35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 “Who is he, sir?” the man asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” 37 Jesus said, “You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.” 38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” 40 Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” 41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

I love this man’s clarity of sight.

Even before he is healed he has more self-awareness than these intelligent Pharisees: He knows he has a problem that only God can fix. Though he could not see the visible world he sees the spiritual significance of what has happened to him with crystal clarity, in dramatic contrast to the learned scholars.

Jesus calls himself “the Son of Man” many times, but it seems that only this man sees its significance. “The Son of Man” is not just a theological term. He’s personal. He’s here now. He requires a response: the “blind” man seeks him with purpose; he asks the Son of Man to reveal himself; he acknowledges him as his Lord; he believes in him unreservedly; and he worships Jesus. Again, it’s a sharp contrast to the Pharisees who respond with hostility and a challenge.

Jesus, I want to be like that “blind” man who saw so clearly.

Written by David Cornell

9 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. 8 His neighbors 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.

Jesus firmly resists an analysis of the world which is purely cause and effect.  The world is stranger than that, and darker than that, and the light of God’s powerful, loving justice shines more brightly than that. But to understand it all, we have to be prepared to dismantle some of our cherished assumptions and to let God remake them in a different way.  We have to stop thinking of the world as a kind of moral slot-machine, where people put in a coin (a good act, say, or an evil one) and get out a particular result (a reward or a punishment).  Of course, actions always have consequences.  Good things often happen as a result of good actions (kindness produces gratitude), and bad things often happen through bad actions (drunkenness causes car accidents). But this isn’t inevitable. Kindness is sometimes scorned. Some drunkards get away with it.  Being born blind doesn’t mean you must have sinned, says Jesus. Nor does it mean that your parents must have sinned. No: something much stranger, at once more mysterious and more hopeful, is going on. The chaos and misery of this present world is, it seems, the raw material out of which the loving, wise and just God is making his new creation.

New creation always seems puzzling. Nobody in the story could quite figure out whether the man was the same or not. Sometimes when people receive the good news of Jesus it so transforms their lives that people ask the same question: is this really the same person? Can someone who used to lie and steal, to cheat and swear, have become a truthful, wholesome, wise human being? The answer is yes, this can and does happen.

Father may we experience Your new creation life so deeply that we are never the same again and people do not even recognise us!

Written by Ps. Richard Botta

39 “Abraham is our father,” they answered. “If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. 40 As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. 41 You are doing the works of your own father.” “We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.” 42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

The old saying ‘actions speak louder than words’ rings just as true now as it did for the Pharisees speaking to Jesus. We may be able to kid ourselves, but our behaviour and actions reveal our heart. A label or signing a church membership doesn’t mean I belong to Christ. While I can’t live worrying what others think, I hope the way I live reveals that I follow Jesus. I need to make sure my behaviour lines up with what I say. Jesus burned the people he speaks to here, but I want him to proudly say to the Father ‘I know her, see, she belongs to us’. Jesus is speaking of a relationship, knowing the Father, not just knowing about the Father. I want to live with patent integrity. I want people to see Jesus in me.

Heavenly Father I thank you for all you have done for me. Thank you I can belong to you. Help me Lord to follow you faithfully. May I always bring Glory to your name, in Jesus name Amen.

Written by Christine Knight

21 Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.” 22 This made the Jews ask, “Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, ‘Where I go, you cannot come’?” 23 But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.” 25 “Who are you?” they asked. “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied. 26 “I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.” 27 They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. 28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” 30 Even as he spoke, many believed in him.

Tough crowd! Jesus has an up hill battle with this lot. They just didn’t get it. Jesus, God the Father, His ascension, where He came from, their sin and consequent death if they don’t believe – none of it.

They even asked “who are you?”

But people were still listening. People were still believing! (See verse 30)

I need to remember this. When I have those conversations about my faith that I think are going nowhere, badly even, who knows who could be listening. God only knows who could be believing, even as I speak. I just need to speak!

Thanks Lord, that you waste nothing. Please take all my words and efforts to share my faith – even the ‘bad’ ones – and use them to rescue people. Amen.

Written by Boudy Van Noppen

[The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53—8:11. A few manuscripts include these verses, wholly or in part, after John 7:36, John 21:25, Luke 21:38 or Luke 24:53.] 53 Then they all went home, 8 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

This whole episode arises because the scribes and Pharisees want to trap Jesus, want a basis for accusing him, in order to discredit him and even to remove him from public life altogether – whether by imprisonment or death, no doubt. Jesus turns what is a terribly humiliating and deliberately destructive set of actions into a moment of redemption, love, and healing.

This passage is a direct affirmation of the promise made of God in Romans 8:28 – that he makes everything work out for His good. The key is, though, that He can and does. If I was in Jesus’ shoes in this episode, I would have been hard pressed as to how to handle the whole situation. Not my Jesus!

That’s why I trust in Him, I listen to Him, and I follow Him. And when I, or those around me, are hard pressed in tough situations like this woman found herself in, I come to Him – “Jesus, work this out for your good purposes! Give breakthrough wisdom, that silences the arrogant and foolish, and that heals and restores the broken and needy. Amen”

Written by Ps. Rob Waugh