Cheeky begger

Reading my Bible during the week I came across a question that I had scribbled in the margin years ago. In Acts 3, Peter and John heal a begger at the Gate Beautiful at the temple. (you remember the song...silver and gold have I none.......maybe not!)

I wondered at the time why Jesus - who would have past him hundreds - maybe even thousands of times - never healed him?

This triggered another memory from John chapter 9...Jesus has just healed a blind man by mixing saliva and mud (eek!) and putting it in his eyes. The Pharisees are giving the ex-blind man the third degree because it happened on the sabbath.

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man's eyes was a Sabbath. Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. "He put mud on my eyes," the man replied, "and I washed, and now I see."

Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath." But others asked, "How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?" So they were divided.

Finally they turned again to the blind man, "What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened." The man replied, "He is a prophet." The Jews still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man's parents.

"Is this your son?" they asked. "Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?"

"We know he is our son," the parents answered, "and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don't know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.

That was why his parents said, "He is of age; ask him." A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God," they said. "We know this man is a sinner."

He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"

Then they asked him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered, "I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples,
too?" [1]

This exchange with the pharisees puts him in the category of 'cheeky beggar' but I think he may have inherited it from his parents ("He is of age - ask him")

To have been healed from a life-long affliction that forced him to beg, Jesus had restored his dignity, ability to earn an income and his social standing in society - reason enough to be overjoyed and cheeky with the Pharisees.

I only wonder what he said to Jesus when he was mixing the mud - but I guess he couldn't see what was going on then!

Any applications from these ramblings?

1. God works in mysterious ways (ie mud and saliva)
2. Jesus left works of good to be performed by others (Acts 3)
3. It is God's intention to restore everything that a full life entails (try Joel 2:25)
4. God has a sense of humour.

[1] John 9:13-27 - New International version