In the gospel of John, chapter 9, the story was told of a man born blind. Jesus’s disciples asked him “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” answered Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” He then went on to heal the blind man.
The question that Jesus's disciples asked is a familiar question for all of us. We all want to know why there is suffering in this world; why bad things happen to innocent people. And my wife and I are no exception. We too ask this question very often. When Ethan was born 5 years ago, my wife and I were very excited. He was our first child and God had given my wife a dream about him a year earlier, before he was even conceived. In the dream, God gave the full name Ethan Ong Le An. We had no doubt that Ethan was a gift from God.
But when Ethan was about 3 months old, our world suddenly turned upside down. Ethan started to have very bad eczema. He was itching all over, and he cried all the time and couldn’t sleep. After doing lots of research and after numerous visits to different doctors, we eventually discovered that he has food intolerance. But while there is a food allergy test, there is no such thing as a food intolerance test. What this meant was that we had to find out exactly what Ethan could eat and could not eat through trial and error. In the process, Ethan suffered. He needed steroid cream to control his eczema. He had bandages on his arms and legs for us to keep moisturizers on him and to prevent him from scratching till he bled. He was kept in an air conditioned room for most part of the day and was not let out to play too much because heat could trigger his eczema. At times, he would just cry in the middle of the night as the itch was so bad that he couldn’t sleep. It took us 2 years to bring Ethan’s eczema under control. But that’s not the end of the suffering. Ethan is unable to take wheat, soy, diary, all seafood except fish and a whole lot of other food. His breakfast menu was the same everyday until this year when we found some alternatives he could take. Something as small as the Holy Communion wafer can trigger angry rashes that would not go away for days. Whenever there is some food which interests him, he would ask to smell it, because he knows he can’t eat it.
As parents, when you watch your little one suffer, it is natural to ask God why he allowed such suffering. And many times, we asked God the same question Jesus’ disciples asked him. But you know what? God did not answer us. After a while, we realised that we were asking the wrong question. In the NIV version, Jesus’ response was translated as “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Sounds pretty cruel, sounds like an unreasonable God, and certainly not the God I know. However, some scholars translated the verse as “but let the works of God be displayed in him.” This translation is simply a call to action. No reason was given for the suffering of the blind man. Jesus, in this translation, simply made a call to action and went straight to healing the blind man. And I think this would be a more accurate interpretation of what the bible means. Jesus draws the focus away from the cause of the suffering, as he wanted to point out that it was more important to look at how to make things better. So the first lesson of this passage from John chapter 9 is this – there is no point in focusing on the suffering or what caused it. Instead, focus on making things better.
So we realised that when it came to Ethan’s suffering, there was no point in wallowing. We should instead be asking the question – how can we make life better for Ethan. And that was precisely what we focused on. But soon, we hit some limitations. While his eczema was under control, Ethan still could not do a lot of things. Having a full day field trip with his schoolmates presents a lot of challenge in terms of food. We could not bring him overseas at all until church camp this year. And even then, we brought along our helper to cook for him and his food at church camp was very limited as we could not get everything we needed for him. Even for this mission trip, Ethan has his lunch and dinner packed from home. For tomorrow, he will just survive on plain rice and his special biscuit until he gets home. So forgive him if he doesn’t share his biscuits with you, because that’s all he has to eat.
What does the bible say about this? Didn’t we just learn that we should focus on making things better? What if we hit a limitation? Some things just can’t be made better right? If we read further in John Chapter 9, you will notice that the blind man, after he was healed, went to the Pharisees. The blind man was a beggar before he was healed, an outcast of society. Did the healing change that? I think it didn’t. The Pharisees, after asking him a few questions, still treated him with utter contempt. His place in society was still the same, right at the bottom. But notice what this man did after he was thrown out by the Pharisees? He went to see Jesus! And the exchange he had with Jesus was a life-changing one. He worshipped Jesus as his personal Lord and savior and received everlasting life. So the second lesson from this passage is this – while we can try our best to make our physical life better, to lessen our physical suffering, we will very often hit a limit. But certainly, as we seek God in the process, we will be spiritually better off. And this spiritual growth is without limit.
And this is where Ethan taught his parents something. You see, earlier, I told you that God gave Ethan his full name right? Do you know what his name means? Ethan means strong and enduring, and Le An means joy and peace. And this little guy really lives up to his name. Despite all the suffering he went through, Ethan is generally a happy child. He can endure so much, his joy and laughter is so contagious, and he would so often break out in singing praises to God, so blissfully unaware of everything around him (sometimes driving us crazy as he would sing at the top of his voice “this is the day that the Lord has made” the first thing in the morning before we were awake!). But seeing this little guy grow spiritually despite his suffering taught us something – that physical suffering suddenly seem so unimportant, compared to the deep and everlasting joy and peace that can come only from God.
Finally, there is one more thing the passage in John Chapter 9 taught us. The Pharisee, despite seeing a product of God’s miracle, despite being physically normal and not experiencing suffering, were totally dead spiritually. The bible labeled them as being spiritual blind. How many of us are like that? My wife and I are guilty of this at times. Despite God providing for all of our needs, we sometimes focus on the suffering we had to go through with Ethan and we blame God for it. Instead of giving thanks for the miracles He has worked, we blamed him for allowing things to happen to us. Instead of focusing on the spiritual and the eternal, we focus on the physical and the temporal.
Friends, no matter what suffering you are going through now or will go through in future, I believe this passage speaks to all of us. We need not wallow when faced with suffering. In heaven, there shall be no eczema, no tears of sadness, no pain, no sense of betrayal, of abandonment, no loneliness, no fear, no injustice. All will be made whole. But we need not wait for heaven to come. We can experience it right now. If we focus on the spiritual, we can have God’s joy and peace, and His strength here on Earth with us, as we invite God’s spirit to dwell in us.
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