Can you just imagine, you have been blind all of your life, even from birth, and now you have a problem with the church. Well, it wasn’t called church in those days; it had another name. Just as before, Jesus had been in trouble with the religious leaders of his day; and one of the reasons was, that He dared to heal someone on the Sabbath. It was said, He was not a son of God; because He did not keep the Sabbath.

They were envious of Jesus. The truth is, they did not heal anyone; they were steeped in tradition and the laws of the church, but they had no real power. If we think about it, when all of these people from all over the entire country, began turning out by the thousands to see this man Jesus, it did cause a great deal of unrest and mistrust; in their circles. It seems a real problem with religious people, when someone has some gift or talent, that they don’t have. Those round about, brought all of their sick to this Jesus.

We can understand, that the church leaders and other religious folk of the day, did not believe in this one they thought an imposter. Just the very idea that He dared heal on the Sabbath, like on Sunday here in our present day, meant He was not of God. It’s also understandable, that when our Lord called them a bunch of hypocrites and worse, they hated Him the more. He was also a son of the devil, because he could cast out devils; they couldn’t.

Even today, it is tragic, when our traditions and our way of doing church, is more important than following the lead of the Spirit. I don’t know how it has entered into the heart of man, that if I do not possess certain gifts or powers, I have to debase or smother someone else who does. This man that was healed, tried to tell them several times, what had happened to him. He said, they were not listening. He finally said at one point, I don’t know who he was or where he came from; what I do know, is that I was blind, and now I can see. So they did the next best thing; they literally threw him out.

Even our religious orders today, have a way of casting out those who have certain signs following them. One way of doing this, is to become the sole authority in the group; casting aside anyone who may question or correct. I say this in all sincerity to those who feel they have been cast out in such a manner. There are more sick, diseased and troubled folk outside the door, than were in many of the places we came from. Many more people were healed and delivered by our wonderful Jesus Christ, than ever happened inside the halls of tradition. As Jesus said, the harvest, is yet in the field.

~ Robert Blackburn

Robert Blackburn