In John 9, a man born blind encounters Jesus, who smears a lump of mud on his eyes and tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam (which means “commissioned”, an intentional detail, as we’ll see). The rest of the story plays out like a comedy, where the man becomes an unwitting apostle of the gospel, simply by sharing the truth about what Jesus did for him.
But in doing so, he is disowned by his parents and kicked out of the synagogue, because the authorities don’t like the implications of his testimony. All of this happens before he really knows anything about Jesus. He’s not sharing the message of eternal salvation, he’s just saying (over and over) “Yes, I’m the guy that was born blind, and now I can see.” All he knows is what Jesus said to him and what happened to him when he did what Jesus said to do. He pays a steep price for simply telling the truth about what God has done for him.
The mere act of surrendering to God’s work in our lives will set us against the powers of this world in fundamental ways. The prize is worth the price, of course (no one surrenders to Jesus unless they have already perceived this), but there is indeed a price to pay for our allegiance to Jesus. Our simple commitment to allow God to work in our lives and to tell the truth about that work will create friction with the powers that be, and there will always be a price to pay for that.
