Sight

Temporary or everlasting, which would you rather see? Would you rather for a moment faintly enjoy the pleasure of the eye’s favourite object, or endure patience to wait, and view the brightness of that eternal pleasing prepared? Or both.

Sight is a gift. Just ask the blind man.

Imagine: If no one could see, man would never be able to sustain his control over the earth. If only one could see, he would have the power to sway the minds and destiny of all those others that had no sight. Imagine your place atop the masses, if you were the only one in your city who could see. Imagine the need for you. Picture the craving for your words as you describe that which the rest could only imagine. But also notice the scoffers, unwilling to believe in your gift. Though they have no proof to mount against your word, for simple envy they stand against you as you attempt to use your gift of sight to help the blinded masses. This fiction is based on our true story.

“Believe me.” Christ said, as He healed with a power unexplainable to the masses, yet they would not deny Him His place as their healer. His mighty, yet gentle hands extend that healing to you, as His hands are stretched out still.

“Believe me.” He begged, as He used His power to feed countless hungry and provide funds from the fish’s mouth for the man in need. His ever-sustaining hands are stretched out yet still.

“Believe me.” He said with His gaze as He scolded His faithless followers. They cry aloud for fear of the storm, yet His hands reached out and He spoke, “Peace. Be Still.” His own power sustaining every atom in creation in its place, yet veiled as man, God stretched forth His hand and calmed the sea. His hands of magnificent and unimaginable power are stretched forth still today.

“Believe me.” He demanded of those who knew him best. That they must know Him and His Sender was without avoiding. To which they most vehemently responded unquestioning subjection to the death if need be. Yet He broke their self-assurance when He bowed in leading service, took the bowl and a cloth and washed their filthy feet. They forever must look down as they wash themselves and remember that day saying, “God washed my feet that day.” His hands are stretched forth with desire to cleanse you today dear one. He would wash you inside to out.

“Believe me.” Spoke the Father’s own Son as He stretched out His hands to the Father in prayer for us. His intercession, on our behalf, a prayer that as a man could not be denied, yet in His own power He would later fulfill. Those pleading hands, covered with sweat drops of blood, yet still today, stained with His own blood, are stretched forth as they minister on our behalf.

“Believe me.” He hoped, as they stripped God in flesh of His clothes, spit upon Him and tore Him with the violence of the Roman hate. His own nation’s applause and joyful song filled the air in the background as His precious sinless blood that would drop down for all humanity was spilled in innocence. His face shattered by His own creation’s fists. His beard ripped from His face by His own creation’s hand. His back shredded by the coarse whip of His own creation’s hate. His brow pierced by the mockery of vile men, as they crowned Him with thorns. And as His hands were stretched out in submission to His own design to reveal His love for us, yet this day His hands are stretched out to even the vileness of us all.

“Believe me.” His figure proclaimed as they take His blood covered, battered body, and stretch it upon a rough cross, hammering each limb in place. They raised Him up into the view of all the city, as He said must come to pass, and becoming that the symbol past taught, the serpent in the wilderness. Now that precious blood, the most expensive and important substance ever in the universe, dripped down and spilled upon the rocky ground. Each gasp of air was afforded only by the pressuring cut of the nails in His hands and feet. Each word, like a days work for the labour it took to speak. Yet He turned to the one crucified on His side that asked, “Lord remember me?” At Christ’s very death in gruesome almost unwatchable horror, brought about the saving of this wicked man. His hands stretched out upon that cross to save a world that hated Him and rejected Him. And today, O teetering fence sitter, watching the Son of God die, He stretches out those hands, with nail hole still in sight, and pleads for you to receive His gift.

But this is not the end. See the invisible now, oh blind listener, as those of us who can see tell you of the world around you. The man, Christ Jesus, who died to save you with His sinless perfect blood, rose to prove His person and power. He arose as He said. Those who had heard Him demand “Believe me” and had believed His words now looked at this one whom they had known to be dead and saw Him, alive.

Sight is a gift. Thus sight to see the invisible of eternity can only be given by He who can give it. And He demands, before sight, we must believe. Believe on Him today.

“But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” – John 20:24-31