The Optometrist Who Couldn't Read the Sign

Dr. Margaret Chen spent thirty-two years fitting lenses and diagnosing cataracts at her clinic on Maple Avenue in Rochester, Minnesota. She could spot astigmatism in seconds. She lectured at conferences about early detection. Her waiting room walls displayed every credential the field could offer.

Then one Tuesday, Margaret drove past a handwritten banner outside a struggling church — "Free Eye Exams for the Uninsured, Saturday 9 AM" — and felt an unfamiliar sting. She had spent three decades perfecting vision for people who could already afford to see. She had never once considered the hundreds in her own city squinting through cracked dollar-store glasses or going without altogether.

Her colleague, a young resident named David who had barely finished training, had organized the whole thing. He saw what Margaret, with all her expertise, had missed completely.

That is the razor-sharp irony Jesus exposes in John 9. The Pharisees possessed every theological credential available. They could parse the Law down to its smallest letter. Yet when a man born blind stood before them with mud still drying on his face and sight flooding his eyes for the first time, they couldn't recognize the work of God. They were too busy protecting what they already knew to see what was actually happening.

Sometimes the ones with the most training have the hardest time seeing. And sometimes the simplest testimony — "I was blind, but now I see" — is the clearest lens of all.