It Looks Like Him Written June 2023   As a private detective; I go around asking questions to discover the truth.  Usually I'm compensated for my efforts.  With that money, thanks be to God, I've been able to support a couple of charities for those in need.  One is Tamar's Home for Unwed Mothers.  Genesis 38:24  The other is a center for the disabled called HelpGiven. An Unpaid Bill A man called Merari, a wine merchant, requested my services last month.  He leaned forward and confided that one of his customers was a man of questionable reputation named Abaddon.  That “lost soul” often spent days in a drunken stupor, and he had neglected to pay for his purchases.  For a time, the merchant let the debt ride.  When he finally decided to demand payment, Abaddon was nowhere to be found. “He's a thief!” Merari shouted, pounding the countertop.  “He's been stealing from me!” I obtained a detailed description and went looking for the deadbeat. My friend Isaac said he knew of someone fitting Abaddon's description, a young man in his twenties whose beard was already beginning to turn gray.  This man had become somewhat of a local celebrity.  Blind from birth, he had been given the name Belial, which means “worthless” in Hebrew.  But he had recently gained the ability to see! This miracle was alleged to have been performed by a traveling preacher named Jesus.  Some people thought that Jesus might be the promised Messiah, the “Christ.” Visiting the Healed Man Isaac and I went to meet Belial, who lived with his father and mother in the poorer part of town.  We were greeted at the door by the parents, Jacob and Hanna. When a haggard man appeared from the next room, I said, “This must be Belial!”  “It looks like him,” Isaac agreed. I proceeded to inquire about the miracle, but Belial was strangely reluctant to speak about it. At first he simply stood off to one side staring at Isaac and me, letting his parents do the talking.  They confirmed that their son had been born sightless.  John 9:1   “After he was grown, he couldn't find work,” Jacob said. “Of course he couldn't,” responded my friend Isaac sympathetically. “And I couldn't afford to support him any longer on my salary,” Jacob continued.  “He had to sit in the dirt of the road by the Merchants' Gate and beg.  My poor worthless son!”  9:8  “Ah, yes,” Hannah added, “it was a great burden that God had visited upon our little family.  But then we heard some good news.  On the following Sabbath, Jesus and his disciples would be passing that way!  People call him the Savior.  Maybe he could save Belial.” “Do you believe,” I asked, “that Jesus is the Christ?”  Lowering her voice, Hannah admitted that such was her hope, but she had to keep quiet about it.  Why?  According to a ruling from the Pharisees, anyone declaring Jesus to be the Christ would be banned from the synagogue.  9:22  “Anyway,” she said, “we went to the gate.  Sure enough, Jesus came by.  He seemed sympathetic to poor blind Belial, but his disciples showed no pity.  They wanted to debate theology!  They assumed that sightlessness had to be punishment for sin.  ‘Who sinned, the man or his parents?’ they asked.  Neither, said Jesus.  His blindness was simply an example of the manifold works of God.”  9:2-3  “So they merely walked past without even offering a few coins?” “I was afraid they might, so I spoke up.  I begged Jesus to save my son, to bless his worthless eyes.  When he heard me, he spit on the ground!” “In disgust?” “No,” said Jacob, “actually we've heard he sometimes uses spittle as a salve.  He cured a deaf stutterer with it, and a man with cataracts.  Mark 7:32-35, 8:22-25  “This time, Jesus kneaded the saliva and the dirt together to make a sort of poultice.  He told Belial to close his eyes, and he rubbed the mud onto his eyelids.”  John 9:6  “Yuck!” muttered Isaac.  I turned to Belial.  “That must have been repulsive!  Spit and dirt on your face?” “Yes, sir,” he agreed, breaking his silence.  “I wanted to wipe off the mud.” “But,” said his father, “I suggested that he wait until he could wash it off at the holy pool of Siloam.  That's where people pray for cures.  Jesus agreed that Belial should go to the pool.  So my wife and I helped him to his feet and led him to it. “There was a big crowd of pilgrims, but we helped him walk down the steps.  He disappeared under the water. “After a minute, he came up again.  His face was shining clean, and now he could see!”  9:7  “A miracle!” “Indeed.  Some of our neighbors were there and asked, ‘Isn't that Belial?  Your son who used to sit and beg?’  Some said, ‘That's Belial, all right.’  But others said, ‘No, but it looks like him.’” “And what did you say, Belial?” “I said, ‘I am the man.’  ‘Oh, really?’ they said.  'Then how were your eyes opened?’  ‘Uh, someone called Jesus anointed them.’  ‘And where is he now?’  'I don't know.’” 9:8-12  “So they were reluctant to believe your story.” His father Jacob continued, “They brought Belial to the Pharisees to explain what had happened.  He told how Jesus had kneaded spit and dirt together.  ‘So he actually healed you on the Sabbath?’ they demanded.  ‘It is forbidden to work on the Sabbath!  The law is very strict about the matter.  One may not knead anything, even bread dough.  This proves that Jesus is a sinner!’  But other Pharisees wondered how a sinner could work miracles.  They asked my son what he thought, and he said, ‘Maybe this Jesus is a prophet.’”  9:13-17  “And then,” Hannah continued, “they had the gall to interrogate us.  ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind?’  We said yes.  ‘How then does he now see?’  My husband answered, ‘We know this is our son.  We know he was born blind.  But how he now sees, we do not know.’  They asked, ‘Did Jesus open his eyes?’  We said, ‘We don't know who did it.’” “But that was a lie, wasn't it?  You did know that it was Jesus, even if you didn't want to admit it.” “We deflected the question.  We said, ‘Do you want to know how our son now sees?  He's of age; ask him.  He can speak for himself.’”  9:18-23  I turned again to Belial and asked him to speak for himself.  “All that I know,” he replied, “is this:      I once was lost, but now am found —              Was blind, but now I see.” “That should be a hymn,” Isaac remarked. Belial was becoming more talkative.  “The Pharisees didn't want to credit the healing to Jesus, that ‘sinner.’  They demanded that I give the praise to God instead.  They wanted more details.  I said, ‘I told you already, and you refused to listen.  Why do you want to hear it again?  Do you want to become his disciples yourselves?’”  9:24-27  “That must have made them angry,” I observed. “And it made me angry.  I said, ‘Never since the world began has such God worked such a miracle!  And we know God doesn't listen to sinners.  If this man who opened my eyes was not from God, he could not have done anything!’    “But they didn't want to listen to me.  They said I had been born and bred in sin, and they threw me out of the synagogue.  9:30-34  I'm tired of talking about it.  Goodbye.” Aftermath Well, obviously the man we'd been interviewing was not the one I had been trying to locate, Abaddon, the wine merchant's deadbeat.  This man who looked like him was Belial, and his parents testified to that fact. However, thinking about this encounter later, I wondered why Belial had initially been so reluctant to speak to us about his marvelous experience.  Even if he wasn't allowed to praise Jesus, should he not have been praising God to everyone he met?  It seemed strange. It seemed even stranger the following week.  I went to HelpGiven to visit the disabled, and there was Belial!   And now he was blind again! I couldn't believe my own eyes. “Belial!” I exclaimed.  “What happened?  What are you doing here?” He shrank from my touch and my voice.  His words seemed to be faded and brown.  “What?  What did you call me, sir?  My name is not Belial.” “Of course it is.  I came to your home only last week.” “That's impossible.  I have been living here for months.” “And what is your name, if I may ask?” He didn't want to tell me.  A lame man sitting nearby answered my question:  “This is Abaddon.” “Abaddon?!” I shouted. “Quiet, Lamech,” whispered the blind to the lame. “Are you Abaddon, indeed?  I've been trying to find you!” “Why?” “I'm a private investigator, and I'm working on an assignment for the wine merchant Merari.” “Never heard of him.” “He says you've bought a lot of wine over the years but you haven't paid for it.  He went looking for you to ask for payment, but you were nowhere to be found.” “None of that can be true.” Might this be a case of mistaken identity?  I mentioned that the sightless man resembled a sighted man I had visited the week before at the home of his parents, Jacob and Hannah. Lamech, the lame man, piped up.  “Abaddon, didn't you tell me Jacob and Hannah were the names of your parents?” “You are Abaddon!” I exclaimed.  “You owe my client hundreds of shekels!” “No, no,” said the blind man.  “Jacob and Hannah are indeed my parents, but I don't owe anything.  My parents are the ones who are burdened with debts.  They can no longer support a sightless son, so they arranged for me to live here at HelpGiven.” “I'm confused,” I admitted. “We wanted to keep it a secret from everybody.” His lame friend noted, “It is not shameful to accept charity.” “Perhaps,” I said, “the merchant Merari will be kind to you and forgive at least a part of what you owe him.” “I owe nothing to any merchant.” “But how was it that you lost your sight?” He sighed.  Lamech asked, “What's going on, Abaddon?”  And finally, with great reluctance, the blind man told his story. The Truth “All right.  You are correct; my real name is Belial.  I have been blind from birth.  I have a cousin named Abaddon who looks a lot like me.” Lamech was taken aback.  “You've been pretending to be him?” “My cousin is the one you were hired to find,” Belial told me.  “He did get himself into debt, though lately he's been trying to cut back on his drinking and become respectable.  Mom once said she wished the son she bore had been Abaddon, not poor worthless me.  Dad scolded her severely for even thinking that. “After I grew up, as a blind man I couldn't get a job and Dad couldn't support me any longer.  I had to sit by the Merchants' Gate and beg.  We prayed for a miracle. “Someone told Mom that ‘God helps those who help themselves.’  Although that proverb isn't in the Scriptures, it did give her an idea.  Maybe we could help ourselves.  Maybe our little family could ourselves create a miracle.  Maybe I could secretly change places with Abaddon, my cousin! “He could claim a miracle and pretend to be me, set free from my blindness.  With his new identity, he would also be free from his debts.  Meanwhile my parents could be set free from their burden, because I could quietly disappear and let HelpGiven support me. “Mom heard that this preacher named Jesus was going to be passing through my gate on the Sabbath.  People were saying he might be the Messiah, because he had cured lepers and deaf people.  They claimed he'd even cured paralyzed people like you, Lamech. “Mom went to Abaddon and explained the plan, telling her nephew that this could be his own private Jubilee for the forgiveness of debts.  He could be born again, no longer a deadbeat — and hopefully no longer a drunk!  Abaddon agreed to mingle in the crowd at the Pool of Siloam. “Meanwhile, Mom and Dad joined me at my gate.  I could hear the disciples arriving, and Mom called out to ask Jesus to bless my sightless eyes.  He tried.  He smeared some mud on my eyelids, but when I opened them I still couldn't see.  But  we had previoiusly agreed that Dad would say I needed to bathe in the holy pool to complete the miracle. “My parents took me there, and under the water, Abaddon and I switched places.  He emerged all full of joy and went home with my parents, while I stayed mostly submerged at the far side of the pool.  Later someone noticed me and led me here.  I have been very fortunate to have met these good, compassionate people here at HelpGiven.” Mystery Solved When I returned to the wine merchant and explained what I had learned,  I declined my usual fee. I also suggested to Merari that he too ought to be generous.  He could forgive the debt that he had been trying to collect from the poor couple's miraculous new “son,” who was now on the road to sobriety. “Be kind to one another,” I urged.  “Be tenderhearted.  Forgive one another.  Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his hands, so that he may be able to give to those in need.”   Ephesians 4:32,28    Click here for other Bible stories I've retold in the first person.