Jesus heals two blind men – 19th century – Julius Schnorr
I have read about an experiment where a bunch of bananas are hung at the top of a pole in a monkey cage. When the monkeys tried to climb up to get the bananas, they would get squirted with a fire hose until they were knocked off the pole. Eventually, the monkeys would quit trying to get the bananas.
The interesting thing happened when a new monkey was put in the cage and knew nothing about the water. The original monkeys would tackle him to keep him from climbing up the pole. Eventually, they trained that monkey to attack other new monkeys – and so on.
The occasion of Jesus healing the two blind men in Matthew 20:29-34 makes me think of that experiment. The experiment was used to illustrate the power of the crowd. If we let the crowd tell us what is possible, rather than go with what we know about ourselves, we will never be anything but what the crowd wants us to be.
I don’t know why the crowd was telling the blind men to be quiet. Maybe they were a crowd of Pharisees that were jealous. Maybe they were just the kind of people that want the unfortunate and homeless to stay out of sight. Either way, those blind men did not allow the crowd to tell them how to act.
How is it that a couple of blind men knew that Jesus was the Son of David? They were so sure about who he was and what he had done that …
- they didn’t let a crowd of people with some other agenda get in their way
- they didn’t make excuses about their disability
- they were very specific in their request from Jesus
The blind men saw more that day than all the Pharisees put together – whose spiritual blindness kept them from the rewards that God promised.
The crowd wants us to remain like them. Stay in the dark. Stay ordinary. Depend on them.
Jesus wants us to be like him. Shine your light. Rise above. Depend on God.
What do you usually choose when faced with the choice of turning to God or going with the crowd?
January 31, 2014
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