My grandmother lost her sight to an inherited eye condition. I have a clear memory of her bumping into things as she slowly moved about my mother’s kitchen. Then my father also began to lose his sight. Eventually he had a corneal transplant. He had to wait several months first for a tissue match and then through a full year of healing.
Now I stared through my worsening eyes at the two options facing me — have a corneal transplant or go blind. Not much of a choice!
As my vision became cloudier, I realized what a precious gift sight is. The Lord Jesus opened the eyes of the blind on several occasions while He was here on earth. Matthew 9:28-30 gives one example: “Jesus ... then touched ... their eyes ... and their eyes were opened.” Jesus gave sight to the blind, yes, but more importantly He came to open our spiritual eyes to “see” our own sinful condition and our need for a Saviour. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15).
Modern medicine has improved the procedure since my father had surgery. Now only the diseased part of my eye would need to be removed to be replaced by healthy tissue from a donor’s eye. The tissues wouldn’t even need to be matched, and healing would take only a few weeks. So I went to the surgeon and submitted myself to the eye operation. It was done in a morning, and I was home by noon.
But let’s not forget the donor. Someone had to die to provide me with the healthy tissue I needed to restore my eyesight. Sobering thought! And Someone had to die to remove our sins — the Lord Jesus. He became our “donor” when He gave “Himself a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:6). It was His sacrifice, His bloodshed, that allows us to be free forever from the penalty of our sins, a lost eternity in the lake of fire. And what must we do to have this salvation? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).
It’s amazing how wonderful it was to be able to see clearly again and to have the threat of total blindness all but removed. But this is nothing compared to what the heavenly Father through His Son, the Lord Jesus, gives us when “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened ... [to] know the hope of His calling ... the riches of the glory of His inheritance ... and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe” (Ephesians 1:18-19).
Confess your sins to the Lord Jesus today, believe on Him and be saved! “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
The beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ can fill the eyes with tears and wipe them dry too. See how in Eyes Full of Tears.