Someone could write an entire book about John 9. It contains the detailed story of Jesus’ healing of the man born blind, his subsequent run-in with a very proud group of Pharisees, and his ultimate spiritual healing.
Right in the middle of the narrative, there is this very interesting interaction between the Pharisees & the blind man’s parents. The parents basically disavow their son, because they are afraid that if they call Jesus the Messiah, they’ll be kicked out of the synagogue. The synagogue was significant in those days not only as a center of worship but also as a place of community. It’s still jarring to read that their son’s miraculous healing caused them to fear rather than celebrate.
Perhaps we are not that different. It’s far too easy for the places that we worship to become more important to us than the Person that we worship. Without Jesus at center, the church is just a building where there’s a weekly concert, where a club of common interests gathers for motivational speeches. Putting the community over the Person can only lead to dysfunction. In this astounding example of disordered priorities, the blind man’s parents couldn’t even celebrate their own child’s healing. They were too afraid of excommunication.
In America, we see this play out differently: in church hurt. The place of spiritual worship, the body of believers, is merged with Christ Himself, so any slippage or failure of the former leads to a loss of faith in the latter. But are we putting our faith in believers in Jesus or are we believing in Jesus?
Yes, there is brokenness in the church. We should never minimize this. There’s the power hungry spiritual platform climbers who’ve lost sight of Who holds ultimate power. There are the predators who make the church a dirty sanctuary to hide their indiscretions. There’s petty parishioners who make quick judgments & divisive complaints.
But we also should remember that Jesus is none of that. He hates what often goes down in the church under the guise of piety. Yet, He came & died to heal it; He came & opened our eyes to see….Him. The church is ideally meant to be a sanctuary, a united body, a beautiful bride. But it’s Jesus we’ve come to worship! We can’t let the brokenness of the body keep us from pursuing the Healer. We don’t want to miss out on Him like the blind man’s parents did. He’s distinctive. He’s the perfect Messiah. He makes the blind see. He makes the dead alive. May we never lose sight of Him!
A Good Crisis 
Thanks Lydia. Even good things can become idols that compete with the affections of our Savior.