My Seeing Eye Test
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
–Luke 4:18–19
I recently sat in a circle where a man proclaimed the good news of the gospel to me in a way that was clearer and more full of passion than anyone I’ve heard in a long, long time.
Zachary* is a man who is celebrating months of sobriety after years of drug and alcohol abuse. He is a man who has nearly died more than once. He is a new follower of Jesus who would tell you that Jesus is the reason he has seen success in his recovery from a life of addiction.
He is also, as it happens, a man who is completely blind.
“People have often offered to pray for me to receive my sight,” he shared with the rest of us in our Discovery Bible Study that evening, “but I’ve come to accept that Jesus may or may not heal my vision just because people pray.”
“The thing is,” he continued, “I tell people who want to pray for me, ‘You know what? God has already given me the ability to see him because of Jesus.’ And that’s all the vision I really need; I’m so glad I have it. I’d rather see God than have my eyes working.”
We had just read this line of the Beatitudes:
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
Here was a blind man telling me he had received his sight—his spiritual sight—and that seeing God was more than enough for him.
When Jesus declares the purpose statement for his newly inaugurated ministry, he unrolls the Isaiah 61 scroll and announces a time of the Lord’s favor. This is what good news sounds like: a Spirit-filled, anointed, sent-one who speaks blessing to people on the margins, who releases prisoners from captivity and delivers the oppressed. Jesus turns things upside-down and says that the poor matter. That there’s freedom from addiction. That broken hearts can be mended. And that blind people can truly see again.
As I sat there and listened to Zachary testify, I pondered the ways I can still be so spiritually blind. Blind to my self-centered outlook on the world. Blind to the ways my ambition gets ahead of my abiding with Jesus. Blind to the ways I keep trying to right-side-up the gospel message when the good news of the Kingdom is so clearly upside-down. Lord, have mercy.
I wish you could have seen the radiant joy on Zachary’s face as he rejoiced in the recovery of his spiritual sight. There he was—gospeling me again by announcing, like Jesus, good news of great joy for all people.
Listen to this song: Poor Bishop Hooper Psalm 1
Questions for Reflection
1. Where do you see the mission that Jesus launches in Luke 4:18–19 at work in the context around you currently?
2. How is the gospel good news for the people facing poverty with whom you have contact?
3. Where does your own spiritual eyesight sometimes fall short?
4. Who has the Lord recently used to remind you of the good news of the gospel, perhaps unexpectedly?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Darren and Pam Prince live in Whitechapel, London where they have served among asylum seekers, immigrants, and twelve-step recovery communities with London’s InnerCHANGE Team since 2007. Prior to that, they directed a ministry to homeless young people in San Francisco, California. Darren served as the InnerCHANGE General Director from 2014 – 2022 and is currently Novo’s Senior Vice President, shaping internal communications and organizational culture. Darren is passionate about making disciples, teaching the Bible, reading good books, befriending people on the margins, and sipping high quality coffee.
*name has been changed for confidentiality
