Who sinned?

In A View from a Zoo, Gary Richmond tells about the birth of a giraffe:

The first things to emerge are the baby giraffe’s front hooves and head. A few minutes later the plucky newborn calf is hurled forth, falls ten feet, and lands on its back. Within seconds, he rolls to an upright position with his legs tucked under his body. From this position he considers the world for the first time.

The mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a look. Then she positions herself directly over the calf. She waits for about a minute, and then she does the most unreasonable thing. She swings her long, pendulous leg outward and kicks her baby, so that it is sent sprawling head over heals. When it doesn’t get up, the violent process is repeated over and over again. The struggle to rise is momentous. As the baby calf grows tired, the mother kicks it again to stimulate its efforts…

Finally, the calf stands for the first time on its wobbly legs. Then the mother giraffe does the most remarkable thing. She kicks it off its feet again.  Why?  She wants it to remember how it got up.  In the wild, baby giraffes must be able to get up as quickly as possible in order to stay with the herd, where there is safety. Lions, hyenas, leopards, and wild hunting dogs all enjoy young giraffes, and they’d get it too, if the mother didn’t teach her calf to get up quickly and get with it.

Life may not have started out quite that hard for you, but I know that some days you feel as though it’s gotten that hard now.

As one skeptic has said it, “Momma told me there’d be days like this; she just didn’t tell me they’d run in packs!”

There are financial burdens, marital and family disappointments, unfulfilled expectations at work, conflict with friends (too-often unresolved conflict), unsatisfying lives with Christ (spiritual lives), mistrust, cancer and car accidents, and death (and all death is way too sudden and early!).  And I haven’t even mentioned the burdens that arise when others sin against us and we are powerless to change it, but have to deal every day with the consequences.

These burdens and pressures have left many saying, “Doesn’t God care?”  Or even worse, “who cares about God?…”  Some might be saying, “Talking about Jesus is nice, but I just don’t know how to process what’s happening in my life right now…”

John 9 is for you.  And it’s for me.  And for everyone everywhere who’s ever had a problem and especially an “unjust” problem.  Here’s the point of Jesus’ interaction with just such a man:  God purposefully uses trouble in your life to reveal His greatness (to you and others) and to make you a worshipper of Him.

The trouble experienced by this man was both unique and common.  He was blind (which was unique), but his spiritual blindness was very normal.  All men are spiritually blind and dependent on God’s saving grace (2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2:1ff).  That Jesus, the Messiah opened blind eyes (Is. 29:18; 35:5) demonstrated that God also opens blind and sinful hearts.

Without this man’s ailment and without this miracle, we miss much of the truth of God about burdens and trials.  Without enduring trials, we will not experience much about Christ and God —

• Without suffering, we will not experience the sufficiency of Christ (2 Cor. 12:8-9)
• Without physical (or spiritual) humility we will not know the greatness of God (Job 40-42).
• Without being humbled, we will not learn (so easily) that life is about God’s glory, not mine.
• Without sin an injustice, we will never know the grace of God (Rom. 9:24-27).
• Without grief and sorrow, you will never know the comfort of God in its fullness, nor be fully equipped to minister comfort to others (2 Cor. 1:3ff).
• Without troubles, would we be stimulated to engage in self-examination?  (Because some troubles are the result of sin, 5:14).

Who sinned?  This man’s circumstance was not about illness and physical infirmity as the consequence of sin.  The disciples (and others) were asking the wrong question.  The better question is, “How great and glorious is God — even in difficult times?”  And, “will I worship Him always?”  Your trouble or trial, is not evidence of the absence of God in your life, but evidence of the work of God in your life to compel you to trust Him and love Him, because He is glorious.