DARKNESS AND LIGHT
Opening Prayer
Lord, only You can restore sight to those in need of it.
Read MATTHEW 9:27–34
27 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”
28 When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
“Yes, Lord,” they replied.
29 Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”; 30 and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” 31 But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.
32 While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. 33 And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
34 But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
“You will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pet. 1:19).
Think Further
To Matthew, the miracle stories in this collection (Matt. 8:1—9:34) fulfill Isaiah’s prophecies. Soon he will record Jesus’ own response to John the Baptist (Matt. 11:4–6), declaring that the acts of Jesus fulfill Isaiah’s end-time visions when the blind see and the mute speak (Isa. 35:5,6). To complete his build-up to Jesus’ declaration, Matthew must first include the healing of the blind and the mute. Matthew tells these stories succinctly, probably to stress Jesus’ actions and the crowd’s reactions. While admiration and amazement are not yet faith, faith can follow, whereas the Pharisees’ response (34), attributing miracles to the devil, is a hardened resistance to faith.
Restoring sight to the blind is significant at several levels. Jesus shows his compassion for those suffering from blindness and its resulting shame and exclusion. As we have seen, however, these miracles have deeper significance. They did indeed happen (they are not allegories), but they also speak to us at a spiritual level. They resemble true-life parables, which as a child I was taught were “earthly stories with a heavenly meaning.”
Blindness and sight are an important word pair, part of the fundamental opposites of darkness and light, Scripture’s most potent images. Matthew’s readers would grasp the parallel between themen’s blindness and their spiritual condition. “Son of David”, among Matthew’s most frequent titles for Jesus, is consciously part of his own title for his Gospel. The blind men’s appeal to that Messianic title prompts the reader to recognize this as the blindness of believers. The messageof the miracle is for insiders, not outsiders. Spiritual blindness is always a threat to the church. Deliverance comes when those Christians with darkened vision turn to the risen Christ and fully put their faith in him, allowing him to restore their full sight.
Apply
“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6)
Closing prayer
Lord, the psalmist said that You open the eyes of the blind (Psa. 146:8). Fully open our eyes so that no darkened spiritual vision remains.
Click here to sign up to receive the EXTRAs via email each quarter.
© 2024 Scripture Union U.S.A. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission is prohibited.
Encounter with God is published in the USA under license from Scripture Union England and Wales, Trinity House, Opal Court, Opal Drive, Fox Milne, Milton Keynes, MK15 0DF.