One of the things my wife and I enjoy together during the Christmas season is watching seasonal romantic comedies. They’ve been a staple of the Hallmark channels for years, but these days they’re seemingly everywhere – on cable and traditional network channels.
There must be a demand for schmaltzy, mostly predictable movies. I’m not surprised, with all the negative, unsettling offerings we find while channel-surfing with the TV remote – including the news. Especially the news. We all need a break from the bleak, gloom-and-doom messages.
What better way to escape than to spend 90 minutes with a rom-com – not counting the commercials? Even when we know the girl and the guy will get together at the end, despite all their drama and seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
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| Colorblind glasses (YouTube image) |
To his rescue comes the beautiful (of course) eye doctor who offers to enroll him in test study for people dealing with varying degrees of colorblindness. At first, he resists. “I’ve tried those things,” he says, “and they don’t work.” But the vision physician persists and reluctantly, the teacher tries the special glasses she’s provided.
Shazam! Suddenly, the hapless hero experiences a spectrum of colors for the first time, much to his tearful surprise. Having lived life only on gray-scale, he had no idea what he’d been missing. What a metaphor for the spiritual life.
After watching the movie, I did some research and discovered there are numerous specialized glasses on the market for remedying different degrees of colorblindness. Five to eight percent of males are afflicted by it; one percent or less of females are colorblind. However, if we believe the Scriptures, 100 percent of us have suffered from spiritual blindness.
In 2 Corinthians 4:4 we’re told, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” When I read this, I think of the encounter between Jesus and a blind man as recounted in John 9.
After declaring to His disciples, “…I am the light of the world,” Jesus knelt to the ground, made some mud with His saliva, and applied it to the blind man’s eyes. Then He instructed the man to wash in the nearby Pool of Siloam. “…So the man went and washed, and came home seeing” (John 9:5-7).
Understandably, the man’s neighbors and those who had seen him begging on the streets for money were astounded. The Pharisees, not concerned about the blind man who had gained sight but that Jesus had performed the miracle on the Sabbath, interrogated the now-sighted man.
After responding to their questions as best he could, given the limited details he knew, the blind man said in frustration, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I know. I was blind but now I see!” (John 9:25).
Similar to colorblind persons unable to cause themselves to see colors, this blind man couldn’t will himself to see. It required a divine act. In a far more profound sense, it has taken an even greater act of God for each of us to see spiritual truth, to overcome “the god of this age who has blinded” our minds.
The psalmist recognized spiritual understanding was a gift from God: “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law” (Psalm 119:18). In Isaiah 29:18, the prophet also acknowledged that God alone can heal our incapacity to comprehend and even to seek His truth: “In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.”
Just as colorblind persons – both real and cinematic – need help to see the myriad colors surrounding them, we too need assistance to see the beautiful spiritual truths the Lord has created for us.
As followers of Christ, we can be thankful that He saw fit to remove our spiritual blindness. And as we attempt – and often struggle – to communicate the beauty of God’s revelation to others, let’s pray that He will give them sight as well. Not with specially designed eyeglasses, but with the power of His Spirit.
Imagine the scene when the zealous Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, was confronted by Jesus Christ on the road near Damascus, struck blind and then led to the house of a man named Ananias: “’Brother Saul, the Lord – Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here – has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again…” (Acts 9:17:18).
After years of blindly persecuting Christians, thinking he was doing right, Saul – who became the apostle Paul – had his spiritual eyes opened and for the first time could see the truth. That wondrous experience is offered to people all around us, and sometimes God asks us to point them to the “corrective lenses.” They don’t know what they’re missing!
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