By Michael Wlodarczyk
Remembering Gene.
It was back in grade one sitting in my desk carefully watching as Miss Smith was teaching us new words and how to pronounce such words. It was quite a challenge for all of us but especially Gene. In society’s eyes at that time it would be said that Gene did not come from the best of homes; his clothing was tattered and often less than clean, then his face and hands were often quite dirty (this was especially a problem because of the morning hygienic inspection). Gene sat in the back of the row and was often distracted when a lesson was being taught. Miss Smith had a system to motivate the students to pay better attention and that system consisted of having your name put on the board for a first offence. This would then be followed by an “X” beside your name. Now if one were to accumulate three X’s that would be bad, and that student would be in detention. I can remember Gene’s name on that board practically every day. In fact, I saw it up there so many times that I could spell Gene’s name before I could spell my own.
Later in the school year I can remember the day that Gene arrived at school wearing glasses. He looked quite funny in the glasses, they were odd looking and almost too big for him as if they belonged to his dad. Nevertheless, Gene was quite proud of his new glasses and something began to change. I started to notice that Gene’s name was not on the board as often as it was in times past. Also, Gene slowly was able to start reading what was on the board and his attitude was changing. Now do not get me wrong here, I am not saying that Gene was now a focused child but there was a definite change in his all-around behavior.
The interesting thing here is that Gene was judged on his performance but what was not realized at that time was that Gene had a vision problem, a degree of blindness that prevented him from seeing what was in front of him and therefore we could say that Gene’s actions were a result of his blindness.
With Gene in mind let us look a little deeper in what the Bible refers to as Sin.
The definition of sin in the Hebrew is:
- To miss the mark of perfection as in archery, to miss the bull’s eye and measure the distance with a chord.
Now here is where we struggle. Coming from a western Greco-Roman world view we would read the missing of the mark as not qualifying, not being good enough and the blame would be put upon the individual. An ancient eastern culture would take many different views of this situation. The first question would be “Can he not see the target? Is there something that is hindering or distracting his vision? The idea would be that something is in the way and what can we do to help him, for we know that if he could see properly then surely, he would hit the target. The focus now is moved from the action of failing to qualify which brings judgement to a place where we recognize the state of some sort of blindness and what can we do to help rectify that state so the individual can succeed, which brings acceptance.
Now here is where it can get interesting. Sin in Hebrew is spelled חטאה from right to left would be heth, teth, aleph and hey. The first letter heth can mean a door or wall that divides or blocks. The teth can be a vessel intended for good. Aleph is to reflect above beneath and beneath above. The hey is to reveal.
All together we have the door (or wall) that divides (or blocks) the vessel intended for good, which is to reflect above beneath and beneath above from being revealed. I do not know if you can see it but when we block something from being revealed or seen, what we are doing is placing a veil or covering that blinds or blocks the vision or revealing. The idea here is blindness. The reason you cannot hit the target is because something is blocking your vision therefore you are blind.
Mat 13:15 FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, AND WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES LEST THEY SHOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, AND HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I SHOULD HEAL THEM.’
Speaking of the Pharisees Jesus said:
Mat 15:14 “Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”
Mat 23:26 “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.
Luk 4:18,19 “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE DOWNTRODDEN, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”
The mission of Jesus was far more than healing the naturally blind, it was the spiritually blind that were suffering, those that were blind to the realities of how God sees us and how we see each other. It is that blindness that is sin and because of that blindness (sin) we find ourselves hurting ourselves and others.
I will close with this thought. If we find ourselves judging someone for missing the mark, then perhaps we should invest into their lives so that they may have the opportunity to get new glasses, and like Gene discover a world that he previously could not see.
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