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Shameful Faithby Phil Maxwell (September 29, 2005)
One of my favorite obscure characters from the Bible is a nameless young man whose life-changing encounter with Yahshua is recorded in John 9. The story opens on a Sabbath day when Yahshua and his disciples noticed a man who'd been blind since birth. As they passed by, the disciples challenged Yahshua with a question premised as false dilemma regarding the divine reasoning behind the man's condition. It was neither the parents' nor the man's sins, Yahshua told them, nor anything to do with punishment at all: Rather, it was "in order that the works of God might be displayed in him."
Yes, the Father did have a hand in the man's misfortune, but it was because of the man's extraordinarily good heart, not any wrongdoing. Imagine that! A loving God and Father bestowed grief and hardship upon someone because of their righteousness, which He knew long before the man was ever born. Of course, another way to look at it is that He set a great reward in this man's path, and a lifetime of blindness was merely the prologue of his story. This is a very good illustration of how far Yahweh's thoughts and intelligence rise above our perceptions at times.
Having laid the groundwork, Yahshua then provoked the Jews by healing the man on the Sabbath. Anticipating their outrage and knowing their ability to criminally prosecute Him for violating the Sabbath laws, He went ahead and manifested the great work of healing that His Father had ordained long before. He was bold and courageous, unyielding to the coercion of his strong adversaries.
Predictably, that sent Yahshua's accusers looking for a way to use the event against Him, so the Jews went searching for witnesses. Before Yahshua even came by, they had already spread the word that anyone acknowledging Him as the Messiah would be "put out of the synagogue," which was the equivalent of an utter banishment from society. Thus, the price of acknowledging Christ would be swift destruction of one's reputation amongst family, friends, and community, a price few were or are willing to pay. Yet, according to Yahshua, one's reputation is the least of the costs that should be expected for the privilege of qualifying as His disciple.
The first ones questioned were the man's parents, though wanting nothing to do with the matter, they deferred to their son so he could deal with the bloodthirsty Jews in their stead. In spite of the fact that Yahshua had enabled their son to see them and the rest of the world for the first time in his life, they did not weigh even attesting to what they knew on His behalf worth the risk of their social standing and reputation. He had given freely to them, but they were ashamed to even give Him credit.
The young man, however, was not a coward like his parents and the bystanders. When they asked him what he thought of Yahshua, he simply answered, "He is a prophet," based on nothing more than the prima facie evidence that God was obviously with Him since no man had or could ever, of himself, do what Yahshua had done for him. Not only was the truth undeniably obvious to him, acknowledging it was a necessity of his conscience, too. Others involved in the encounter were in denial of what they didn't want to see, as though ignoring a white elephant on the couch would make it go away, but not him. To not acknowledge a gift is rude, but to disavow the Giver of a gift greater than anything all of Solomon's gold could buy would be an egregious offense against God Himself.
Note that neither this young man, the synagogue leaders, his parents, nor any of the bystanders sought this conflict. Nevertheless, circumstances set forth by God Himself put the young man, his parents, and the Jewish leaders in the center of a spiritually defining situation for them and many others. As is commonly the case in spiritually defining moments, the circumstances themselves demanded action, and the young man rose to the occasion while his parents and the bystanders excused themselves.
At stake was the reputation of the man Yahshua, who'd done this and many other miraculously good works amongst those people and never any harm. He demanded nothing in return for his benevolence, but the circumstances demanded the righteous to distinguish themselves on behalf of the man who was being unjustly slandered. The only reason for those who knew the truth, the only reason to not speak up was fear of reprisals by their religious and political leaders; they were ashamed to be counted with Christ in any way. Doing nothing in such cases is like ignoring the plight of an old woman being mugged in your sight. Sometimes unsolicited circumstances define our character, even when we do nothing.
Unable to contend with the facts and unwilling to acknowledge them, the Jews then demanded that the young man "give glory to God" (instead of Christ) because they knew Yahshua was a sinner. Holding his ground, however, the man refused to accept their word for something he knew better. He claimed no knowledge of Yahshua's moral character, but maintained his testimony that Yahshua had, in fact, miraculously given him his sight, so none of that mattered, anyway. In holding to his testimony that "if this man were not from God, He could do nothing," he won the debate, but not their agreement or favor. With a charge that he was born in sin (and, therefore, unqualified to speak even on obvious facts), they made an example of him for the complacent bystanders and cast him out of the synagogue. Having just discovered what it was like to look into someone's eyes, he would find nothing by shame and contempt in the eyes of his own family and friends thereafter.
Since his sight was given freely, it would be wrong to say he paid that price for his healing; the gift had no strings attached. He wasn't even a disciple of Yahshua's at that time, but he had certainly proven himself a man of integrity who wasn't willing to sacrifice the truth for the sake of his reputation, as his parents had already done. Such caliber of courage measures highly in the kingdom of heaven. Afterwards, Yahshua sought him out and added him to the short list of people He revealed His true identity and heavenly position to. He may have been cast off by everyone he esteemed, but he both kept his soul and gained a place at the table of the King of kings as an added bonus.
This young man's testimony is a simple, but profound one: He was not ashamed to speak of his own knowledge of Christ even though doing so was known to stigmatize Him as an apostate follower of a false prophet in the eyes of his contemporaries. He wasn't so much standing for Yahshua as he was the truth, not that there's any real difference in the end. They wanted him to deny the fact that he'd been the recipient of a great gift from God at the hands of Yahshua, but he wouldn't deny either the gift, the Giver, or the One by whom the gift was delivered.
In closing, I'd like to just say that it behooves those who name Christ as Lord and Savior to consider how offensive and personally costly our redemption from sin...the sin Yahshua suffered and died for...was to both the Father and Christ. Yet, hating our works and having every reason to forsake us, they still paid that price up front just for the hope that some would accept the terms of standing with and for the King of kings. Moreover, Yahshua never turned away from tax collectors, adulteresses or others who might have tarnished His reputation just because of that fact. On the contrary, even today, He "is not ashamed to call [us] brethren" (Heb 2:11), even though none of us could say we even deserve a favorable nod from Him.
Kinship in the family of God means something and should not be taken lightly; Yahshua doesn't. What a reproach the state of Christianity must be to the One who summarized all of His teachings in a single commandment to "love one another," obviously meaning all those HE counted as brethren in spite of themselves, too. Surely His near return will reveal many surprises as He tells many carrying hyphenated-Christian names, 'inasmuch as you were ashamed of the least of these, you were ashamed of me.'
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