A Blind Man’s Story

By George Dalton

Barnabus and Sara were in love, he saved his money to pay the price for his bride, now they were married. Life was wonderful he’d served as an apprentice to the cobbler and tanner, now he owned his own shop. He was a businessman, and Sara was in love with him. One day he came home from work and Sara met him at the door. He could see the excitement in her eyes,

“What is it my darling?”

“We’re going to have a baby, I saw the midwife today, and she agrees, we’re going to have a baby.”

He started to grab her up and swing her around the room, then thought, OH I can’t do that anymore. “That is wonderful my darling, if it’s a boy he can grow up strong and become an apprentice in my shop. If it’s a girl she’ll be beautiful like her mother.” Sara said, “We must tell our parents they are soon to be grandparents. My papa will love being a grandfather, my mother will be making baby clothes by tomorrow.”  “ It is sad that my papa didn’t live to see his first grandchild,” Barnabus said, “but my mama’ll be excited.”

The next few months flew by, there was the first kick felt in Sara’s belly, they could hardly wait for the day when he —- or she would be born. Finally the day arrived, Barnabus was shooed out of the house and the ladies took over, the midwife was summoned, and all he could do was wait. He took his prayer shawl with him and he invoked the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and thanked God for giving him a family of his own. He prayed that he would be a good father and a good husband for Sara. After a time that seemed eternally long he heard a baby cry, “is it a boy, or is it a girl?”

Soon the midwife came to the door and motioned him back into his own house. As he gingerly walked in she handed him a little bundle all swaddled in a blanket she saying “Barnabus you have a fine baby boy.” His heart sang as he cradled the little bundle to his chest, then he looked to his Sara, she was smiling as wide as a river. The first few weeks were a dream, with diapers, feeding and sleeping, Sara noticed something was wrong. When Barnabus came from his shop she said, “Look at little Mathew’s eyes, something is wrong.” Looking closely he could see something wasn’t right, little Mathew’s eyes didn’t focus he just had a blank stare. They bundled him up and took him to the midwife, who looked at him and declared, “Sara your baby is blind.” How could that be, the theory was if a baby was blind it was because the parents had sinned. Yet they kept the Sabbath, they observed the feast days, they paid their tithes, they observed all of the holy days, how could this be?

Soon people started to talk. Sara would take little Mathew into the market place she could feel the stares. They went and talked to the priest, he advised them to offer a special sacrifice as a sin offering for their unknown sin. Barnabus and Sara were afraid to have any more children, what if they too were born blind? Finally Sara did conceive and a beautiful little Rebekah was born, and she was healthy in every way, how happy the young parents were the stain of sin had been removed from their family.  

A few years later now Mathew was a grown man, but he couldn’t be an apprentice in his daddy’s shop, all he could do was sit on a stool and beg, for a few coins strangers would drop into his little tin cup, It was humiliating but this was all he could do. Every morning someone one would lead him to his corner and help him set his stool and he would sit there through the hot boiling sun and the freezing cold. He could hear the horses clopping by and wonder what it would be like to ride one, he could hear the young melodious voices of girls going by and wonder. “What does a girl look like?” He didn’t know, he had never seen one. He lived a sad and lonely existence. In his mind he dreamed of getting on a horse and racing with the wind in his face, but all he could do was sit there holding his little tin cup.

One day hoodlums came and knocked him off his stool and stole the few coins in his cup. Then one sad and lonely day he heard a group of men passing by, “his disciples asked Him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he would be born blind?”

The man they called Rabbi stopped and did the most amazing thing he spit on the ground and made some mud in the clay, then he rubbed it on Mathews eyes saying “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam”. For some reason Mathew took his cane and made his way to the pool and washed off the mud from his eyes and all at once he could see. At first he was confused, he could see the blue sky, flowers growing in pots in front of people’s doors, he could see people passing by, and it was the most wonderful thing he had ever experienced. Then he looked around to thank the Rabbi but he was gone.

Matthew was running around town. Therefore the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying, “Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?” Others were saying, “This is he,” still others were saying, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the one.” So they were saying to him, “How then were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash’; so I went away and washed, and I received sight.” They said to him, “Where is He?” He said, “I do not know.”

They brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind. Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also were asking him again how he received his sight. And he said to them, “He applied clay to my eyes, and I washed, and I see.”            Some of the Pharisees were saying, “This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” But others were saying, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” There was a division among them. They said to the blind man again, “What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?”

And he said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews did not believe, that he had been blind and had received sight, they called the parents, and questioned them, saying, “Is this your son, who-you-say was born blind? Then how does he now see?”

His parents answered them and said, “We know this is our son, and he was born blind; but how he now sees, we don’t know; or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, was to be put out of he synagogue. For this reason his parents said, “He’s of age; ask him.” 

A second time they called the man who had been blind, and said to him, “Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner.”

He then answered, “Whether He’s a sinner, I don’t know; one thing I do know, I was blind, now I see.” As recorded in John chapter 9.

Jesus didn’t just cure his sight; he gave him back his life. To all of us who are suffering from the disease called sin, Jesus offers our life back, if the world looks dark and dreary come to Jesus and you will see the world in a whole new light.