Every contact lens wearer knows the joy of “new contacts day.“ Oh, the delight of opening that sterile, sealed container and slipping new, pristine contacts onto our weary eyeballs! The clarity, the comfort, the EASE!

For those of you who don’t wear them, contacts deteriorate with each wearing. I am supposed to change mine once a month, but with dust, eye makeup, and normal every day living, I don’t even make it three weeks before the need for new ones becomes overwhelming. And it’s shorter in pollen season! Dirty contacts hurt the eyes, compromise your eyesight, and are ineffective in their mission of correcting your vision.

Jesus has much to teach us about keeping our vision clear:

John 9 (The Message)

 ^1-2 Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?”

^3-5 Jesus said, “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world’s Light.”

Jesus chose to heal the man’s blindness as a testimony to God’s power. But the townspeople and Pharisees refused to see what was right before their eyes. The tried to claim the man was never actually blind. They even interrogated his parents. The real issue?

Jesus had healed the blind man on the sabbath, breaking the law. The Pharisees felt it was their privilege and their position to sit in judgement and ignore the miracle in front of them. In their spiritual blindness, they couldn’t see Jesus for who he was. They judged him according to their rules, and found him to be inadequate.

Have you ever been guilty of judging someone?

The reaction of the Pharisees reminds us that being judgmental is akin to leaving dirty contacts in our eyes and then looking in the mirror and not seeing our own flaws. That is how the Pharisees see things…through the dirty lens of bias and entitlement.

³⁹ Jesus then said, “I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind.”

⁴⁰ Some Pharisees overheard him and said, “Does that mean you’re calling us blind?”

⁴¹ Jesus said, “If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you’re accountable for every fault and failure.”

Be careful of your own lenses. God calls us see our brother in the same way that he looks upon us: with the lens of mercy, grace, equality, and acceptance. With that clarity, we will learn to love as God loves, and accept one another as he accepts us. Lord, open our eyes!