blind besides not being able to figure out the outside world. If you are a devout person and you keep hearing the stories in Torah about G-d’s light which he created, G-d’s revelation which is sometimes called light, you feel left out because you have never seen the light, nor can you read about it. You can only listen to others tell about it. It makes you feel like you have been left out of G-d’s plans. The Scriptures may say, “The people who dwell in darkness have seen a great light,” but I could never say that before Yeshua came along and put mud on my eyes. And even then few would know my story if Yeshua had not come to me again after I was expelled from the synagogue so I could see him finally face to face, and honor him for what he had done. Even then, few would know my tale if it had not been for Yeshua’s Beloved Disciple, Eleazar, who lived near me, in Bethany, and asked me, some years after Yeshua had gone to be with G-d, about what had happened. Here is how he told my story . . .

“As Yeshua went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’

“‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Yeshua, ‘but this happened so that the works of G-d might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’

“After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. ‘Go,’ he told him, ‘wash in the Pool of Siloam’ (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

“His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, ‘Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?’ Some claimed that he was.

“Others said, ‘No, he only looks like him.’

“But he himself insisted, ‘I am the man.’

“‘How then were your eyes opened?’ they asked.

“He replied, ‘The man they call Yeshua 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.’

“‘Where is this man?’ they asked him.

“‘I don’t know,’ he said.

“They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Yeshua had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 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.’

“Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from G-d, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’

“But others asked, ‘How can a sinner perform such signs?’ So they were divided.

“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.’

“They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents. ‘Is this your son?’ they asked. ‘Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?’

“‘We know he is our son,’ the parents answered, ‘and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.’ His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who already had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Yeshua was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. That was why his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask him.’

“A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. ‘Give glory to G-d by telling the truth,’ they said. ‘We know this man is a sinner.’

“He replied, ‘Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!’

“Then they asked him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’

“He answered, ‘I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?’

“Then they hurled insults at him and said, ‘You are this fellow’s disciple! We are disciples of Moses! We know that G-d spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don’t even know where he comes from.’

“The man answered, ‘Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that G-d does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from G-d, he could do nothing.’

“To this they replied, ‘You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!’ And they threw him out.

“Yeshua heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’

“‘Who is he, sir?’ the man asked. ‘Tell me so that I may believe in him.’

“Yeshua said, ‘You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.’

“Then the man said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him.

“Yeshua said, ‘For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.’

“Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, ‘What? Are we blind too?’

“Yeshua said, ‘If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.’” [John 9]

It was true, that there are no miracles in the Torah about sight being given to a person born blind. It was also true that some of our teachers had said that a person who could do that must be G-d’s anointed, or at least the last great Elijah-like prophet who was to come before the Day of the Lord. So I was very ready to recognize Yeshua by whatever title he preferred.

Yet it is ironic that my newfound sight, as great a blessing as it was, created immediate problems for me—I was not prepared to denounce my Healer, and I was also not prepared for my parents to not stand up for me. I became a man expelled from the two places I most wanted to be—my home and my synagogue.

Fortunately, some of Yeshua’s followers came to me not long after his death and resurrection and persuaded me to join their number. I was happy to have a spiritual family again. I learned the meaning of the saying of Yeshua—“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household” [Matthew 10]. Such was the price I paid for becoming a follower of Yeshua. It was a heavy price to pay.

As Yeshua suggested, there is more than one kind of blindness, and the worst kind is spiritual blindness, not physical blindness. Even worse still is claiming to have seen the light of G-d, and in fact not telling the truth about it. This is why Yeshua said what he did about those Pharisees, who elsewhere he called play-actors, hypocrites who appear to be and act one way, but actually are another. Their spiritual blindness was not allowed as an excuse since they claimed to “see” truly the things of G-d. There is nothing worse than the spiritual blind becoming leaders, leading those who are blind, not yet enlightened. This is an even greater darkness than I have ever experienced.

Sometime later, the Beloved Disciple shared a saying he had written about Yeshua, and it speaks of both the tragedy and the triumph that came from his appearing—

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of G-d—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of G-d.” [John 1]

Though I am old now, I feel like my life began over again, when I first splashed water from the Pool of Siloam on my face, and began to see, truly see, the meaning of my life. I have often wondered why Yeshua gave me the task of going to the pool and washing out my eyes, when he could have just touched me. But lately it has dawned on me that perhaps he wanted me to participate in my own healing. If you don’t you will never be enlightened, never understand. Thank G-d I both began to see the light, and began to understand who the true light of the world was, on that day.