Jesus Radically Transformed People

What Did Jesus Do?

“Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”
Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.”
He kept saying, “I am the man.”
John 9.8-9

His name was, well, we don't know his name. The Bible only identifies him as “a man blind from birth.” (John 9.1) Surely he must have had a name, though to many he was probably just “the man who sits and begs.” When an encounter with Jesus radically transformed the man, people had trouble recognizing him. Some believed it was the beggar, while others were only willing to say that he bore a strong resemblance to the blind man who had sat daily at the Temple and begged. All he could say for himself was, “I am the man.”

But that man was a blind beggar, “How were your eyes opened?” His farfetched report about how Jesus had anointed his eyes with mud and then sent him to the pool of Siloam to wash left the crowd demanding, “Jesus? Where is this Jesus? Point him out to us.” But this was an impossible request, for when he had met Jesus, he was still blind; he had no idea what Jesus looked like. All he knew was that doing what Jesus had instructed had resulted in him being able to see for the first time in his life. Whether or not people recognized him for who he had been didn't really matter to the man. Though he could not identify the Lord, the man certainly knew what Jesus had done for him. The opinions of others were unimportant, the man's life had been changed forever. To put it plainly, Jesus is in the transformation business.

For there are many besides the man blind from birth whose lives changed course dramatically when they met Jesus. The fishermen, Andrew and Peter, James and John, became fishers of men. Levi the tax collector became Matthew the evangelist. Saul the persecutor of the Church became Paul the planter of churches. When Jesus gets hold of someone he doesn't make a slight course correction in their life, he causes a one hundred eighty degree about face to occur. Not infrequently the change is so radical as to make the person all but unrecognizable to even close friends and family. In fairness to the skeptical crowd in Jerusalem, when Jesus is finished with us we bear very little resemblance to the person we were before we met the Lord.

And, like the man blind from birth, we too may be hard pressed for words to describe in detail what exactly Jesus has done for us. Christ's amazing grace tends to leave one speechless, other than to say something like, “I once was lost, but now am found; twas blind, but now I see.” We might not be any more able than the man blind from birth to point Jesus out to someone, but, like him, we can certainly testify about what Jesus has done for us.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4