Find in your nearest Bible the book called John section 9 - the whole chunk and read it through
Sometimes, I really need to know. I want it all to make sense. Who is God? What does he want with me? Why did that happen? Why didn’t that happen? Why was that person healed? Why did that person die? I would appreciate some answers, thank you very much.
I’m used to being able to get my head around things, I work and worship in university context and we like our thinking round here; we’re very good at it.
I suppose, in that way, I’m like the Pharisees. They really need to understand this miracle and more so this miracle-performer; this man who doesn’t play by the rules. They have so many questions that the healed man eventually loses it; “Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” A brave bit of sarcasm.
Do you recognise this need to know? Somehow understanding feels safer; it gives us a chance of control. When we acknowledge the unknown, surrender is inevitable.
What this story hints at is that the answers to our questions are not what bring us closer to God. They will never satisfy us fully because we can never grasp God. It is the encounters with Him that lend a glimpse of his glory. As the healed man says; ‘I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’
Jesus asks the healed man not what he knows, but what he believes. There is something more gentle, and yet more enduring, in belief. It doesn’t have the harsh certainty of knowing, and yet I think it is much stronger. To believe is not to know; it is much subtler than that. It is, perhaps, to trust in, to cleave to, to rely upon.
So, in this time of lent, may all of your prayers and none of your questions be answered.
Aileen Few
St Peter’s House Church and Chaplaincy, Oxford Road, Manchester
