Participants: Don Pate
Series Code: FC
Program Code: FC000023
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00:29 Hello my friend, and welcome.
00:32 I'm Don Pate from 'Between The Lines', 00:34 and it's my privilege to spend time with you 00:37 just the next few minutes 00:38 as we go under the surface of the text 00:41 in the word for a few minutes with Jesus. 00:44 And I'm just looking forward to spending time with you 00:47 as we look at John Chapter 9 today. 00:50 I'd invite you to join me in prayer 00:52 as we ask the Holy Spirit to come in and speak to us, 00:56 to give us something that will be very precious 00:59 for your heart as we study John Chapter 9. 01:02 Let's pray. 01:03 Lord, thank you so much for the rich promise 01:07 that we have that Your word is living and vibrant 01:12 and that you will energize us through the ministry 01:16 of the Holy Spirit if we spent time in the word. 01:19 And so Lord, we commit ourselves just the next minutes 01:22 we commit ourselves to spending time with Jesus 01:24 in the word and we ask You to fulfill Your promise. 01:27 This is our prayer in the holy name of Christ, amen. 01:31 Sometimes when we read the gospel accounts, 01:36 we tend to move things into our own culture, 01:39 into our own understanding, and we have to do that. 01:42 It's like translation. 01:44 Granted you and I are going to be much, much more accurate 01:48 with the scripture if we are reading the Hebrew, 01:51 if we are reading the Greek. 01:53 Hebrew of the Old Testament, Greek of the New Testament. 01:55 You know, granted if you become 01:57 a scholar in the language as you probably 01:59 are going to be closer to the original intention, 02:02 but the truth is, you know, 02:04 not many people have that opportunity, or skill, 02:06 or gifting, or time to become students of the language 02:10 and so we have to trust translation. 02:14 We take the text and we translate it. 02:16 Now the problem of course with translation. 02:18 On the one hand it's a wonderful blessing. 02:20 Whenever you translate something, it's a blessing, 02:22 because if I didn't translate it, then you know, 02:24 this personal here could not understand it. 02:27 But as soon as I translate it 02:29 and I move it over into there verbiage, 02:33 their language somewhere in between, you know, 02:36 some things get little corrupted, they get little lost. 02:39 In English let me show you how this works. 02:42 In English, 'we take a walk', 02:45 well that doesn't really make sense when you think about it, 02:48 take a walk, a take, of course in Spanish its 'dar un paseo.' 02:55 'I give a walk' those of us who are English, 02:58 because we say, 'give him a walk', 03:00 how'd you give or what well, how do you take a walk? 03:05 Its idiomatic expression and translation of course 03:08 if I literally were to take Spanish and translate it 03:11 across I'd say well, I'm going to give a walk, 03:14 in English you wouldn't understand it. 03:15 We need to translate, so that we can understand, 03:18 but as soon as we translate then we'd loose something 03:21 and certainly that is even true of the cultural identity 03:26 of the Bible, of the stories of Jesus, 03:29 because we tend to move these stories into the 21st century. 03:33 We tend to put them into our culture, onto our streets. 03:37 We tend to put it into our racial expectations, 03:40 our sociological expectation. 03:42 And if I don't, I really don't understand the story, 03:45 it doesn't mean anything to me, it doesn't speak to me, 03:47 but as soon as I do, I'm corrupting the story. 03:49 I have a wonderful book at home. 03:50 It was a gift that was given to me by Jane Dillon Berger. 03:54 She is a notorious Art Historian, 03:57 a wonderful woman in Berkeley, California. 04:00 when I was doing my graduate studies 04:02 at the center for Jews studies in Berkeley. 04:04 And Dr. Jane Dillon Berger, Jane gave me 04:07 as an act of gratitude for something I done for her. 04:10 She gave me one of these large coffee table books, 04:13 you know, you sit them out and they got lots of pictures 04:16 big books and it was called the 'Bible and its Painters'. 04:20 And it's so much fun to flip through there, 04:22 because you find things happening in the painter's mind 04:27 as he was portraying the Biblical events. 04:30 You find Mary kneeling 04:33 and she looks like a little Italian princess. 04:37 Kneeling in an Italian palace manner house 04:41 because the Italian Renaissance paint her. 04:43 To him that was his reality. 04:45 And he put Mary into that scene. 04:47 One of my favorites is done 04:48 by one of the northern European painters 04:50 he was doing a Bethlehem manger scene. 04:54 And it's so cute, because as you look at it 04:56 and there are children skating on the pond outside the manger. 05:00 There are horse drown slays going by in the snow 05:03 in front of the manger, because obviously 05:06 this man had no sense of the real Bethlehem. 05:09 He had no sense awareness of the reality of the story. 05:13 He just had transplanted the nativity of Jesus, 05:16 the birth of Jesus into his own northern European village. 05:20 Translation is a blessing, it's also a curse. 05:23 And so I think it's wonderful for us 05:26 as we have an opportunity to go back 05:28 into the gospel stories to really see 05:30 if we can understand Jesus within His world. 05:34 Jesus with the mentality of the people 05:37 who were standing around Him that day, 05:41 because then the stories begin to sing in a way 05:44 that maybe you've never heard them before, 05:46 maybe suddenly a verse will jump out 05:48 and you'll say I've heard that verse for years, 05:50 but now I understand that's why Jesus said that, 05:53 or that's why Jesus asked it this way, 05:55 If I've been around I might have done at this way, 05:57 but in His world, He did it that way. 05:58 And when we look at John Chapter 9, 06:00 there are certain things that come out from 06:03 between the lines of the text that when you understand 06:07 what was going on in the world of Jesus, 06:09 suddenly this story will begin to sing to you 06:13 as you've never heard before. 06:14 I'd invite you to take a Bible and turn to John Chapter 9. 06:17 Jesus was in Jerusalem. 06:21 It was one of the pilgrimage festivals. 06:24 He came back to Jerusalem with many people 06:27 from around the Roman world 06:29 to join together for the pilgrimage festivals. 06:32 And as He was there He passes by verse one 06:36 "And saw a man blind from birth." 06:40 Now it's terribly important. 06:42 It isn't just a blind man. 06:45 It's a man who is blind from birth. 06:50 Now in just a couple of verses here 06:52 you know, you're going to have an issue raised, 06:55 you're not even going to get out of the next verse 06:57 before you see it. 06:58 There is going to be an issue raised, 06:59 and you gonna say, I don't understand this. 07:01 What kind of stupid question is that? 07:04 Verse two, "His disciple said Master, who did sin, 07:09 this man or his parents, to cause this 07:13 to be part of his life that he was born blind?" 07:17 Now if you're thinking you say, wait a minute, 07:18 I can understand you know, his parents 07:21 maybe they did something wrong. 07:22 In fact the Mishnah discusses that even evil thinking 07:28 on the part of a pregnant woman 07:31 could potentially create an issue of a birth deformity. 07:35 but I'm not kidding that's true. 07:38 And so you might say, well, I certainly understand 07:40 how the parents might be blamed for the birth deformity, 07:44 for the birth defect of a child born blind, 07:46 but you can't blame it on the child. 07:48 I mean what in the world could he have done. 07:50 We can't prove this. 07:52 There is no documentation that will allow you 07:55 to prove this back to the days of Jesus. 07:56 But you certainly can prove it into the Middle Ages, 07:59 the early Middle Ages. 08:01 Now whether it literally came from the Second Temple era, 08:05 the days of Jesus or not, I can't claim that. 08:08 All I know is upon the foundation 08:11 of Judaism of Jesus day, upon that foundation, 08:14 later on, you know, the generations it involved 08:18 or they came to an understanding 08:19 of this and this might surprise you. 08:24 According to traditional Judaism of the early Middle Ages, 08:28 one of the definition or explanations 08:32 for why there would be a birth deformity 08:35 is related to a superstition. 08:39 The superstition supposedly is that when a child 08:42 is in the womb, in uterus that at that point 08:46 the child knows everything there is to know 08:49 about God, Al torah. 08:52 And just upon the moment of birth 08:54 according to this legend superstition in early Judaism. 08:58 That upon the moment of birth an angel will come 09:02 and touch the lips of the child in the womb 09:06 to remove from that child the knowledge of torah, 09:10 all the knowledge of God. You'd say why? 09:13 I mean wouldn't it be great to be born 09:15 in knowing everything, and know about God. 09:16 No, it's a privilege to come, 09:19 to learn, to grow, to know of God. 09:22 And so the angel, so that the child would not be deprived 09:26 of the opportunity to grow to know God. 09:29 The angel will come according to the legend, 09:31 and would take from the lips the knowledge of Torah. 09:35 Now every once a while, 09:36 of course you have a child who's little ornery. 09:37 He doesn't want to surrender his knowledge of torah. 09:40 He doesn't want to give up what he knows about God 09:42 and he wrestles with the angel and it is in the wrestling 09:44 with the angel before birth that sometimes an ornery child 09:50 will be damaged birth deformity. 09:55 Now you may have never heard that before 09:56 I can't prove, I can't know, because we can't document that 10:00 this goes back all the way to John Chapter 9. 10:02 But it might not surprise me. 10:05 I might not be completely, you know, 10:08 caught by surprise then when I see this question 10:11 who did sin this man or his parents, 10:15 because apparently sometime in Judaism 10:18 they came to an expectation that even prenatally 10:22 a child could be responsible for his own snottily nature. 10:29 Now let's go back to the text. 10:32 Who did sin this man or his parents 10:36 that he was born blind. 10:39 Now you remember the context 10:40 if you go just in the chapters in front 10:43 and the chapters in back in the story, 10:44 you'll find the context. 10:45 This is one of several places where Jesus said 10:48 I am the light of the world. 10:49 Now notice that He says that in the verse 5. 10:54 He says this in the presence of a man 10:56 who has never seen the light of day. 11:00 You may not really be aware of something. 11:02 In the Roman world, the empire of the Jesus day, 11:07 the reality of Jesus day, there was one thing 11:10 that the Romans they oh, they just desired, 11:12 I mean this was the ultimate attainment, glory. 11:17 Now you probably know in the Greek world, 11:19 in the Hellenistic world, the world of Alexander, 11:21 the Great, and his children, 11:23 his heirs, his followers. 11:26 You probably know that in the Greek world 11:29 the ultimate attainment was wisdom. 11:34 The Old Testament into the New Testament 11:36 reveals to us over and over again, 11:38 that within the Hebrew mind the ultimate attainment 11:42 the thing to be desired was light. 11:49 Light is precious from the second verse 11:51 of the Bible onward, access to light. 11:55 And if you think about that think of all the passages 11:58 you know in the Bible about light. 12:01 There is something very powerful 12:03 in the sense of the mind of the Bible writer 12:06 about the concept of light. 12:09 And Jesus said, I am the light of the world 12:13 in the presence of a man who had never seen 12:16 one ounce if you can use 12:19 ounces of sunshine in his life. 12:23 I am the light of the world. 12:24 And when he had thus spoken, verse 6. 12:27 Here he goes, "When he had thus spoken, 12:30 he spat on the ground, and made clay." 12:34 It's curious. 12:36 What is Jesus doing spiting on the ground to heal a blind man? 12:39 I mean how many miracles did Jesus performed 12:43 where He didn't even have to be in the same town. 12:47 Jesus did not have to touch people to heal them. 12:53 Jesus himself didn't even have to be proactive to heal him. 12:56 We even have the story-- of course the woman 12:58 who reached out and touch the hem of His garment 12:59 and she stole the healing if you want to use that term. 13:04 Jesus has no need to spit on the ground 13:08 to heal this blind man. 13:11 So why is He doing it? 13:14 The Mishnah tells us certain things about 13:18 the world of Jesus did bring to clarity some of these 13:22 mysteries to us in the 21st century. 13:24 One of the tractates the little booklets within 13:28 the Mishnah is the Tractate Sabbath. 13:31 Now Shabbat as we will see in the story, 13:33 this is the Sabbath day event, 13:35 this is happening on the Sabbath day, 13:37 because it comes to clay in the verses later on. 13:41 Jesus is doing this on the Sabbath day. 13:45 The Tractate Shabbat lists the areas of probation 13:50 the 39 areas, categories of probation 13:52 for appropriate Sabbath activity according to the Jews 13:56 of Jesus day what they believed 13:58 the rules that they had defined. 14:01 Now you're not gonna find these all in the scripture. 14:03 In fact the truth is that the scripture itself 14:06 if you're taking the Bible alone the Bible 14:09 is really very skeletal, very minimal in the black and white 14:15 definitions of appropriate Sabbath activity. 14:18 It gives principals more than it gives real define 14:23 you do not do this, you do not do this, 14:25 you do not-- there are really aren't that many 14:27 within the scriptures itself. 14:29 In fact as you remember Jesus himself in the gospels 14:31 got in trouble with the authorities around Him, 14:35 because His understanding of appropriate 14:38 Sabbath day activity was not the same 14:41 as what their expectation was. 14:44 And so Jesus understanding the rules of the day 14:48 the Mishnah that the things that were they understood 14:51 traditions of the people of His day. 14:54 It's all it's defined in the Tractate Shabbat. 14:57 And there are categories the things you are not to do 14:59 according to the Mishnah. 15:01 Now you don't find these in the Bible. 15:02 According to the Mishnah they believed that it was 15:06 inappropriate to go swimming on the Sabbath day. 15:11 And this may surprise you why? 15:12 Because when you swim you break the agricultural probation. 15:17 You'll say excuse me agricultural probation, 15:20 agricultural probation you see when you go swimming 15:23 you get down in the water you come back up 15:24 your swimming suit is wet, you go walking across the path, 15:26 there maybe a blade of grass, 15:28 your swim suit will drip a drip of water, 15:30 a drop of water goes off of your swim suit 15:32 hits that blade of grass you have irrigated 15:34 that little grass on the Sabbath day. 15:36 You have been involved in agriculture. 15:40 Guess what my friend when you spit on the ground 15:42 you're doing same thing. 15:44 You accidentally may hit a seed when you spit on the ground, 15:48 you've broken the agricultural probation. 15:50 More than that one another area that was disallowed 15:53 for behavior activity on the Sabbath day 15:55 was the work of the potter. 15:58 Well, if Jesus is spitting on the ground reaching down 16:01 and making clay guess what? 16:02 He's doing what a potter does, he works in clay. 16:06 In two specific areas already Jesus has already 16:10 cross the grain of the expectation of the people 16:13 standing around Him by the very fact that 16:15 He spit on the ground and He did something like 16:17 what a potter does He actually, you know, 16:18 crosses the agricultural probation in this verse 16:21 more than that why was the man there. 16:26 A man born blind, well was he begging. 16:29 We see that in a number of gospel accounts 16:31 and on in the Book of Acts that people would be 16:33 somewhere near the temple are hoping for generosity. 16:36 May you earn merit in heaven by me, they would say, 16:41 that heaven is gonna pay attention and smile at you 16:44 if you're generous with me, because I'm the broken person. 16:46 Often we saw beggars near the temple in the scripture. 16:50 If this man on Sabbath was there for a reason 16:54 for an agenda of begging then he's intending 16:56 to be involved in money exchange and that's another 16:59 crossing of Sabbath probations. 17:02 And certainly we find that in the last chapters 17:04 of the Book of Nehemiah anyway. 17:07 So in several ways there are possibilities here 17:11 of the Sabbath being desecrated at least 17:16 in the eyes of the people standing around. 17:19 But that still didn't answer the question? 17:22 Why does Jesus spit on the ground to heal this man 17:24 when He didn't have to? 17:25 Did Jesus just do it to make trouble? 17:27 That Jesus just spit on the ground, 17:30 so that these people who were standing around 17:32 who had faulty expectation could be challenged 17:36 and confronted and he'd have to look them in the eye 17:39 and say okay you know, deal with it. 17:41 This is what you think, but I'm showing you 17:42 something else, deal with it. 17:44 Was Jesus just doing it to make trouble? 17:46 Was He doing as a teaching object? 17:47 No, let me share with you something, 17:49 they had very few Christians would know, 17:50 that is such a wonderful insight. 17:52 One other things that we find in Judaism 17:57 of the Second Temple era, the days of Jesus 17:59 is 100 years before Jesus was born 18:02 and there was a great deal of messianic ferment going on. 18:06 There was lot of messianic expectation. 18:09 People were going around saying the time is at hand. 18:13 When John the Baptist step forward to proclaim 18:15 the day of the Lord, he wasn't the only one 18:17 in town who was doing that. 18:19 There were many people throughout the region 18:21 who would lay getting the same claims 18:24 and the same expectation of messianic era and age. 18:27 Beyond that there were false messiahs running around. 18:30 We actually have the name of several 18:32 within the Book of Acts. 18:34 They say well you all remember there was Judas of Galilee 18:36 and there was Thudas in there. 18:38 You know, these were supposed messiahs. 18:40 There was a lot of messianic ferment 18:43 going on in the days of Jesus. 18:47 He was not the only available choice for the people. 18:53 Jesus did something that fulfilled 18:56 a messianic expectation of the age, 18:59 a 100 years before Jesus was born. 19:02 There was a fairly common a very well known 19:05 rabbinic prophecy, a prophecy of the Rabbis 19:09 the teachers that said when messiah comes 19:12 even His spit shall bring healing of the nations. 19:18 And it was also though Jesus looked and said 19:20 look I know that this is what your plan, 19:22 I know that this is what you expect, 19:24 if this is what you expect I'll give it to you, 19:27 you know I won't do it every time but just wants 19:30 to fulfill this prophecy, so that some of you may say 19:32 wow, you know maybe this is the one. 19:36 He spit on the ground to heal the nations. 19:39 But He did on the Sabbath which is curious, 19:42 because you know that man probably 19:45 if he'd been blind for birth, he was probably 19:46 gonna be blind the next day. 19:48 Jesus could have come back on the first day of the week 19:50 and cross this man's path spit on the ground 19:53 healed him and avoided an awful lot of trouble. 19:56 So there is more to it than just 19:58 the fulfillment of the prophecy. 20:02 Verse 6, "He spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, 20:05 he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay." 20:08 Verse 7 "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam." 20:14 And the man went and by the fulfillment of doing 20:20 what Jesus asked of him 20:22 a great miracle was performed. 20:26 His faith again made him whole. 20:29 It wasn't the mud that made him whole. 20:32 It wasn't the spit that made him whole. 20:38 It was the man's faith that made him whole. 20:41 He acted upon the expressed desire of Jesus 20:48 and heaven responded and made him whole. 20:51 And he came seeing it says verse 7, 20:55 verse 8 and all the people around the neighbors therefore 20:59 they which before had seen him when he was blind, 21:04 they scratch their heads. 21:05 It says they sat and is this not the one 21:08 I mean wait a minute there is something wrong 21:12 going on here, is this real. 21:13 Have you been kidding us, have you been fooling us 21:15 ever since you were child you know you've been 21:18 making like you were blind and you're really not blind. 21:22 And we've been generous with you all this time 21:24 and it was a farce, it was a joke. 21:26 They were astounded, the people who normally 21:29 you know for years had been used to have been blind 21:32 were astounded at the fact that he was no longer blind. 21:37 And of course the rumor went right to the temple authorities 21:40 as we continue in the text, they got frustrated. 21:43 It says verse 16, some of the Pharisees 21:45 gathered together and they said this can't be a God. 21:48 Now He can't be a God why? 21:50 Because it doesn't fulfill what we think, 21:53 because God refused to stay in the little box 21:56 that we created for Him, therefore He can't be God. 21:58 That's a terribly important thing. 22:00 That to me is maybe in this story as important 22:03 as anything else for my life in the 21st century. 22:09 Is the question that comes back to me even 22:12 as a committed Christian, even as a pastor, 22:14 the question comes back to me? 22:16 Am I going to shape God to my expectation? 22:23 Make a graven image of my God, or will I allow Him to be God. 22:27 And He gets to operate and choose 22:29 as He defines not as I define for Him. 22:33 This is not of God, because it doesn't match our expectation. 22:38 This is not of God because He keep it not the Sabbath day, 22:43 not the way we expected can't be. 22:46 Can't be of God, because we have define. 22:49 We've put the parameters, the borders around 22:52 what we expect of God and Jesus you stepped outside the line 22:55 and therefore it can't be of God. 23:00 That is a very strong insight into the story my friend. 23:04 I think that every Christian should deal with that issue 23:07 to look up to heaven and honesty and said Lord 23:09 do I do that and I do I ever shape 23:12 and mold You to my comfort zone. 23:16 That's blasphemous, it's idolatrous. 23:21 And of course they called the man in for trial 23:23 as you continue on verse 22, verse 25, verse 28, verse 29 23:28 they called the man in and they say, 23:29 look how does this could done, were you really, 23:31 really, really, really blind, you know, 23:33 come on this-- just confess to us this is all a fake. 23:36 You weren't really blind, and you know, 23:38 we won't be that angry with you for lying to us. 23:41 Not as angry as we'll be if God acts in a way 23:44 that we don't want Him to. 23:48 And the man says, I was blind and of course 23:49 as you read in the stories you continue through the text. 23:52 It says well, who healed you, 23:53 and he says, how shall I know. 23:55 You know if I heard the voice again I might recognize Him, 23:58 because I couldn't see I was still blind 24:00 and I went to the pool then I could see, 24:02 I have no idea if I heard the voice again 24:04 I'd recognize the voice. 24:05 They called in his parents you remember 24:07 before the chapter ends. 24:08 And the parents were under threat of well, 24:12 there were actually three levels of rebuke within Judaism. 24:16 There was sort of a temporary slap on the wrist, 24:18 and then beyond that there was a period of reevaluation 24:23 and then beyond that there was what in Christianity 24:25 sometimes its called excommunication, 24:27 I mean just removal cut off from the society, from the house. 24:31 His parents were under risk here, because the authorities 24:35 are not happy with how things have involved, 24:37 how things have developed. 24:38 And so his parents, when his parents 24:40 were brought in they said is this your son? 24:41 Yes, he is our son. Was he born blind? 24:43 Yes, he was. Is he blind now? 24:45 He doesn't look like it, he looks like he have. 24:48 This man had never seen his mother's face. 24:53 The parents don't know how to deal with the healing. 24:57 He is adult you'll have to ask him, 24:59 we don't know whether this is of God or not, 25:01 we don't even understand this thing, 25:02 because this is all just breath taking to us. 25:05 Something marvelous has happened 25:07 but we can't explain it. 25:09 The man himself cannot explain the miracle. 25:12 The story continues. We don't know verse 29 25:18 whether this is from God or not, we just can't know 25:22 and finally the end of the story 25:24 as we come to the end of the chapter. 25:25 Jesus, he hears that voice and now he gets to see the face. 25:29 He hears the voice, he is never gonna forget that voice, 25:32 the man who said to him, go wash in the pool. 25:37 He hears the voice and the voice asks him. 25:42 Jesus asks him, verse 35 25:45 "Dost thou believe on the Son of God." 25:48 Do you really. Verse 36, "He answered and said" 25:53 I know who it is, that's basically what it says here 25:56 "Who is he Lord, that I might believe on him?" 25:58 If I knew who it was, 26:04 I would believe, but you're asking 26:07 something of me that I don't have the answer. 26:10 And Jesus verse 37 says, if we take it into 26:14 our common vernacular today, you don't look in at him. 26:20 "Jesus said thou hast both seen him, 26:22 and it is he that talketh with thee." 26:25 And the man's response verse 38, "Lord, I believe. 26:30 And he worshipped him." 26:34 It is a great story, it's a story that teaches me 26:38 that maybe I am blinded, 26:44 maybe I have such a degree 26:47 of set expectation and comfort zone with Jesus 26:50 that I need him to fit into, 26:52 you know, my little expectation. 26:55 And if Jesus ever takes me out of what I think 26:58 he should do then he becomes unacceptable to me. 27:01 Will I allow God to be God, or will I somehow try to 27:07 manipulate God to my comfort zone, that is what the story 27:13 says to me in the 21st century that am I willing for Him 27:18 to be the light and He becomes the light 27:22 that defines everything for me as to what is right 27:27 and what is wrong, what is truth, what is error. 27:31 How He feels about me. 27:34 How He feels about you. 27:37 What He sees is His dream and His destiny for you. 27:42 I'd urge you to spend time in John Chapter 9. 27:46 Go back under the surface of the story again 27:48 and put yourself into the sandals of the blind man 27:52 and say Jesus clarify my thinking, my vision. 27:57 Do it for me, please. |
Revised 2014-12-17