Siloam | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Siloam | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jody Day
07/28/10
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The first day that my Father brought me here was the most humiliating day of my life. I was blind, after all, not stupid or physically weak. My father trembled as he led me down the staircase which leads to the pool of Siloam. I could not help him in the fields. He sat me down on the steps and his voice broke as he whispered, “I am sorry, my son. I will return for you at dusk.” He quickly handed me an empty basket and hurried away. A basket for a beggar! Didn’t he know that I was only blind; not without hope to someday find work, marry, have a family of my own? Hope left me that day; a blind beggar.
Day after day I counted footsteps; my heightened senses discerning between male and female, young and old, well or infirmed. I whispered a ‘thank-you’ to those who tossed coins into my basket.
Each day my mother brought me a small lunch and took me for a walk. One day last week she was brimming over with news of the man, Jesus of Nazareth, who was stirring up the Pharisees. He had barely escaped stoning that morning, the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. He claimed to be older than Abraham. Some claim he is the Messiah.
“He stood up in the temple this morning and cried out, ’If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ My heart burned within me,“ my mother whispered. There was fear in her voice as she recounted to me how the Pharisees threatened excommunication from the synagogue to anyone who called this man the Christ.
“Do you believe in this man, my mother?” I asked her. She gripped my arm and lowered her voice. “Until dusk, my son,” she said and went on her way.
She said he spoke of living water. Living like the pool of Siloam, where hopes were dashed every time the water moved? I sat in my darkness, which was much deeper and more profound than my lack of sight.
A moment later my soul vibrated within me. Someone stood before me and the air tingled, like after lightening strikes the earth. I couldn’t move. A warm substance seemed to emanate from him and enveloped me in an embrace.
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
Light! That word, idea, emotion; that thing that I could not fathom or achieve stood before me? He knelt down beside me and actually spit on the ground. The next thing I knew he was smearing mud on my eyes. Then he said, “Now go, wash in the pool of Siloam.”
No one had ever helped me down the stairs into the pool before but now I would go no matter what. I half stumbled, half crawled until I felt the water with my hands. I did as He bade me and washed the mud from my eyes. I tell you I could see! I didn’t know what I was looking at, but I could see. Who was this man?
The Pharisees grilled both my parents and I about this miracle. They tried to convince us that Jesus was not from God, that he was a sinner.
“Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!" This angered them. They hurled insults at me and threw me out.
“If he were not from God, he could do nothing.” I repeated this to myself over and over. The statement angered the Pharisees, but it was bubbling up from my heart. Suddenly Jesus stood before me again. He spoke lovingly to me about who he is. “Lord, I believe.” I fell down and worshipped him.
Why am I here again at Siloam? My Master granted me my life-long desire to help my father and mother. But I come here to tell these poor and sick about the light of the world, my Jesus.

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