When my wife agreed to let me name our firstborn, I was excited to give my son my name. Fast forward two years later. We learn after many concerns about my son’s progress that he has some form of autism. He was “on the spectrum” as they said. This produced much suffering in me and my wife. Who was to blame? Did someone in her family have autism? Was it my fault, my dad or grandfather’s fault? Maybe it was my fault. After all, I did give him my name. Was God showing me my spiritual relationship with him with a human example in my son?
It has been a few years since then, and everyday is a struggle with a son with a disability. He constantly hits his siblings, makes messes of things, and doesn’t understand much of the time. This creates a difference in treatment. Since we’ve grown to expect such behavior, we often must be far more strict with him than we are on our other children. My son stays with me most of the time while his siblings go to parties or church. He hits, behaves in ways that aren’t socially acceptable, and other people don’t understand. We don’t have time to explain to everyone. So, I always agree to stay with my son.
As I thought about my son’s autism last week, this verse came to me in John 9:1-7
Jonn 9:1-7 (NIV)
9 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
6 After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
We typically see human defect as evidence of guilt. If someone is blind, it is easy to think that the mother didn’t eat right while pregnant or the particularly disease must be genetic. In our case, although we didn’t question the cause of our sons autism, we believed we had done something wrong. Could this be a punishment for some past misdeed? Was this because of past sin in my own life? The verse above explores this intuition within Jesus’ disciples. Upon seeing a blind man, the disciples wondered what brought this about. True, these disciples were in a pre-scientific age and probably had no natural way of explaining the disease; but the question still seems relevant in our own day. Its not as thought a diagnose of disease will remove the receiver’s anxiety. The person could still wonder why they as opposed to someone was smitten with such a disease, why they were the one with the genetic predisposition, etc.
But it is here that Christ points to the moral goodness of his our heavenly Father. This was done, not to harm the blind man, but so that the glory and good name of God might be spread through the blind man’s healing. The general point is that God can take something that produces pain, such as disease or disability, and make it glorious. I had never looked at my son’s autism in this way. This verse prompted a new perspective. Although, my heart hurts at the thought that my son, my namesake, has social and comprehension deficiencies, its hopeful to think that in some way even this situation can bring God glory. So, if I cry, I know that my tears will go towards the glory of God.