The Blind Pharisee

John 9

I never expected it could happen to me. Things like this happened only to sinners, not Pharisees, and everyone knew that when blindness struck, it was nothing more than God’s justice for a life of sin. It should never happen to a Pharisee. Never!

But it did. Over a period of years, my eyesight began to fade. There was no mistaking it. For as long as I was able, I hid this condition as best I could, keeping to familiar paths and taking extra care. For a time, no one noticed. My position of prominence in our religion was safe, but only for as long as I kept secret my failing vision.

I knew that I couldn’t hide it forever. Others would eventually know, and I couldn’t indefinitely avoid that. You see, confessing my oncoming blindness would incur the harshest judgment from my fellow Pharisees. And worse, it would put me in the company of sinners, plain for all to see. I would be exposed and viewed in the same way as lepers and blind beggars.

As my world grew increasingly dark, I kept to myself, rarely venturing out, and never alone. I even withheld it from my family for as long as possible, fearing the shame that accompanied my condition. After all, I, along with other Pharisees, had condemned the blind as sinners with little hope of redemption. Even their parents were included in our judgments, as if they were also to blame. There was no exception, and I could not hope that my position as a Pharisee would exempt me. My only comfort was that my parents did not live to witness my blindness.

You must understand that my entire life was based on a foundation of judgment. To a Pharisee, the law was much, much more than simple guidelines for life. It was to be strictly followed to the letter, almost worshiped as sacred in and of itself. Pharisees, especially, adhered to every detail of the law, spelled out in stark black and white. No, there could be no exception for a blind Pharisee.

And as I continued to ask myself why this was happening to me of all people, I heard about a man named Jesus. I suppose he could be called a rabbi, though unlike most rabbis, he was totally uncredentialed. There was nothing about him that might suggest any sort of anointing as a leader or as a source of wisdom. And so, for a time, Jesus remained in the back of my mind, though increasingly, I heard stories about his miraculous healings. Those stories included giving sight to the blind. Could I believe them? Was there any hope for me?

Feeling increasingly desperate, I began to see that there was nowhere else to turn. My fellow Pharisees, and the priests of my day would turn on me, offering nothing more than voices of judgment. Looking to them for help or even sympathy for my condition was out of the question. No, I was totally alone with my blindness and I have to say, my loneliness was a pain that was almost beyond bearing. My dark world was becoming incredibly small. And all of the respect afforded my position as a Pharisee would surely vanish overnight, leaving me in my shame as a pariah.

But what about Jesus? Could I find hope in this itinerant rabbi? Ironically, my position as a Pharisee required me to condemn him. A false narrative had been created, crafted by my brother Pharisees to discredit him. You see, our false claim that Jesus healed only by the power of Satan was actually believed by some. And our position of respect by the people weighed heavily against Jesus, who was largely unknown. I am sad to say that we used the power of that position to do all we could to paint him in the most negative light. In effect, we said, Jesus had made a pact with the devil.

Where did that leave me in my blindness? Must I live with the shame? There was no hope in the law. Could I find hope in Jesus, the healer?

I gathered the stories of his healings as covertly as possible, not wanting to draw attention to both my blindness and to my desperation. Could I believe these stories? They almost seemed too good to be true, even including the report of a man actually born blind, given sight by Jesus.

My situation didn’t neatly fit the Jesus healing stories. Mostly, he healed the poor, the destitute and the outcasts of our society. Once, he did heal the daughter of a leader of the local synagogue. But there were no times when he healed a person of elevated status. A person like me.

Christ Healing the Blind Man by A. Mironov.

And what made it worse is that he healed mostly in public, with onlookers. The sick and blind often sought him out in a crowd, asking to be healed. And even worse, he sometimes asked if they believed that he could actually heal them. A few literally knelt before him in a public act of humility. Could I do that? 

All of this would be extremely embarrassing to me. First of all, I would need someone to lead me to him. Then, I would need to ask him to restore my sight, prepared to respond that I believed that he could actually do it.

And as I pondered all of this, I began to ask myself deeper questions. After all, what did I, in fact, believe? Now that my sight was almost gone, did I actually believe that my sin had caused it? Was it truly my fault? Had I transgressed to the point that Yahweh God was punishing me by taking away my sight?

In at least one instance, the rabbi Jesus was asked that very question. Did the man born blind suffer because of his sin? Or because of the sin of his parents? Were we right in condemning him as a sinner because he was born blind? Were we justified in reducing him to begging because of our condemnation of him?

And do you know what Jesus said? He answered that neither the man nor his parents caused his blindness. Instead, it was meant to show the glory of God as he was given his sight! 

I began to consider more than just the healings of Jesus. His words, reported to me by others, began to ring true. One of the many ironies is that those reporting his words to me did so expecting me to join them in condemning Jesus. But hidden in my heart was a feeling of joy at his words of peace and mercy. There was a truth in his words that seemed to awaken something in me, something that had lain dormant for a long time. 

And please know that Jesus didn’t condemn the law. He didn’t. But he turned it on end, emphasizing the love of God and of neighbor, instead of our slavish devotion to every detail. For example, Jesus proclaimed that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. That was heretical to us Pharisees, though I had to admit that it rang true to me in my new state of blindness. And what’s more, Jesus defined love to the extreme: loving the outcast, the weak and even including loving our enemy.

In my mind, I was weighing the reasons why I might or might not approach Jesus. If I did, I would suffer even more rejection from my fellow Pharisees, and also from other friends and family. In effect, I would be a heretic, shamed for life. And of course, there would be no guarantee that Jesus could restore my sight. I could be left with nothing, nothing but rejection, even isolation, in a dark world.

I could feel time running out on a decision. Jesus, you see, had come to Jerusalem from Galilee, where he had spent most of the last three years. Now, in Jerusalem, he was attracting crowds and disturbing our religious leaders to the point of taking action against him. I wondered if Jesus knew what a dangerous course he was charting. 

I also knew that if I were to act, it would need to be soon. It was Passover week, one of the holiest times of our year. The city was filled with pilgrims and Jesus was in the temple, preaching. He was preaching words that our Pharisees and religious leaders found to be threatening to their positions of power. I knew that something would have to be done.

And as I thought it over, and considered all of the reasons not to act, which were many, there was perhaps only one reason why I should. And what was that reason? The one reason that would outweigh all of the reasons why I should not act, why I should just live with my blindness, my loneliness and my exclusion?

That reason was hope. Yes, I knew that there was no guarantee of healing. But Jesus offered hope and not just to me in my blindness, but as I was coming to understand, Jesus was offering hope to all of Israel, perhaps even to all of the world. Perhaps, as I was coming to see, I was not the only blind person in Jerusalem. Perhaps, as I was coming to understand, my blindness, as terrible as it might be, was opening the eyes of my heart to bigger truths than I had ever seen when fully sighted. As strange as it may sound, my blindness was becoming a blessing.

 I would find Jesus. My only hope was that it was not too late.

Copyright 2022 Robert Westheimer All rights reserved