2020-06-02 Engage Podcast - Spiritual Blindness (John 9v35-41)

In this podcast episode, Hannah and Chris discuss the events in John chapter 9 of the Bible. They talk about how Jesus healed a man who was born blind and how the Pharisees questioned him about it. They then focus on a specific verse where Jesus reveals himself as the Son of Man to the man he healed, and the man believes and worships Jesus. They discuss the significance of this moment and how it relates to spiritual blindness and the need to believe without seeing. They end the podcast by inviting listeners to join their Zoom meeting and wishing them a great day. Welcome to the Engage Podcast. Hello, hello. Well, I'm Hannah. And I'm Chris. And this is our Engage Podcast. And we're picking up in... Well, first, welcome back, Hannah. Good to have you back. Yeah, I mean... It's been a few weeks. Has it been a few weeks? It feels like it's been yesterday, actually. I think it's been two or three weeks now. Well, you know, introverts got to come out every once in a while. That's true. So we'll be picking up in John chapter 9. Last time on the Bible, we were talking about the guy who was born blind, and then Jesus healed him. And the Pharisees were like, who healed you? What's the deal? And he's like, oh, it was that Jesus guy. And they're just like, oh, this guy can't be from God, like he says, because he healed on the Sabbath. And he's like, well, I couldn't see, and now I can. So, I mean, you do the math, guys. And so they kicked him out of the synagogue. Right? Rude. Totally rude. So now we're picking it up in John chapter 9, verse 35. Okay. So this section is titled Spiritual Blindness. When Jesus heard what had happened, he found the man and asked, do you believe in the Son of Man? So basically, I guess, the man is the guy that was blind that he healed, just for reference. The man answered, who is he, sir? I want to believe in him. You have seen him, Jesus said, and he is speaking to you. Yes, Lord, I believe, the man said. And he worshipped Jesus. Then Jesus told him, I entered this world to render judgment, to give sight to the blind, and to show those who think they see that they are blind. Some Pharisees who were standing nearby heard him and asked, are you saying we're blind? If you were blind, you wouldn't be guilty, Jesus replied. But you remain guilty because you claim you can see. Awesome. Yep. I was just thinking, you know, in verse 37, when Jesus was replying to the guy's question of who is the Son of Man, Jesus literally told him that, you know, the Son of Man is me and I'm speaking to you. I mean, I was thinking if I was in that guy's shoes and, you know, Jesus revealed himself to me, I would be, like, shocked, I think. I would be, like, in awe. I would be, like, what? Yeah, I think it would have been a very powerful moment and probably not what the guy was expecting to happen to him. Totally. And doesn't it say, yeah, he felt like he worshipped then? Yeah, so it says immediately he believed and he worshipped Jesus. And I think that that's also such a powerful response, too, because I don't know about you guys, but, you know, in this world, not everything is what they seem to be. And, you know, for him to just completely, you know, believe Jesus like this is just, you know, it's amazing. Yeah, I feel like most of us in that situation would be, like you say, like in awe but also kind of skeptical where he was just like immediately he just believes or worships him and it's like, wow, that's pretty good. What do you think about that last part? I thought that was pretty interesting about where he said, like, you know, let's see where it says, I entered this world to render judgment, to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind. It's kind of an analogy from what I interpret it as. So in here, like when Jesus is saying to give sight to the blind, like obviously, you know, in this context, he actually literally gave sight to the blind. But I think it was, you know, perhaps also an analogy of calling people who actually don't know Jesus and don't know that he's the savior of the world and the creator of the world. In a sense, you could call them as blind because they don't see that and they don't know that. But then, you know, Jesus goes on to say to show those who think they see that they are blind. I think just, you know, there was, even though, let's say the Pharisees, they knew, you know, that there was going to be a Messiah and, you know, he would come again to save the world and so forth, like they knew all the theology. But a lot of, you know, human understanding kind of got clouded in. And so they thought that they knew the full truth based on what they studied in their, you know, their everyday life. But Jesus coming to show that, you know, he's not exactly who they think that he is. And there's a lot of, you know, false teaching and false beliefs there. And he was just, you know, he came to give sight to the blind, so to people who didn't know him, but to also kind of correct some of the, you know, falsehood and the beliefs that people had about him at that time. Yeah, I think it's a good analogy, too, about like, you know, elsewhere in the Bible it talks about saying the prince of this world has blinded people's eyes, meaning the devil has blinded people's eyes, right? And it's almost not so much, yeah, it's just a lot of it, like we don't, you know, we say seeing is believing, it's like an expression, right? But sometimes there's believing without seeing and sometimes you have to believe without seeing to be able to see, you know? And it's like when I always think back to when I was younger and before I had glasses, I barely saw three dimensions. I saw like two and a half dimensions, maybe at best, kind of thing, right? I had very poor depth perception, it was almost like looking at a cartoon or a drawing, like everything was basically the same distance. But I'd never seen anything else, so I thought it was normal. So the way I looked at the world, I'm like, of course this is normal. I never assumed there was anything wrong because I'd never seen anything different, right? So as far as I was concerned, I wasn't blind, so to speak, right? And it was only after sort of my eyes had been open, so to speak, with the glasses, seeing the sort of full three dimensions that I realized how much I had been missing. And I think that's like kind of like what Jesus is talking about here, where people think they've got it, they can see it all. They think they know what's going on, but they have no idea how much they're missing. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Good thoughts. Well, guys, we are looking forward to seeing you Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. in Zoom. And yeah, praying for you guys. Have a great day. God bless. God bless. See ya. Choo-choo-choo!