Look At What Cannot Be Seen
Illustration
Stories
For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. (vv. 17-18)
I officiated at a funeral once for a man named Alfred Dummer who was a plumber. When I asked his family to tell me about his life they said, Al was a simple man. He used to say, “I only know two things for sure: Friday is payday and sewage doesn’t run uphill.” Al used a less polite word for sewage.
We all form our view of reality based on what we are taught and on personal experience. Someone compiled a list once of great truths children have learned:
1) “No matter how hard you try you cannot baptize a cat.”
2) “When your Mom is mad at your dad, don’t let her brush your hair.”
3) “You can’t trust dogs to watch your food for you.”
We all have lists like this which serve to help us make sense of life and they generally serve well until we have some kind of eye-opening experience that challenges everything we thought we knew for sure.
In John’s Gospel, we read about Jesus healing a man who was blind from birth. The disciples asked him, “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”
In Judaism at that time, there was a basic assumption that if you were ill it was because somebody sinned, you or your parents. My mother used to have a similar belief. If I called home when I was in college and told her that I had a cold, she would say, “You haven’t been getting enough sleep!” Or, “If you would drink your orange juice, you wouldn’t get sick!” It was always my fault. Illness was caused by sin and I was the sinner. I stopped telling my mother when I had a cold.
Jesus challenged this basic belief that people are ill because somebody sinned. But his explanation, “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him,” raises more questions. Does God make people sick or disabled to carry out divine purpose in the world? Do we really have free will? Does the Creator save us from the consequences of our foolish choices or those of our parents? These are questions I file under mysteries of the universe that are above my pay grade. I have no easy answers, but I do know a story:
“There is an ancient Chinese legend of an old man and his only son. One night the old man’s horse escaped and the neighbors came to comfort him in his loss. “How do you know this is a bad thing?” he asked them.
Several days later, his horse returned with a herd of wild horses. Now his friends came to congratulate the farmer for his good fortune but the old man said, “How do you know this is a good thing?”
While his son was trying to tame one of the wild horses, he was thrown and broke his leg. Again the farmer’s friends gathered to bemoan his misfortune. But the old man asked, “How do you know this is a bad thing?”
Soon a warlord came seeking able-bodied youth for his army, and the farmer’s son escaped conscription because of his broken leg. In true fashion, the farmer’s neighbors came and expressed their pleasure over the farmer’s good luck. “How do you know it is a good thing?” he asked.
The prolific Christian hymn writer, Fanny Crosby, composer of such beloved gospel favorites as “Blessed Assurance,” “Rescue the Perishing,” and “To God Be the Glory,” lost her sight as a young child. But she did not lose her joy for living. As she wrote in one of her poems:
Oh, what a happy soul am I! Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world, content I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy that other people don’t,
To weep and sigh because I’m blind, I cannot and I won’t.
What we can know for sure about how God works in our lives, and in the world, depends in large part on what is in our hearts.
I officiated at a funeral once for a man named Alfred Dummer who was a plumber. When I asked his family to tell me about his life they said, Al was a simple man. He used to say, “I only know two things for sure: Friday is payday and sewage doesn’t run uphill.” Al used a less polite word for sewage.
We all form our view of reality based on what we are taught and on personal experience. Someone compiled a list once of great truths children have learned:
1) “No matter how hard you try you cannot baptize a cat.”
2) “When your Mom is mad at your dad, don’t let her brush your hair.”
3) “You can’t trust dogs to watch your food for you.”
We all have lists like this which serve to help us make sense of life and they generally serve well until we have some kind of eye-opening experience that challenges everything we thought we knew for sure.
In John’s Gospel, we read about Jesus healing a man who was blind from birth. The disciples asked him, “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?”
In Judaism at that time, there was a basic assumption that if you were ill it was because somebody sinned, you or your parents. My mother used to have a similar belief. If I called home when I was in college and told her that I had a cold, she would say, “You haven’t been getting enough sleep!” Or, “If you would drink your orange juice, you wouldn’t get sick!” It was always my fault. Illness was caused by sin and I was the sinner. I stopped telling my mother when I had a cold.
Jesus challenged this basic belief that people are ill because somebody sinned. But his explanation, “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him,” raises more questions. Does God make people sick or disabled to carry out divine purpose in the world? Do we really have free will? Does the Creator save us from the consequences of our foolish choices or those of our parents? These are questions I file under mysteries of the universe that are above my pay grade. I have no easy answers, but I do know a story:
“There is an ancient Chinese legend of an old man and his only son. One night the old man’s horse escaped and the neighbors came to comfort him in his loss. “How do you know this is a bad thing?” he asked them.
Several days later, his horse returned with a herd of wild horses. Now his friends came to congratulate the farmer for his good fortune but the old man said, “How do you know this is a good thing?”
While his son was trying to tame one of the wild horses, he was thrown and broke his leg. Again the farmer’s friends gathered to bemoan his misfortune. But the old man asked, “How do you know this is a bad thing?”
Soon a warlord came seeking able-bodied youth for his army, and the farmer’s son escaped conscription because of his broken leg. In true fashion, the farmer’s neighbors came and expressed their pleasure over the farmer’s good luck. “How do you know it is a good thing?” he asked.
The prolific Christian hymn writer, Fanny Crosby, composer of such beloved gospel favorites as “Blessed Assurance,” “Rescue the Perishing,” and “To God Be the Glory,” lost her sight as a young child. But she did not lose her joy for living. As she wrote in one of her poems:
Oh, what a happy soul am I! Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world, content I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy that other people don’t,
To weep and sigh because I’m blind, I cannot and I won’t.
What we can know for sure about how God works in our lives, and in the world, depends in large part on what is in our hearts.
