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THEN SHALL THE EYES OF THE BLIND BE OPENED

I don’t know if you got to see a few weeks ago an outstanding television film entitled “Monday After the Miracle.” CBS put it on right after “Touched By an Angel,” partly because it starred the world’s favorite angel right now, Roma Downey, as Anne Sullivan. Miss Sullivan, you may recall, was the young teacher who mentored a little blind, deaf, and mute child named Helen Keller.

If you’ve ever seen the play, “The Miracle Worker,” you know that there’s this incredible breakthrough moment where little Helen suddenly realizes that her world is filled with THINGS, and that there are words which in her mind can tie to those things. Those five, strange hand-shapes that this nameless person in the dark had always pressed into her palm — W - A - T - E - R — stood for water! That wet stuff that was splashing down on her. That was water. And this soft thing was D - O - L - L, “doll,” and those cool blades of . . . something were G - R - A - S - S, “grass.” And this face, this kind face with the wet streaks on the cheeks — that was T - E - A - C - H - E - R. “Teacher.” It’s a wonderful story, a moving moment.

But you know, friend, as we get ready to play Song #3 in this week of Christmas radio programs entitled THERE’S ALWAYS MORE MESSIAH, there’s another moment coming which is even better, more to be anticipated. And you know, it takes the alto soloist exactly 29 seconds to sing this tiny solo, but it’s going to take Jesus even less time than that to accomplish what the prophet Isaiah prophesies for us in chapter 35, verses 5 and 6.

“Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.”

I guess we just plain and simple cannot imagine what it will be like when INSTANTLY, in the twinkling of an eye, nobody is sick anymore. Blind people — INSTANTLY seeing. Deaf people — INSTANTLY hearing, taking in the blast of the trumpet we talked about yesterday. Crippled people leaping for joy, break-dancing on the abandoned graves of those who have come forth to new life. People who couldn’t say a word here in this life will suddenly lift up their hands and lift up their voices and sing, shout, scream, cry, rejoice over the miracle that’s just happened to them.

You know, only once in a while, our God does give us just a glimpse. I know that it’s been 2000 years since the Christmas baby came down to this world, already ripped apart by illness. And He did grow up to be a Man and He went around for three-and-a-half years healing a few people in one country. But that’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Our memories have grown dim, and so have our hopes. But I want to remind you of a story we shared here on the radio not too long ago, borrowed from Pastor Adrian Rogers’ book, Expect a Miracle But Believe In Jesus. And he tells about a friend named Marolyn Ford, who was blind just like the people living in Galilee and Judea. She and her husband prayed and prayed and prayed about it, but her eyesight got worse and worse until she was completely blind. And then one night, they had this special feeling like they should pray again. Just like that, she could see perfectly! Instantly! She was 20-20. And she wrote in her book, These Blind Eyes Now See, “We wanted to run down the street at one a.m. and shout that I was blind, but now I see!”

And friend, that miracle’s going to happen a million times over. INSTANTLY all God’s people will see again, sing again, hear again, run again, and especially, live again.

You know, I do wish that the prophet Isaiah and George Frederick Handel had added just one more ailment to this list: the blind, the deaf, the lame, the mute. They’ll all celebrate, for sure, and their loved ones with them. But I think today of so many families around this globe where someone so precious has been developmentally disabled. People used to say “retarded,” and that hurt so much. But they were! An enemy of boys and girls had stepped in and retarded their growth, what they could do or think or understand.

We all have these people we know. David, our writer, has a cousin Bonnie. She and her husband Bob, living in Florida, gave birth to the most beautiful baby. They named her Shelly. But it didn’t take long before they realized that something was terribly wrong. And Shelly was never going to have abilities extending beyond those of maybe a two-year-old. I imagine most of us could tell a similar story.

These wonderful Christians, crushed as they were, determined to love this child, protect her. By God’s grace, they would care for her as long as she lived. They had a second child, Robert . . . and imagine the anxious moment there before they realized that he was completely well and normal.

But years went by, and this Shelly became a teenager. Her body, of course, was a teenager’s body. Everything happened to her that would happen to any other young woman. Can you imagine the confusion, the fear, for her when those monthly cycles first began? She had no idea what this was. And her mom and dad could never explain the beautiful mysteries of womanhood, what it might mean for her someday. They couldn’t tell her they loved her when cramps hit, when hormones flooded through her.

And the last time David visited his cousins, he came away thinking about this moment promised in the Word of God. True, deaf people would hear. Lame people would leap around like happy rabbits. But what about kids like Shelly? Friend, in an INSTANT, they will suddenly stand up straight and tall, with eyes that gleam with new intelligence. Suddenly they’ll KNOW! Suddenly they’ll understand! All at once the words “I love you, Shelly” will not be just noise, but words of comforting joy. Kids like Shelly will hear the angel choir and understand the words as they’re sung.

Maybe you remember that television character from quite a while ago, “Benny,” on the program L.A. Law. Just mildly disabled . . . but life was always so hard. He had a little job sorting papers and stapling them and taking out the trash, but there was always the fog of confusion, of not “getting” things, of not comprehending. And then, friend, when Jesus comes, people like Benny and Shelly will immediately, miraculously, have all the wires — which once were crossed or disconnected — perfectly fixed in just one moment.

And one more thought about this day of miracles. Because what happened to Shelly was the deliberate work of someone, wasn’t it? It was no accident, and somebody named Lucifer exulted when that “(quote) mistake” happened. He stands there in the delivery room, hissing in quiet, demonic delight when a cord cuts off oxygen, when chromosomes are out of place. He sees our tears . . . and he laughs! He brings on blindness, and then chuckles to himself.

And David, out on the camp meeting trail, preached a sermon once where he said this, hardly able to speak with the emotion of it: “I look forward to the day when my little niece Shelly will be well . . . and the devil will be destroyed.” Friend, don’t you agree? There really is going to be a payback time — not that we have to engineer it. God is fully capable of settling all accounts. Blind people will see, sick people will be well, those hit with the curse of this mental darkness will see the light . . . and a being named Lucifer, along with his armies, will feel the flames of God’s own lake of fire.

Maybe life is so perfect where you live that this promise, this 29-second song, doesn’t mean that much. You have 20-20 vision already, two good legs, and a nice bank account. Just a few chapters earlier, this same Bible writer tells us that we ALL need the miracle of Resurrection Morning. Here’s chapter six, verses 9 and 10:

“He [God] said, ‘Then go and give My people this message: No matter how much you listen to Me, you do not understand. You matter how much you look, you can’t see what’s happening to you. Your hearts have become so scarred by sin that you no longer sense what’s good, and your ears are so deafened by worldly sounds that you no longer hear what I’m trying to tell you. You don’t want to see, to hear or to understand because you don’t want to change and be healed.”

Well, friend, here’s one sinner who wants his eyes fixed. And ears and mind and heart.

And before we play this 29-second masterpiece, let me add one thing. Sometimes people have surgery, or take medicine, and it works . . . but just for a while. And families are devastated when they hear the five terrible words: “The tumor has grown back.” But not here. Not on this wonderful day. There will be no temporary miracles when Jesus comes again. The eyes He’ll touch will be well forever; the minds He heals will never be confused again. The hearts He mends will never hate or hurt, ever again in God’s glorious universe.

Now here’s God’s musical promise.

MUSIC: “THEN SHALL THE EYES OF THE BLIND BE OPENED” :29.