One Thing I Do Know
Like most kids who grew up with Christian parents, my name came from the Bible. We wear our names as a sign of our parents' faith, an ever-present reminder that we come from a lineage of belief. The Bible is filled with names of people who God used in beautiful and powerful ways.
But the name of one of my favorite characters in the Bible is never mentioned. A full chapter in the Gospel of John is devoted to his singular encounter with Jesus, but no name. All he got was a self-explanatory title and unembellished back story rolled into one uncreative moniker: The man born blind. (I've thought about it, but I have to admit "Bornblind" would be a terrible baby name for any future children).
The man born blind was a beggar when he encounters Jesus and his disciples. Without much fanfare, Jesus spits in the dirt, puts the mud on this man's eyes, and tells him to wash in the Pool of Siloam. Instantly the man can see. But before the man can even adapt to this bewildering world of light and color that he has been thrown into, he finds himself in the center of a religious controversy.
Healed on the Sabbath. By a man who was controversial wherever he turned. The religious leaders latch onto the beggar-turned-miracle-boy.
"So for the second time [the Pharisees] called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.”
He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”
(John 9:24-27)
I like to imagine that I would have been friends with this man if I ever met him. Even two thousand years and multiple translations later, you can sense that he's witty. He's the Jim Halpert of the Gospel of John. Dryly sarcastic in the face of people who could quite literally ruin his life. He's fearless and human and his faith is simple and powerful.
I like the man born blind because he reminds me that there are times when, instead of overthinking, I just need to celebrate.
In the face of the clear and overwhelming power of Jesus, the man born blind didn't need to form a treatise on why this stranger had the power to heal him. He only needed to know that light was entering where a lifetime had only registered darkness. Shapes and colors forming where there had minutes ago been emptiness.
When challenged by men who were self-proclaimed experts on God and His law, this man had nothing to defend himself with other than the obvious: he had been blind all his life and now he wasn't blind anymore.
Sometimes I'm afraid of being asked the question, "Why do you believe?"
It feels like that question deserves an answer that is absolute and convincing. An answer that has points and subpoints and a thorough, undeniable conclusion.
But maybe I need to take a page from the man born blind and learn to say "I don't know."
I don't know why I believe when other people don't. I don't always know how to make sense of the multifaceted and incomprehensible God of the Bible. I don't know why people do terrible things in the name of Jesus.
But one thing I do know: I was blind and now I see.
I was floundering in my selfishness and now I have peace.
I was carrying the weight of perfection and now I am free of it.
The man born blind may never have a baby named after him, but he understood something powerful about faith. That faith is found in bursts of light and color. And that nothing matters more than the One who breaks through our darkness.
