Jeremy Robinson - The Didymus Contingency

This was it! Tom hustled forward and stood between Jesus and the blind man.

Jesus stopped walking and looked at Tom with an expression of expectation. The rest of the group slowed to a stop behind Jesus. David moved around for a better look at what Tom was doing, face crisscrossed with concern, but remained silent.

“Something troubles you?” Jesus asked Tom calmly.

“Explain something to me. Why do you allow this?” asked Tom, as he stabbed a finger at the blind man.

“What did he do to deserve this?” Tom said, and then he turned to the blind man and asked, “How long have you been blind?”

The blind man perked up, realizing he was being spoken to. He stood to his feet and stumbled toward the voice that had addressed him. “Since birth, Master.”

“Since birth,” Tom said, “What sin could he have done at birth to deserve this? Or maybe it was the sins of his parents? I’m not really sure how these sin things work.”

Tom waited, sure that his line of questioning would make Jesus stumble. Surely, this was the hardest question addressed to Jesus thus far. Tom’s mind raced with anticipation. He would finally outdo Jesus!

Jesus didn’t miss a beat.

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned. This happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no man can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world,” Jesus explained.

Tom stared, dumbfounded for a moment and said, “You lost me. What’s all that supposed to mean? Was that another parable?”

Jesus replied by spitting onto the dusty street. He bent down and rubbed the spit into the dirt, creating a small blob of oozing mud.

Tom worried that he had offended Jesus and that Jesus was planning to fling the mud at him. Tom took a step back and prepared to duck. Perhaps Jesus was growing impatient with Tom? Maybe his constant meddling with Jesus’s plans had gone on too long and Jesus was going to expel him? Maybe Jesus would lose his temper and strike him? Tom only wished it were true. That would surely do more to discredit Jesus then this dirty, blind man. He was both relieved and disappointed to see that the intended target for the mud was not himself, but the blind man.

Jesus took the mud and smeared it across the confused blind man’s closed eyes. Tom’s eyebrows furrowed with confusion and his nose crinkled with disgust. What in the world was Jesus doing?

“What is your name?” Jesus asked the blind man.

“Timothy…” the blind man said. Then the man’s eyebrows shot high and he sucked in a breath of air as though he had just been astonished. He spoke again, “Are you…are you Jesus?”

“Yes, Timothy,” Jesus said, “now go, wash in the pool of Siloam.”

Timothy smiled and grew excited, “Yes, Master!”

Timothy turned and began to hobble down the street. Jesus turned to John, one of the disciples whose kind eyes were hidden by thick eyebrows, and Peter. He motioned with his head toward Timothy. The two instantly reacted and moved to help the man on his quest to wash in the pool of Siloam.

“That’s it?” Tom asked, confused and slightly disturbed by the surreal event, “That’s your answer?”

“He’ll be back soon enough,” Jesus said, “Wait and see for yourself. Or maybe I should rub some mud on your eyes as well?”

“Riiight, the whole, “those with eyes that cannot see,” stuff again. I’m not blind. I can see fine.” Tom said, frustrated. “And I can see right through you.”

Jesus chuckled and began walking away. The other disciples followed him and smirked at Tom as they passed. David brought up the rear and joined Tom.

“Is it possible to get a straight answer from that man?” Tom asked, not expecting or desiring an answer.

“If you weren’t deaf as well as blind, you might have understood the answer,” David replied with a crafty smile.

Tom looked at David. “Funny.”

David smiled and laughed, clearly pleased with how things had played out.

Tom stayed quiet. He’d let David have his moment. This wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.

After Timothy went to the pool of Siloam and washed as Jesus had instructed him, he ran up and down the now crowded streets shouting praises to God. For the first time in his life, he could see the sun, people’s faces and dirt. But what was more amazing was that he understood everything he was seeing. He knew a bird was a bird, though he had never seen one in his life. With sight came vision, with vision came understanding-as though he had been able to see since the day he was born.

Timothy’s loud praises didn’t go unnoticed for long. Like vultures to a kill, a small group of men called Pharisees, the keepers of the law, descended on Timothy. The four men, all dressed in extravagant purple robes, were led by Tarsus, an old man with knobby knuckles and a graying beard. They stepped in front of Timothy. “You say you are the man who earlier today was begging here, at this corner?” Tarsus asked.

“I am the man,” Timothy replied.

“How then were your eyes opened?” Tarsus asked.

“The man they call Jesus!” Timothy said, “He put mud on my eyes and told me to wash at Siloam. I did as he said and I can now see!”

“Where is this Jesus?” Tarsus asked with a tinge of disdain in his voice.

“I-I don’t know… I didn’t see where he went!” Timothy giggled with enthusiasm.

Tarsus gripped Timothy’s arm tight and said, “Come with us.”

Timothy had never seen the look upon Tarsus’s face before, but he understood its meaning clearly. Timothy gave no objection and followed Tarsus.

Tarsus led Timothy inside a large, ornate building, which glowed brilliant white as sunlight streamed through several windows and reflected off the polished interior. Timothy’s eyes had a hard time adjusting to the light and the number of decorations, but he soon took in his surroundings. The roof was open, like an atrium, and sunlight illuminated the room. Encircling him were eight Pharisees, seated around the atrium, all possessing an arrogant scholarly quality. Timothy stood nervously at the center of the room, waiting for something, anything, to happen. Not a word had been said since the initial rapid-fire question and answer session that was launched upon Timothy.

“You say…with mud he returned your sight?” Gamaliel, one of the younger Pharisees, asked the man.

“Yes, and I washed in-”

“The pool of Siloam. We know,” Tarsus said abruptly, “The facts of the story have been covered, but there is more to be concerned about.”

“Indeed,” said the prune faced Simeon, “He performed this act on the Sabbath! He cannot be a man of God.”

Silas, a monster of a man with muscles as large as his ego, nodded his head and added, “No work is allowed on the Sabbath. Any child brought up in the law knows this, and certainly a man of God. He knowingly breaks the law in God’s name!”

“But…how then can a sinner, which he must of course be, do such…miraculous signs?” asked Gamaliel, and then he turned to Timothy, “What do you have to say of him? It was your eyes that were opened.”

“He is a prophet,” Timothy said without missing a beat.

Tarsus reeled back like he had just been slapped. He looked back to the closed doors at the front of the building and yelled, “Let them in!”

The door swung open and an old man and woman entered. They looked horrified to be standing in this room, before these men. They stared at the floor where they were sure not to make eye contact with the probing eyes surrounding them.

“This is your son?” Tarsus asked the old man while pointing at Timothy.