John 9:1–7 – “Jesus and a man born blind”
(Josiah Hall)
John 9:1–7 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
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John’s account of Jesus’s healing of a man born blind is one of my favorite episodes in the Gospel and raises so many questions that we will spend two days considering it. Tomorrow we will consider how John uses this figure to teach us about the nature of discipleship, but first we must consider the challenging question John uses to introduce the story: what is the relationship between sin and disabilities?
It can be tempting to simply view the disciples who ask Jesus whose sin is responsible for the man’s blindness as ignorant, but we should acknowledge that the temptation to assume that physical suffering is a sign of God’s judgment remains very prevalent even in our society. Jesus emphatically rejects the connection between human sin and the man’s disability. Jesus is telling his disciples that questions of the origin of the man’s disability are the wrong questions to ask.
Others of us may be tempted towards a different, but also ultimately unhelpful approach. While Jesus signals that sin (either the man’s sin or his parents’) did not cause this disability, he affirms that this disability, as painful as it would have been for the man, was part of God’s good purpose: “that the works of God might be displayed in him” (9:3). Affirming God’s sovereign and good purposes even over painful life situations can provide enormous comfort. Yet sometimes we emphasize the wrong element of Jesus’s remark and stress that the point of suffering is that God’s work might be “displayed in him,” instead of understanding Jesus to say that God’s work will be displayed in the man. Consequently, we often reduce the “works” (note the plural) of God of which Jesus speaks to Jesus’s act of healing.
Jesus’s healing of the man’s blindness is indeed a work of God, for the man himself will later affirm, “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing” (9:32–33). Yet reducing the display of God’s work in the man to only the miraculous healing runs the risk of implying that the man’s years of living in blindness occurred simply for the purpose of this miracle, as if the man’s difficult life experiences* were merely a canvas on which God reveals his works to the watching world.
Jesus is saying, instead, that the man’s particular experiences have occurred that God’s glory might be displayed in him. The man himself is not only the object of God’s work, but the instrument through whom God will reveal his works. The display of God’s works in the man do not culminate in his healing from physical blindness but when (as we’ll see tomorrow) the man testifies to the religious leaders about Jesus’s identity and when, after Jesus finds him, the man displays the work of God by worshipping Jesus.
This conclusion comes from the passage itself. Jesus states in verse 4, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” The “we” here does not merely include Jesus and the disciples, but the man born blind who is sitting right there listening. The man will wash in the pool of Siloam, which means “Sent” (9:7) and then will do the works of Jesus who sent him, by faithfully testifying to Jesus’s identity. The man’s physical blindness is, therefore, both essential to the story of God’s good purposes in his life and not all that there is to say about the man. His physical blindness is one feature of his creatureliness that, in a manner particular to this man’s story, plays an integral role in his coming to know, enjoy, and display to others God’s glory in Jesus.
*Note that the man was a beggar (9:8) even though he had family (9:18). In a world where families provided the primary social safety net, the fact that the young man was sent out to beg likely implies either exploitation by or ostracization from his family.
Weekly Prayer Focus: Outreach to Neighbors
Daily Prayer Request: “People who leave near 300 Saline St.” (This area is know as lower Greenfield or Four Mile Run – “The Run” for short.) Pray that we would be good neighbors and that God would draw people to faith in Christ.