Humble Hero

A Miracle on the Sabbath

The Pharisees were astonished at the cure and were filled with hatred more than ever, for Jesus had performed the miracle on the Sabbath day. HH 220.1

The neighbors who knew the young man when he was blind looked on him with doubt, because when his eyes were opened, his face was changed and brightened, and he appeared like another man. Some said, “This is he”; others said, “He is like him.” But he settled the question by saying, “I am he.” He then told them of Jesus and how Jesus had healed him, and they inquired, “Where is He?” He said, “I do not know.” HH 220.2

A council of the Pharisees summoned the man and asked him how he had received his sight. “He said to them, ‘He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.’ Therefore some of the Pharisees said, ‘This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.’” The Pharisees appeared wonderfully zealous for Sabbath observance, yet they were planning murder on that very day. But many were convicted that the One who had opened the eyes of the blind was more than a common man. They said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” HH 220.3

Again the rabbis questioned the blind man.” ‘What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?’ He said, ‘He is a prophet.’” The Pharisees then claimed that he had not been born blind. They called for his parents and asked them, saying, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind?” HH 220.4

There was the man himself, declaring that he had been blind and had had his sight restored. But the Pharisees would rather deny the evidence of their own senses than admit that they were wrong. Prejudice is that powerful, pharisaical righteousness that distorting. HH 220.5

The Pharisees had one hope left: to intimidate the man’s parents. They asked, “How then does he now see?” The parents feared to compromise themselves, for it had been declared that whoever would acknowledge Jesus as the Christ would be “put out of the synagogue,” that is, excluded for thirty days. People thought that this sentence was a great calamity. The great work accomplished for their son had brought conviction to the parents, yet they answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself.” In this way they shifted all responsibility to their son. HH 220.6