John 9:21-34

That this man was healed meant very little to them. In fact, they were most upset that he was healed, that Jesus chose to heal this man on the Sabbath day. They were more concerned about their forms, rituals, and traditions. They showed no real care for this man’s pain, misery, and inconvenience, the agony of being blind and completely dependent on others from birth. It’s so strange that after he was miraculously healed, they then wanted him to disavow and denounce Jesus. They now even doubted that he was born blind.

They made it into a federal case even calling in his parents to verify that this was indeed their son and if it was their son, they now queried if indeed he was born blind (v19). They would rather believe that this man was pretending and that his parents were involved in some sort of massive collusion than believe that Jesus miraculously gave sight back to this man.

It is amazing what people would do even today to minimize and explain away the power of God, whenever and wherever it shows up. Any excuse, not to believe God, especially the religious people! They led the brigade in minimizing the miraculous and excommunicating this new believer from the house of worship. Instead of being excited for the manifestation of the miraculous, they became furious and intensely irate.

Thank God this man was able to think for himself and speak up for himself. His parents when interrogated by the Pharisees who meant to intimidate them, said as much “. . . he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself” (v21). He was devoid of sight not of speech. His parents so knew him. They declared “… he shall speak for himself.” I trust they shall know that we will speak up. We will speak for ourselves! We shall give witness and testimony to our own experiences! When they try to contradict what we know and have experienced for ourselves, we shall defiantly, loudly speak up and speak back, regardless of how they feel about it and how angry they become. The miracles embolden us to speak up.

We have just been through too much to allow people to now come and minimize our God and dismiss our miracle. We speak truth to power even at the risk of being put out. The more they tried to demonize the Christ is the more this formerly blind man witnessed and stood up in His defense. They couldn’t shut him up. He unhesitatingly declared “. . . One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see” (v30). He also undauntingly fired back at the religious establishment, “If this man were not of God, he could do nothing (v33).

Now is no time for us to allow the church to be pushed into a corner and for us to be silenced. We speak for ourselves, declaring the miraculous Christ in our midst. We just have to tell them what He has done for us and what He means to us. Let them denigrate and deny all they want to. We will forever venerate and testify to His miraculous grace and healing power. We shall speak for ourselves. When they cast us out Jesus the Almighty, shall stand in our defense (v35). We speak for ourselves!