Jacob was saying bedtime prayers recently. I asked him to think of something really neat about God to start off the prayer. He said, “God made…” At this point I’m expecting any one of a dozen possibilities from creation, like “God made the sun” or “God made me.” Instead, Jacob says, “God made mud.” He gets a giddy little grin on his face. Though technically true, I knew his motivation was to be silly so I tried to get him to think of something else. He sticks with the mud. Then the Holy Spirit reminded me. I said, “Jacob, Jesus made mud one time and wiped it on a man’s eyes.” Jacob naturally asked why Jesus would do such a thing. We talked about the story from John 9 about a man born blind that Jesus healed. Jesus spit in the dirt, made mud, and put it on the man’s eyes. When the man washed it off, he could see. Jacob thought that it was a cool story, especially the part of Jesus spitting and making mud. Jacob wanted to try and make mud that way too.
The next morning, Jacob wanted to read from the Bible he received for Christmas. I did not have a planned text to read and we ended up on Psalm 27:1 “The LORD gives me light and saves me. Why should I fear anyone? The LORD is my place of safety, why should I be afraid?” (NIRV) Then I remembered our prayers from the night before and we turned to John 9. As we read the story, I was reminded that Jesus made a statement just before he made mud. He said, “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” (9:5) Then Jesus made the mud and put it in the man’s eyes. The man could see for the first time. Jesus used mud to bring light. Why mud? This story starts off with a related question. When the disciples saw the blind man they asked if the man’s sins or the sins of his parent brought on the blindness. Jesus said neither. He said this man was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in his life. Spit and dirt would be used to bring light into the blind man’s life. This man’s blindness would be used to demonstrate that Jesus is the Light of the world. Jacob and I learned that God is light and that light is not only something we can see but also it is the light by which we see everything else. Psalm 27 and John 9 remind us that in the light we are saved from fear. It is hard to understand why we have to go through the mud to get there sometimes, but in a fallen world there is quite a bit of mud. Battens disease is one example of that mud, but when it is washed away we will see clearly, for the first time. When God allows or even places any mud in our lives, it will be so we can wash it away and say as the blind man, “one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” In that Light, there is love that casts out all fear and brings salvation.
