On my last day in God’s Holy City of Jerusalem, I was alone. The majority of our tour group had departed the evening before. With an afternoon flight from Tel Aviv, I had to be packed and ready to leave by 11:00 with the final eight from our sizable group. It had been such an eye-opening trip filled with fellowship, but the greatest gift was the pictures in my mind’s eye of those Bible settings that I never would forget. Each time I opened the Bible after that trip was a new reminder. I had one more stop planned on my itinerary, though none of the other stragglers were interested in going along. So early that morning, I arose before daybreak and walked down to the City of David.
I had no idea what time Hezekiah’s Tunnel opened, but I had read about it in 2 Kings 20. In the days of King Hezekiah, crews had started on opposite ends, dug through solid granite and connected the 533-meter tunnel in the middle, to bring water into the city. Having arrived long before it opened, I was the first one to enter the tunnel that morning. With the people behind me in larger groups, I found myself alone once I started to walk through the tunnel. It was dark, waist-deep in cold water, and had a roof of varying heights. Part of the time, the roof was lower than my head. Though I had a flashlight, I turned it off for much of the journey and felt my way through the tunnel. Why? In John 9, Jesus heals a man who had been blind since birth:
6 When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. 7 And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing. John 9:6-7
The blind man faithfully obeyed Jesus, and was healed. Walking through the dark tunnel, I knew that I, too, would regain my sight when I emerged at the Pool of Siloam. What would it be like to be blind from birth? How did the man make the journey to the Pool of Siloam? Having felt my way through a tunnel, one in which there were no potential mis-turns, but only bumps on the head from a lower-than-expected ceiling, I can’t begin to grasp how a blind man goes anywhere. I also wonder if that was an aspect of Satan’s temptations that were avoided. How powerful would the “lust of the eyes” be to a man who never had functioning eyes?
Jesus gave the man sight that day, and in that miracle, opened up an entirely new aspect of potential temptations from Satan, but that was certainly welcome in the life of the man who had lived in darkness for so many years. If you had to lose one of your senses, which would you choose? Would you answer that differently if the question was which sense would you choose never to have? In both circumstances, the sense I would desire the most would be the gift of sight. Isn’t it amazing that each of us as believers have been given that gift.
8 The LORD opens the eyes of the blind;
The LORD raises those who are bowed down;
The LORD loves the righteous.
Psalms 146:8
25 He answered and said, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.”
John 9:25
God has gifted each believer with spiritual eyes. It is only through those eyes that we can see the things of God. It amazes me that now, I can see God everywhere, in everything. As “Amazing Grace” reminds us, “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see." Walk thankfully in the miracle He has given us of spiritual sight, and tomorrow, we will talk about the lust of the eyes.
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