The Gospels have plenty instances of Jesus miraculously healing the sick. He made the blind see, he caused the lame to walk and the deaf to hear. Those who had skin diseases were cleansed when He touched them, and those who were possessed were delivered by His words.
He also did strange things to heal some people. He pretty much spat into a blind man’s eyes to heal him, and sent another man who had been born blind to a pool to wash his eyes.
On reading the Gospels, it almost seems like no one who came to Jesus was left unhealed.
Unfortunately, that’s not true.
Unfortunately, there were some blind people Jesus did not heal.
And it almost seems like He didn’t do anything about it, knowing that they wouldn’t be healed.
I am, of course, talking about the Pharisees.
They were the religious people of His day, the ones who went to their version of church every week and who looked down on others that didn’t. They fasted more than anyone, seemed to be holier than anyone else, did everything that their religion required of them.
They imposed and forced their religion and obligations on everyone else, ostracized those who wouldn’t listen, and claimed to be the holiest of the lot.
Yet, Jesus called them blind. He called them deaf. He said their eyes could not see, their ears could not hear, and their hearts were hard.
And that, according to Jesus, is worse than any other sickness.
You see, Jesus had compassion on those who were sick. He gladly healed those who were suffering, even the ones who were known to be sinners.
But He knew the state of the hearts of these holy men, and He knew that they could not be cured from their blindness.
Things haven’t changed since Jesus’ day. We still have the sick among us – the sick who know they are sick, the blind who know they are blind and men and women who know they are sinners. Jesus longs to heal them; He longs to touch and rescue and love them.
And then there are those who are like the Pharisees.
The ones who Jesus Himself called blind, and the ones who Jesus couldn’t heal because of their blindness. The ones who are holier than others, who go to church every week and look down on others who don’t, who live to ‘perform’ their religious duties while ignoring Jesus’ call to love.
Jesus doesn’t really want to hang out with people like that.
The biggest problem with being this kind of blind is that they are also blind to their blindness.
They simply do not recognize that they are blind.
Which means, that you may be a Pharisee, and I may be one too. You may be blind right now and unable to recognize it. Right now, you may be blind to your own blindness; which is again, worse than any other sickness.
Unless you stop, examine yourself, and realize that you aren’t as holy as you thought you were.
And it is then that Jesus will heal you, and cause you to really see.
