So for the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him, “God should get the glory for this, because we know this man Jesus is a sinner.” “I don’t know whether he is a sinner,” the man replied. “But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!” (John 9:24-25 NLT)Someone once said that the man with an experience is never at the mercy of the man without one. The one who has not had an experience does not know what he is talking about.
A group of boys are standing around, hanging together, doing stuff. They are scornful of girls. Girls are icky, they have cooties, only idiots go on dates, they will never fall prey to creatures like girls.
But one has fallen in love. Suddenly, girls are different than he thought. The rest try to argue him out of it, convince him that he is wrong.
But there is a difference between him and them. He has had the experience of falling in love.
When I was in the army in the late 60’s and early 70’s, people would try to tell me that being in the army wasn’t all that special, or that I was not all that different. That was, of course, the days of the big protests. But I knew better. I never went into combat, but even so, I had given two years of my life to my country and stood ready to fight if need be.
They had not.
Before I was baptized in the Spirit, I made fun of those who had been. Not overtly and maliciously, but kind of in a gnostic way. I knew better than they. Then the Lord touched my life with that baptism of the Spirit. People made fun of me and tried to convince me that it was false, but I knew better. I had been brought into a different relationship with God.
They had not.
The man in John 9 had been born blind and Jesus healed him. The religious leaders had tried their level best to convince him and even his parents who knew what he had been, that it was false. “God does not hear the prayers of sinners. Jesus is a sinner because he doesn’t do things the way we want him to. Therefore God will not hear him.”
The man knew better. After all, he had been touched by the mighty, compassionate hand of God.
They had not.
So instead of recognizing that they were lacking, they tried to tear down the one who was not lacking.
So goes the world. Those who do not love cannot understand those who do love. Those who do not give cannot understand those who give. Those who do not show mercy and compassion and forgiveness cannot understand those who do. And it goes on and on.
Those who are not in Jesus, who have not felt his love and grace, who have not been given a new life and relationship with God, cannot understand those who do. To those who have not, those who have look like fools.
And they are. It was the apostle Paul who said, Our dedication to Christ makes us look like fools, but you claim to be so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are so powerful! You are honored, but we are ridiculed. (1 Corinthians 4:10)
But I have felt the hand of God in my life. I know this: I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return. (2 Timothy 1:12)
And a man without an experience at the hands of the Almighty God is like the man who grows old never having fallen in love. He just doesn’t know.
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