John
9:1-41
March
15, 2026
1As he walked along, he saw a man
blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned,
this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ 3Jesus
answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that
God's works might be revealed in him. 4We must work the works of him
who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5As
long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ 6When
he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread
the mud on the man's eyes, 7saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the
pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able
to see. 8The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a
beggar began to ask, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ 9Some
were saying, ‘It is he.’ Others were saying, ‘No, but it is someone like him.’
He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’ 10But they kept asking him,
‘Then how were your eyes opened?’ 11He answered, ‘The man
called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, “Go to Siloam and
wash.” Then I went and washed and received my sight.’ 12They
said to him, ‘Where is he?’ He said, ‘I do not know.’
13They brought to the Pharisees the
man who had formerly been blind. 14Now it was a sabbath day
when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15Then the
Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them,
‘He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.’ 16Some
of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not observe the
sabbath.’ But others said, ‘How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?’
And they were divided. 17So they said again to the blind man,
‘What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.’ He said, ‘He is a
prophet.’
18The Jews did not believe that he
had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the
man who had received his sight 19and asked them, ‘Is this your
son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’ 20His
parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son, and that he was born
blind; 21but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do
we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for
himself.’ 22His parents said this because they
were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who
confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the
synagogue. 23Therefore his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask
him.’
24So for the second time they called
the man who had been blind, and they said to him, ‘Give glory to God! We know
that this man is a sinner.’ 25He answered, ‘I do not know
whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I
see.’ 26They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he
open your eyes?’ 27He answered them, ‘I have told you already,
and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to
become his disciples?’ 28Then they reviled him, saying, ‘You
are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29We know that
God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes
from.’ 30The man answered, ‘Here is an astonishing thing! You
do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. 31We
know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who
worships him and obeys his will. 32Never since the world began
has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. 33If
this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ 34They
answered him, ‘You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?’
And they drove him out.
35Jesus heard that they had driven
him out, and when he found him, he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of
Man?’ 36He answered, ‘And who is he,
sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.’ 37Jesus said
to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’ 38He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’
And he worshipped him. 39Jesus said, ‘I came into this world
for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may
become blind.’ 40Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and
said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ 41Jesus said to
them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We
see”, your sin remains.
********************
Have you ever considered what it
would be like to live to be an adult, having been born blind, and then suddenly
to be given your sight?
All around you would be things that
you recognize only by touch, people you know only by their voices, foods you
know only by taste and texture, flowers you know only by their scent. Someone would have to help you learn what
colors are. A bird flying toward you
might be terrifying. Hand gestures would
mean nothing unless somebody told you that holding up your index and middle
finger sometimes means “two” and sometimes means “peace”. Would you know not to look at the sun? Would you worry that when night falls it
means you are losing your sight again?
If you close your eyes, will all these things disappear? Speaking for myself, if I had been born
blind, I don’t know whether I could handle all of that, all coming at me all at
once.
Some interpreters think that fear of
such a sudden and drastic change (even when it comes from good news) is, in
part, what this part of the gospel of John is about. The arrival of the Messiah is good news, but
it shifted a lot of lives around in a lot of ways reflected in John’s account
of this miracle.
The
book seems to have been written at a point where the community centered on
Jesus and what would become Judaism as we now know it were splitting
apart. John refers to “the Jews” as a
separate group in a way that Jesus himself would not have done. We read that
“the
Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the
Messiah would be put out of the synagogue.” [John 9:22]
They had “already
agreed”. That sounds like a present
reality for the people John was writing for. When he says that the man’s parents were
frightened of being put out of the synagogue, and that their son did have that
happen to him, the hearers would have understood the fears that come from news
(even good news) that make you reassess everything and rethink your life.
The
whole group of people who had come to confess Jesus as the Messiah were facing
a whole new world themselves. Some of
them were no longer welcome in the setting that had given shape to their faith
and meaning to their lives and none of them were part of the pagan cultures
that surrounded them in other ways. That
is confusing and disorienting. It’s no
surprise that the man whose life Jesus had changed was confused about that as
well. Pushed by the Pharisees to distance
himself from Jesus, he wouldn’t do it. He
kept expressing his gratitude and giving Jesus credit for his new-found sight. He
said,
“‘I do not know whether he is a sinner”
(meaning
someone who would break the Sabbath to heal someone), but insisted,
“One
thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’” [John 9:25]
The
experience of being pushed on this, in fact, just made him more defiant about
it.
“They
said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He
answered them, ‘I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you
want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?’” [John 9:26-27]
They don’t
seem to have cared for that response.
Jesus really does change people in
profound ways when he shows them a new way to view the world, whether with
physical eyes or with the eyes of faith.
It wasn’t just this man. T.S.
Eliot, in his poem “The Journey of the Magi”, imagines what it must have been
like later in life for one of the wise men to look back on his encounter with
the child Jesus and try to make sense of it:
“All
this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.”
To meet
Jesus is to become less comfortable with the way things are. It is no longer to accept the terms that the
world dictates to us.
That’s going to mean questioning and
rejecting a lot of what we are taught in favor of new ways of life outlined by
Jesus:
“‘You
have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes
you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue
you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you
to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from
you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. [Matthew 5:38-42]
There’s a
whole lot more of that in the Sermon on the Mount. None of it is especially practical.
It’s
as if Jesus were asking us to see a whole new world, and to live in it. He called it the Kingdom of God. I like the way that Rachel Held Evans
summarizes Jesus’ vision of that kingdom.
“In
contrast to every other kingdom that has been and ever will be, this kingdom
belongs to the poor, Jesus said, and to the peacemakers, the merciful, and
those who hunger and thirst for God. In
this kingdom, the people from the margins and the bottom rungs will be lifted
up to places of honor, seated at the best spots at the table. This kingdom knows no geographical
boundaries, no political parties, no single language or culture. It advances not through power or might, but
through acts of love and joy and peace, missions of mercy and kindness and
humility. This kingdom has arrived, not
with a trumpet’s sound but with a baby’s cries, not with the vanquishing of
enemies but with the forgiving of them, not on the back of a warhorse but on
the back of a donkey, not with triumph and a conquest but with a death and a
resurrection.”[1]
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