Just came in from our old people walk/jog with the two dogs. Now for some breakfast. Then it’s a matter of sorting out which way to jump in response to our overwhelming volume of work. Whew!
Are you kidding me?! What’s going on here?! Miraculously healed of absolute blindness instantaneously?—by a gracious gift of God?—and I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut?!? What possible value is there in keeping people blind to my seeing? How is that even possible? When someone asks how I came to see when they know I’ve been blind, am I supposed to lie?—maybe tell them a made-up story?...something like, “My donkey made me so mad I couldn’t see straight, and when I got off to beat his hind end, he kicked me in the head, and poof!—I could see!” If I tell the truth, am I then a disobedient servant? If silence or fabrication is truly what’s required of me, I would think it’s a lot easier just to stay blind!
Without doing research into the original language and consulting commentaries, I’ll venture to proceed with my own judgment—until a better view emerges. I think Jesus knew full well that He was stating an absurd impossibility—that the drive to share with others a story of miraculous deliverance would be compelling. And perhaps that identifies the value for this strange command being given. After all, how can I possibly not sing, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me,” if it is also true that “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see?”
I suppose there is a possibility that a technicality could be lost in the translation—that Jesus really meant that these guys not broadcast all over the place that He was the Messiah. But even that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Whatever the case may be, their addressing Him in the first place as “Son of David” (v. 27) was a strong equivalent to “Messiah.” Somehow these blind guys came to see a lot more clearly than most Who Jesus really was. That clarity would surely have come more by means of spiritual revelation than by their personal knowledge of Jesus’ family line.
To be sure, when we honestly come to God on His terms, in true worship and surrender, he has ways of turning our lights on. The dramatic difference between living in the dark and living in the light (born again) is like the difference between being blind and seeing. That is the essential change that inducts us into the role and function of being “the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). Let’s allow Jesus Himself to expand on that idea from the THE MESSAGE translation: “You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand — shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven”
(Matthew 5:14-16 from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)