The Height of Intimidation (John 9:18-23)

8 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19 and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" 20 His parents answered, "We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. 21 But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." 22 (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) 23 Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

The skeptical Pharisees decided to ask the man’s parents. The parents agree to the miracle of their son being born blind and now seeing, but they will not speak about Jesus. They are intimidated and will not agree to his identity or knowing of him. They claim not to know exactly what happened to their son. Of course this is highly unlikely because they would have been the first to ask about the miracle and about who performed it. They encourage the Pharisees to ask their son because he is of age. “Of age” implies he is older than 13 and of the age to make his own living as a beggar and answer the Pharisees’ questions on behalf of himself.

And then we find out the real reason they will not talk about Jesus: the people are under threat. If they say that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, they will be excommunicated from the synagogue. We discover two things here. One, the parents are rather easily intimidated. To be excommunicated meant loss of status in their society. It meant giving up privileges that they had. It could also be that now they had to support their son. Begging could be a fairly lucrative business and with that out of the picture they actually may have had disdain for Jesus. It reminds us of what happened when Paul healed a slave girl with a demon in Acts 16 or when Jesus sent the demons in Legion into pigs, who promptly ran off a cliff and died, in Mark 5. The slave girl's owners were irate as were the pig farmers even though both people were healed by miracles. In both cases there was a loss of income that negated the healing of suffering. The second thing we learn is that Jesus has already stirred up great division and the authorities will do anything to keep him from gaining more ground and additional followers. We see this form of evil used throughout history by the powerful and privileged to try and neutralize anyone who looks like they may take power or status away from them.

Has there been a time in your life when you denied who Jesus was or would not stand up for your faith in him? Consider what happened and ask the Lord to help you to acknowledge him in the future as your Lord and Savior in a winsome way.