Mud

Introduction

I’m going to tell you a weird story about Jesus. Does that sound like a good idea? How many of you have seen paintings and pictures of Jesus? What does He usual look like. Pretty and clean, right? Unless He’s being crucified in the painting. But Jesus was a carpenter, which is a construction job, and He wasn’t afraid to get His hands dirty.

*Tell the story of the blind man being healed with mud and the reaction of the pharisees.*

So what is your gut reaction to this story?

Considering that Jesus is God and could have healed Him with just a word like a lot of His other healings, why did He do it this way?

In fact there’s another story where Jesus just heals a different blind man without using mud, just words in Mark 10:49-52

Mark 10:49–52 CSB

Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man and said to him, “Have courage! Get up; he’s calling for you.” He threw off his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus. Then Jesus answered him, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Rabboni,” the blind man said to him, “I want to see.” Jesus said to him, “Go, your faith has saved you.” Immediately he could see and began to follow Jesus on the road.

Why do you think that He spit in the dirt and used mud to heal this blind man?

Let’s talk a bit about Sabbath laws. Are you familiar with the Sabbath? In the Old Testament after God freed the Israelite slaves from Egypt He gave them a law. One of the laws God gave was that they were not to work on the Sabbath, but instead take a day of rest. That’s the whole law. But later on the nation of Israel ends up not keeping the law and being punished by having another nation come and conquer them, and some among them decided that in order to get their land back they had to perfect following God’s law.

So in order to make sure they were obeying God’s law they tacked on extra laws to “build a fence around” the law. This included a LOT of rules about what did and didn’t count as work on the Sabbath. For example, if you picked a head of grain and crushed it with your fingers so you could eat it than you were breaking the Sabbath. They even included a weight limit on what you could lift and a limit on how many steps you could take on the Sabbath.

Some of this continues into modern day for some in the Jewish community. For example at some point in history someone decided that pressing the floor buttons on an elevator is considered work, so in Israel there are buildings programmed so that the elevator will stop on every floor on the Sabbath so that you can go to your desired floor without pressing a button.

In any case, one of the rules in Jesus’ time was that you couldn’t make mud on the Sabbath. That might seem a little strange but it was basically seen as the same as making clay, which was work. Can you guess what day of the week it was when Jesus made this mud and put it on the blind man’s eyes?

So think about it for a second. Jesus was already healing someone on the Sabbath, which was a controversial thing to do. There were lots of debates among the rabbis whether that was allowed. Jesus could have asked this man to wait a day. He was born blind, what’s one more day? Jesus is God, He could have arranged to meet Him a day earlier. Yet He deliberately chose to heal Him on the Sabbath. And in case that isn’t bad enough He added an extra step, and made some totally unnecessary mud with His spit and spread it on the guys eyes.

He was deliberately trying to upset the Pharisees. He wanted to make them angry. And it worked as we see from what happens next. Is this the prince of peace we sing about at Christmas time? The Jesus we see in old paintings?

When we call ourselves Christians, believers, disciples, or whatever else we decide to call ourselves, what does that mean?

Did you know Christians means “little Christs” and was probably originally used as an insult, but the believers liked it so much they took it as their name. Because we are supposed to try to be little Christs. So if we are supposed to be like Jesus, what does this story tell us about being like Jesus?

I think there’s also a second important reason that Jesus uses mud in this healing. Because it’s dirty. It’s unclean. He even made it with His own spit. You see sometimes God uses strange and unfit things for the sake of His Kingdom. How else can you explain why He uses me, or Dan for that matter. But seriously, look at the twelve disciples. Jesus chose men who were blue collar workers, a despised tax collector, and even a former political revolutionary. And He continues to use people today that some would consider to be unfit tools.

So then if you ever feel like you’re unworthy and God can’t use you to change the world, think again. If God can use mud to heal a blind man, eleven unschooled men to lead the biggest religious revolution in history, then who’s to say there isn’t someone in this room right now that might change the world forever for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

I want to invite you guys to pray a dangerous prayer. I want to invite you guys to pray and ask God how He wants to use you. What ministry He has for you to do. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean what Dan and I do. I was in ministry in a punk band for a while. Ministry can be just sharing the gospel with the people you happen to work with at McDonalds. There’s so many ways God can use us if we’re listening and we’re faithful. So if you’re mud, what’s Jesus going to do with you?

Let’s pray.