In Mark 8, some people brought a blind man to Jesus so He could heal him. How did they convince the blind man to come to Jesus? How do you suppose those conversations went? These people knew Jesus, they knew how important it was to be able to see, and they knew Jesus could restore sight to the blind man. They had to convince the blind man to trust them before he would go along with them. Maybe they tried to describe a sunrise to the blind man. But even the best analytical explanation by a scientist or a terrific emotional portrait by a poet falls way short of capturing the beautiful shapes, the diversity of colors, and the motion of the clouds we have all seen in a sunrise. Or maybe they tried describing the man’s child’s smile. It was a big challenge to convince the blind man that he was missing something so important and to give him hope that Jesus could make his life dramatically better.
The Bible uses many different descriptions for an unbeliever’s spiritual condition including being foolish, ignorant, and bankrupt. Scripture also makes several parallels between physical impairments and unbelief including being blind, deaf, lame, or dead. The challenge of evangelism is same one that the blind man’s friends had: explaining what people are missing in their life and how Jesus can make their life indescribably better in a way they cannot imagine.
Just as unbelievers foolishly deny the grace of God, some people reject being healed from a serious physical disability. The Deaf community has been surprisingly hostile to cochlear implants; a device that allows many deaf people to hear. Why do the Deaf cling to their inability to hear? Many in the Deaf community do not want to be seen as having a disease or needing to be fixed. They are afraid of losing their place in their community, and they believe that gaining hearing is not worth the trade-off. Even if no one they know has given up enjoying music, listening to birds sing, and hearing their child’s first words to join the Deaf community, they remain unconvinced. C.S. Lewis summed up the human condition in this way, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. We are like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
It would be cruel and painfully to continually remind the deaf and blind what they’re missing, if there was no way to fix their disability. But it would be even more unkind to not repeatedly tell the spiritually deaf and blind what they’re missing. Anyone can be cured and healed from their sin immediately. An eternal tragedy awaits everyone who is never healed from their spiritual condition apart from the grace of God. But actually opening spiritually blind eyes and deaf ears is above our pay grade. Only God can restore spiritually life to rebellious sinners, and He welcomes everyone who genuinely seeks Him. We are just called to proclaim the good news that “Jesus saves” to the spiritually blind and deaf people around us. It may take many conversations to convince these people to trust us and to come to Jesus to be healed. But few other conversations we have will have greater eternal significance.