When Miracles Come from Mud Balls

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"One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!" (John 9:25)

It’s one of those strange moments in Scripture – Jesus makes a pair of mud balls and places them over the empty eye sockets of a man who was born blind, telling him to go wash his face at the pool. The man does so and – bam! – he can see!

It is at this point that the story gets really bizarre. The religious leaders become so agitated by this man’s excitement and his confession of faith in Jesus, that they ultimately toss him out of the Temple!

How ironic -- a blind man sees, and sighted men are blinded by their self-righteousness. William Yeats said, “All empty souls tend to extreme opinion.” Such were the religious leaders in Jesus’ day – empty, and extreme. And such are those who prefer religion over relationship with Christ in our own day.

Matthew Henry, the great Bible Commentator, wrote, “There is none so blind as those who will not see.” It is uncanny how quickly religious minded people fall into the snare of their own opinions. An extraordinary miracle took place right before their very eyes, but they couldn’t see it because their minds were already made up about something completely different. They were dead set against Jesus – and therefore nothing He did could possibly be legitimate. Rather than acknowledge the miracle, they excommunicated the man.

When miracles come from mud balls we each may be faced with similar challenges – especially if our opinions are so set that we cannot see what the Lord is doing in spite of us.

Henry Ward Beecher described a highly opinionated religious opponent thus -- “He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin and never seeing noble game.” Don’t let religious opinions blind you to the miracles that come from mud balls. Otherwise, you just may be the one who ends up sitting in the dark.
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