We are all just beggars in a way, aren’t we? I mean, on the outside no one would know, because we look pretty much like everyone else. But on the inside, most of us are looking for something, holding up our cupped hands to those who pass by. Asking for love; asking for a listening ear; longing for security, for hope; begging for meaning and worth, for relationship, for belonging. Some days you feel more satisfied, depending on what you receive. Sometimes you just feel wrung out, impoverished, like the thin ribs of your spirit would be poking through your dirty rags if anyone actually had the eyes to see inside. And it shapes you, having to beg for a life. Pushes you into thinking and acting in ways you would rather not… but a woman has to survive in this world somehow.

And we look at the man-born-blind sitting along the road and feel sorry for him: marked by his disease, by his shame, cut off from others by his disability. They don’t even see him as a person any more. He is a fixture in the landscape, growing older and shabbier, and less noticed as the years go by. Maybe a warning to naughty children about the possible consequences of their behavior, and occasionally the subject of theological discussion as to whose guilt put him there– and somehow no one ever questions the assumption that he deserves his situation. But what about us? Were we also born to sit in the dirt and beg for our lives? Is that all we are?…all we deserve? Maybe the only difference between us and him is that the marks of his need were obvious and out in the open.  And maybe right there is the secret fear that fuels our desire to be pretty and polished, to win enough trophies to hide our neediness….we need to prove that we don’t deserve to be cast aside.

But when Jesus looks at the blind beggar, He doesn’t see hopeless or helpless. He doesn’t measure the man’s worth by his condition at all. Jesus tells his followers plainly, “This happened so that  the works of God might be displayed in him.” (John 9:3) Jesus looks at the forgotten man, and He sees past the unseeing eyes, right through to the core of who he is. Jesus sees a man created from the dust of this earth, formed by God’s creative power in his mother’s womb; Jesus sees potential, and opportunity for God to do something wonderful; Jesus touches those disease-damaged eyes with His own flesh, and tells the man simply to wash it all away, leave it behind and become someone new. He doesn’t need to beg any more.

Years later, a man named Paul experienced that power himself, how God can look at a man (who barely even knows he is a beggar on the inside), and open his eyes, give him a new life. Paul declared with confidence that “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. (1 Corinthians 1:27) Because when Jesus opens your eyes to see His face, that shapes a person too. Turns a murderer into a preacher, and a scholar into a pioneer missionary. Takes a man who thought he was “God’s gift” to the world and renames him “small, humble”— the kind of guy who could say sincerely, “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) When you have Jesus, you can stop living hungry on scraps, because He calls you friend and brother, calls you to follow Him.

So this particular beggar, who has never done a thing with his life except sit useless and beg for scraps of other people’s lives, finds unexpected reserves of confidence to stand up to the public controversy that swirls around his healing– can even shame a court of educated religious men with his eloquence: “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes….If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” (John 9:30, 33) Ironic, isn’t it, that a man who never saw anything before can look at Jesus and see the Messiah, come to heal us all from our sin, while everyone else is so busy looking at what they can get on their own. Beggars, all of them.

And I wonder if that beggar-born-blind did have one thing going for him: at least he could admit what he did for a living– knew that he was damaged and needed a fix. We should all be so brave. That’s all he needed to have, really. Jesus took care of the rest.

~~~~~~~

“Tell everyone who is discouraged, ‘Be strong and don’t be afraid! God is coming to your rescue….’ The blind will be able to see, and the deaf will hear. The lame will leap and dance, and those who cannot speak will shout for joy. Streams of water will flow through the desert; the burning sand will become a lake, and dry land will be filled with springs.” (Isaiah 35:4-7)

~~~~~~~

“The walls you’re building to keep the hurt out, are the same walls that keep the healing from getting in.” (Ann VosKamp)