“And I will lead the blind
in a way that they know not,
in paths that they have not known
I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I will do,
and I will not forsake them.”
Isaiah 42:16 (RSV)
When I was eighteen, I donated a pint of blood in downtown Chicago one day. I took the El train there and afterward I climbed the stairs to catch the train to take me back home. When I reached the top of the stairs to the El train platform, it seemed that having one less pint of blood in my system, affected the blood flow to the visual parts of my brain. I didn’t pass out, but immediately lost all vision, and it was extremely frightening. I could hear the train coming, and though there were people all around me, I was completely blind, but too proud to ask anyone for help. I decided to feel my way blindly onto the train, hoping my vision would soon return. Thankfully, I walked into the train and not in front of it. I found a seat to sit down and in a few minutes my vision returned. It’s a brief physical example of being led in a path that I was too blind to see. By God’s grace I found my way through the door, and it seems like a metaphor of how God will guide us through unfamiliar paths when we feel blind or helpless. He may be guiding us in some path of our life that is beyond physical blindness. We have all travelled one path together where we felt blind in the past few years, having lived through a world wide pandemic. Most of us have never lived through anything like it, and in that sense we were all blind. Going through something new and unfamiliar is like walking blind. There is always a new fear that comes upon each of us at different times for different reasons. Whatever we fear, or whatever unfamiliar path we feel we are blindly walking on, this scriptural promise is for us. God is saying through this scripture “I will not forsake you, I will guide you and level out those rough places that you are walking through.” God has promised to guide us, light our path and turn the rough places into level ground. However frightening or unfamiliar it may feel, He is the light in our darkness and promised to never forsake us. Jesus, we trust in you to light the darkness, smooth out the rough paths where we walk, because we believe your promise to us through this scripture today. We can walk through everything with you at our side saying, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
(Matthew 28:20)