Finding the Right Way

When hiking on a mountain, it is necessary to have a guide to help you find the right way. One option is to simply following the markings on trees and other objects to help you. Alternatively, a few times during English camps at the mountains in Romania, we had professional mountain guides who came with us on our hike, to help us find the way.

One time at a camp, on the hike to the top of Piatra Craiului, a difficult and challenging mountain to climb, it started to rain. The mountain guide got a bit worried and started to rush because he knew that once we got to the top of the mountain there was a shelter that we could hide in. He took us on an unmarked path to try and get to the top faster. However this back fired. It had some portions where you literally had to clamber over big rocks. As a result our group became spread out.

I was near the front with him. We reached a point where there was a sheer rock face. The girl that had gone on ahead had already started to climb it without a rope. The mountain guide got worried and took me to the side where there was a grassy slope that was easier to climb than the rock face. He started going up it with me, but was in a hurry and eventually left me behind. I remained clinging to a tuft of grass so as not to slip back down what was an extremely steep slope.

I spent ages dangling here in the fog. At one point, I tried to find my own way forwards but I ended up reaching a crest and on the other side there was just a sheer drop down! I shimmed my way back down and had to wait for those behind to reach me and help me find the right way forwards. Eventually, we made it to the top and met up with the mountain guide who had found and saved the girl who had gone on ahead. By this moment, the weather had started to improve so he then led us safely down off the mountain.

In John 9 we see a passage in the Bible which clearly speaks about how to find the right way in our lives in a spiritual sense. In verse 4, Jesus talks about how He has come into the world to do the work of him who sent me. We see here Jesus’ motivation for coming. It wasn’t for personal gain, pleasure or ambition. Rather, Jesus came to serve God and thus do good to those around Him, and than those who would believe in Him.

Often in our lives we can have different motivations. Sometimes I go to church with my head full of thoughts about who I need to see or what problems I need to resolve. We can be involved in Christian groups simply because we have social or other needs to fulfil. As human beings this is natural and normal but it is an important lesson to remember that ultimately the Christian life is about serving God and doing His will. We will never have perfect, pure motivation like Jesus, but at least our main focus should be on finding a way to get involved in God’s ministry in the world and entrust other needs and concerns to Him and His guidance.

In John 9, we see that Jesus’ work was to heal a man born blind. The man himself shows a certain trust and faith in Jesus. He is put in a slightly awkward situation as Jesus rubs mud on his eyes and then tells him to go and wash in a certain pool. This can’t have been easy for the man as he would have needed assistance to get to the pool, or at best have had to feel his way along slowly. Nevertheless, even if it was difficult and maybe he felt a bit foolish feeling his way about with mud on his eyes, he obeys and the result is that he is healed from his problem.

In order to experience God’s presence and guidance in our lives it is necessary to listen to and obey him. If on the mountain, we had ignored the guide’s advice and instruction we would have got lost and potentially not have made it off the mountain safely. Indeed, the girl who went off ahead and did her own thing, ended up stuck on a sheer rock face, in need of the mountain guide to lower her down a rope to help her climb up to safety.

After being healed, the man returns and is met with different reactions. Instead of rejoicing, his neighbours have mixed opinions about what has happened. They had lived a lifetime with him alongside knowing him as the bind beggar. So, when they see him healed, they raise the question in verse 8, ‘Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?’ Some people accept that it is and say so in verse 9. However, others are sceptical. Instead of believing that something miraculous has happened, they look for a different explanation. Their suggestion is that he just looks like the blind beggar. The man himself insists that this is no case of mistaken identity, or the appearance of a doppelganger or long lost twin but that he is indeed the man who formerly sat and begged. 

It is hard for them to deny his claims as he is standing healed in front of them. They enquire as to the details of how this has happened and then take him to the Pharisees so that they can investigate further. Interestingly, in spite of the evidence (the man standing before them, his testimony and that of some of his neighbours) the Pharisees don’t believe (v. 18). They are only convinced when they call for his parents who confirm that he was born blind but can now see.

Even when they can no longer deny that a miracle has taken place, they still don’t want to accept Jesus, who is said to have performed said miracle. They attempt to get the man to denounce Jesus as a sinner because He has done a miracle on a Sabbath. The man refuses and as a consequence they throw him out of their Jewish community.

Sadly, some people don’t want to believe in things, not because they don’t have any evidence, but rather because it is not convenient for them. They have ulterior reasons for not wanting to accept that something is true. The Pharisees didn’t want to believe in Jesus, not because they didn’t see any miraculous signs or hear wonderful teaching, but He just didn’t fit into their religious system and He was also drawing people to Himself, thus eating into their own power and influence.

Another classic example is the theory of evolution. Many people want to believe in it, not because it is proven fact, but because it is a way of explaining why we are here without the need for invoking the idea of a creator God. Admittedly there is some evidence for aspects of evolution, but it is still only a theory, and although some people go to great lengths to show otherwise, it doesn’t explain everything. What actually is life? What existed before the Big Bang? Why does morality exist? Where are all the transition species? (If life evolved by different species developing into other species where are all the cat-dogs etc. or at least their fossil remains?) If all we are is chemicals, what is love? Alternatively, if we are just highly developed animals, why don’t we behave that way? (cue the jokes about the fact that some people do!)

These are just a selection of the questions that even the greatest evolutionary biologist would have to admit need some explaining. A possible and obvious solution to this dilemma is that science explains how things work and Christianity offers an explanation of why they work. Again, many people don’t want to accept this because it doesn’t make sense or that they have watertight arguments against it, but simply they don’t like the fact that it suggests the idea of a creator God.

Another point here is that people often accuse Christianity of being ‘pie in the sky when you die.’ We see though in John 9 that people weren’t being asked to believe in something fanciful without any evidence. On the contrary, they had the convincing evidence before them of a healed man, and the testimonies of his neighbours, friends and he himself. Christianity isn’t just a convenient way to avoid analysing reality but it can actually be thoroughly researched and verified.

An example are the accounts of the resurrection. The names of specific females who saw where Jesus’ body was laid are included for example Mark 15:47. This is so that the first readers of the text could have gone and interviewed these people to see if it was true.

Finally then, we see the change in the man’s thinking as he goes through all these things. Initially, when people ask him what has happened, he refers to Jesus as a man (v 11). When interviewed by the Pharisees he now says that Jesus is a prophet (v 17). By the end of the chapter, when he actually sees Jesus for the first time, he calls him Lord and worships him. We can infer that the man has not only received his physical sight, but now he is also able to see spiritually and realise who Jesus really is. In contrast, the Pharisees, who claim to be able to see the right way, are so caught up in their own way of thinking that they are unable to see who Jesus really is. Thus, the blind man becomes the person who sees clearly and the Pharisees become those who don’t see reality.

In verse 5 Jesus claims to be the light of the world. It is only those who see and recognise Him who actually understand reality and find the right way in their lives!

Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay