Theme: Working Hours
Text: John 9:1-5
Greetings: Dearly beloved in Christ, Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
The Lord is good and His Love endures forever!
Introduction:
Our thought for this month is on how to strike a balance between the working hours and worship hours. Nowadays, we see lots of people who don’t have a balanced life of work and worship. We will try to understand how we need to bring a balanced life in both these life patterns.
The concept of working hours exists all over the world, and every country has one according to their climatic conditions. The working hours differ according to the establishments. The industries have different timings, the Government and private sectors have different timings. The schools and colleges work differently.
The working hours are basically related to the employee's and employers' relationship. Working hours are related to rewards and awards. Now around the clock, people work. working hours change from person to person depending upon the economic status, location, cultural values, and lifestyle choice.
“As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.” (John 9:4). During the time of Jesus, people used to work from sunrise to sunset. Therefore, Jesus told his followers to work when it’s a day. Let’s see what does it mean to work while it's day.
Today, let me share with you the following three aspects from the aspect of handling the day. It refers to the spiritual insight, the life on earth , and the use of given opportunities.
1. The Spiritual insight
This narrative in John 9 focuses on the importance of seeing, or “spiritual insight.” In fact, here the blind man first responds to the voice of Jesus and obeys then at the end he sees him.
The story narrates that the blind man receives his sight gradual manner. He saw Jesus as a man (John 9:11), then he addresses him as “Lord” and finally worships him (John 9:38). John 9:37 emphasizes the importance of believing and seeing God. The faith leads to believe God and worship him.
This healing is also prophetic: the Old Testament speaks of a Promised saviour healing spiritual blindness of the people(Isaiah 29:18; 35:5; 42:7). Jesus is credited with miracles that give sight to the blind. It symbolises the unique way in which the Messiah grants understanding of the truth (Matthew 11:5; 12:22–23).
“As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.” (John 9:4).
This statement has spiritual insight.
The Spirit of might is the fifth of the seven Spirits of God listed in Isaiah 11:2. The word “might” in this passage literally means powerful, strong, and valiant.
God called us to live in the day and do the works of the day. The day living spiritually means doing the approved works of God with holy living. The opposite of holy living is characterized in the Bible as “walking in darkness” (Isaiah 9:2; Proverbs 2:13).
Paul warns, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them” (Ephesians 5:11). The word unfruitful means “having no beneficial use, unproductive.” Unfruitful works of darkness are sexual immorality, impurity, and greed. No place for vulgarity, and foolish talk. So, cast off the works of darkness such as orgies and drunkenness, sexual immorality and sensuality, quarreling and jealousy (Romans 13:12–13).
For Spurgeon, SINS are “works of darkness.” The darkness stands for the powers of evil, as light is the fit emblem of the holiness of God, and of his infinite goodness and purifying grace. The works of the light are fruitful works, rich and sweet, and fit to be gathered, pleasant to God and profitable to men; but the works of darkness are fruitless, they come to nothing, they produce no good result.
2. The life on earth
Secondly the day refers to the life on earth. Ellicott says that Jesus included his disciples to work with him in the work of his redemptive mission while it’s a day. There is before them a striking instance of the power of evil. He and they are there to manifest the power of good. They must gird themselves to the task.
Maclaren interprets that life is the day and the state beyond death is the night.
A commentator points out that here, Jesus used metaphors that relate to His earthly ministry. In an era without electricity, night was by necessity a time when less work could be done on account of darkness.
The day was the most effective time to work, but it was also a limited time.
The book of Acts has given many accounts of the Mighty works of the disciples. Philip was doing miracles and mighty works (Acts 8:13), and Paul did the mighty works of God (Acts 19:11). For some, God has given the energies of the mighty works (1 Corinthians 12:10, 28). Generations after generation people will declare the mighty works of God (Psalm 145:4).
The true followers of Christ are in a spiritual battle of some sort on a daily basis. In warfare, battles are fought on different fronts, for different reasons, and with varying degrees of intensity. The same is true in spiritual warfare. Our spiritual battles and warfare are real, even though we cannot physically see the attacker. We can understand to some degree that the battle in the spiritual realm is ongoing and real. Our battles are within ourselves, and with outside power.
We suffer in our flesh, whether we feed its desires or deny its pleasures. We are constantly battling between what we want to do and what we know the Lord wants us to do. It’s a war between the flesh and the Spirit (Matthew 26:41, Romans 7:14-20, Galatians 5:16-17).
3. The use of given opportunities
Collins defines that ‘Life is the quality which people, animals, and plants have when they are not dead, and which objects and substances do not have.’
We have a life on the earth which is a planned one. Though our life has a routine schedule. We typically act, think, and feel for our existence. We have a mundane, routine, natural, habitual life. Millions and millions of people do the same. However, lifestyles vary from person to person according to their professions. Some are agriculturalists, some are educators, some are entrepreneurs and some are entertainers. Not only that some live in rural, semi- Urbans, and urban, and their lifestyles and schedules vary accordingly. There are differences in the lives of the rich and the poor, the laborers and the intellectuals. So, our life on earth is very interesting and diverse manners.
The night is coming when no one can work. In this statement, Jesus understood that opportunities for service and doing good don’t last forever. Enduring Word comments that Jesus knew that healing the blind man on the Sabbath would bring greater opposition from the religious leaders who already wanted to silence and kill Him. Yet His compassion for the man drove Him to do it anyway. Affliction, sorrow, pain, disappointment, and loss always are opportunities for displaying God's grace. First, it enables the sufferer to show God in action.
Enduring Word comments Jesus sensed an urgency to do the mission of God while it was still day. It refers to the time of the earthly ministry of Jesus.
Bengel would like to say that Christ is the light: when day departs, the night comes, which does not restrain the light, but obscures the earth. He Himself could have worked at all times, but yet He observed the seasonable time.
The Pulpit commentary brings the understanding that our Lord is merely adopting the phrase as a customary image for life and death. Death puts an end to all human activity on earth, even to Christ's own, as a human Friend and Teacher.
The night accompanied by the cessation of active labor, is the general idea. The day's work must be done in the day. So long as we have life. Day and night mean opportune and inopportune moments (Cambridge Bible).
