August 5: Blind Faith

But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him (Bar-Jesus the magician) and said, "You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? And now listen-- the hand of the Lord is against you, and you will be blind for a while, unable to see the sun." Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he went about groping for someone to lead him by the hand. (Act 13:9-11)

This is an intriguing text to me because of what it doesn’t say and yet… speaks loudly. Paul tells this magician, another guy with two names, that he will blind for awhile and the when it happens Bar-Jesus (the magician) gropes about for someone to lead him. Does this sound familiar? Paul – once Saul – is another man with two names. He too went blind for awhile. He too needed others to lead him by the hand.

The text seems to tie Paul’s story to Bar-Jesus and what happens to him here, and yet the story has nothing else to say about this magician… groping for someone to lead him he exits stage left and never returns to our story. On another day I might have been interested in talking about what is different in their stories in the exit of Bar-Jesus and the missionary journeys of Saul/Paul. However today I think I’d like to focus on what is similar. And this comes even more into focus when we look at Bar-Jesus’ other name given to him in the text, Elymas. In Arabic the name means wise.

Elymas is wise in the ways of magic, just as Saul the zealous Pharisee was wise in the ways of the law. But both of them are struck blind.

Why blindness? Why not mute, or deaf, or lame? Nebuchadnezzar the great Babylonian king in a moment of great hubris and pride was struck down by the God of Israel and became and animal for seven years foraging for food. Seems to me that might have worked with Saul and Elymas as well.

So why blindness?

Well Nebuchadnezzar need a lesson in humility… and there isn’t much more humbling than foraging as an animal for seven years. So perhaps the blindness is that Saul/Paul and Bar-Jesus/Elymas needs a lesson in seeing. They were both wise… and yet God reveals to them that they cannot see at all – they are wise in all the wrong things. They seek after knowledge and power and wisdom that is not of God, it doesn’t make a straight path to God. God has to reveal truth to them, make straight their pathway to God, by showing them just how little they see. Only when they realize that they have been looking the wrong way – seeking after the wrong things… can they see the truth.

Ananias laid his hands on Saul and said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized. (Act 9:17-18)

There is much that we label wise that doesn’t really deserve the name. Elymas isn’t wise – he is deceitful and misleading. Saul wasn’t wise – he was filled with hatred and bound up in rules that had becomes far less than the God they once point to.

Like Saul and Elymas we too need to go blind from time to time. We too need to grope for someone to lead us… lead us back to that which is truly wise, rather than that which simple bears the name but doesn’t actually lead us into relationship with God.

Are you seeing what God wants you to see?
What is clouding your vision from making straight a pathway to God?
Have you held the hand of someone else who needs to find that path?

Healing God,
You are a God of healing… whose methods are often mysterious. Guide us back to you and your ways, O Lord. And enable us to lead others towards your truth and love.
Amen.