For today I focus on the first five verses of this Gospel passage. These daily readings will sometimes be part devotional (the aim is to soften the heart—to create an “aw” moment) and in part something to fill our heads with information/knowledge (the aim being to use the information to soften our hearts): These daily readings also will reflect part of the process I use to write a sermon:
Earlier Jesus claims to be the light of the world and so our first verse points us back the claim of Jesus—in Seminary, I had a classmate who was legally blind and bitterly resented being called blind because she could still see (and cherished) a bit of light at the corners/edges of the darkness in which she lived. Verses 1-5 describe the need for a miracle with the unusual element being that the blind person is passive and is barely speaks in the story-there is no report of the conversation between Jesus and the blind person. Also, apparently the need is not that the person is blind and needs to see but rather that God makes himself known to the world.
-Pastor Bob