Sunday, January 8, 2012

January 8th

Yesterday I read this:

"Then He (Jesus) came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him to touch him. So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town."

Mark 8:22-23

The twenty third verse continues on, but my whole attention stopped at the last sentence.

Imagine being blind and having Jesus take you by the hand- your outstretched fingers securely enclosed His warm and calloused hand.

For some reason, I imagined it being very quiet, and hot with the sun of mid day.

And all one can hear is the distant bleating of sheep and the voices of some neighbor women drifting through their open window, and maybe the sound of the wind on the hills around the village.

There are the smells of stones baking in the sun, and sheep dung. There must have been the smell of fish and water, because it was a fishing village, and the smell of unwashed men.

The blind man- would he have walked along slowly, clinging to the hand of Jesus, this mysterious Teacher and his only hope? Perhaps behind them walked the blind man's friends and the disciples, maybe talking together quietly.

Maybe, as soon as Jesus took his hand, the blind man would have forgotten all his anxieties, his desperate hopes and even his suffering. Maybe everything in him would have become quiet and still, and warm from the sun.

If Jesus spoke to him, the voice of Jesus, as He directed the blind man along the path, would have been so quiet and calm, and somehow so dearly familiar, that I doubt the blind man would have startled.

But perhaps he would have been surprised when Jesus stopped leading him.

Maybe, he would have thought, "Are we here already?"

And maybe, when he looked up to see men as trees, walking, and then looked up again, to see everyone plainly in the light of day, that light could not compare to the light that had already dawned within him, as soon as he took the hand of Jesus.

"I will bring the blind by a way they did not know;
I will lead them in paths they have not known.
I will make darkness light before them,
And crooked places straight.
These things I will do for them,
And not forsake them."

Isaiah 42:16