John 9,1-41.
This is the sixth of John’s seven miracle narratives in his gospel, and like the others it elicits different reactions from different groups. Jesus’ disciples question him about whether it was the blind man or his parents who had sinned for him to have been born blind. Their question arose from a theology of retribution which ascribed an individual’s sufferings to some sin which must have been committed. The logic was that if one sinned, they would suffer and if one was suffering, they must have sinned. Jesus rejects their logic and instead sees the man’s blindness as an opportunity to show God’s love and power working in him.
The healing ritual involving the making of paste from clay and spittle and its application to the eyes has a resonance with the second Creation Story (Gen 2,7f), and sending the blind man to wash in Pool of Siloam reminds one of Namaan the leper having to wash in the Jordan to be healed (2 Kgs. 5,10-13). The blind man’s neighbours are among the first to question him as to how he regained his sight. He tells them the story of how “the man called Jesus” healed him.
He is taken to the Pharisees and to their question as to how he had regained his sight he repeats the miracle details. Because the healing happened on the Sabbath, some Pharisees deny that Jesus is from God. But others wonder how one who is a sinner could perform such great miracles. The blind man’s belief that Jesus is a “prophet” throws some light on Jesus, but his parents’ diplomatic refusal, out of fear, to commit themselves about whom they thought healed their son’s blindness adds no new insights.
The Pharisees’ second interrogation of the man elicits from him a rhetorical question which really riles them. They turn their venom on him, but he bounces back with a masterly theological defence of Jesus as a man of God, doing good because he is good. The Pharisees fume: How dare he, a sinner, lecture them! They throw him out. At the time John was writing his gospel Christians were suffering a similar fate, being expelled from the synagogue.
Jesus heard that the blind man had been thrown out by the Pharisees, but he “found him” and enlightened him with the knowledge that he was the Son of Man. The blind man became a believer and worshipped Jesus. Blindness had excluded him from taking part in worship, previously. The healing miracle restored his sight, and his faith in Jesus transformed his exclusion by the Pharisees into admission to the community of believers in Jesus.
Today’s gospel is geared to Catechumens who are preparing to receive the Sacrament of Baptism and to Christians preparing to enter full communion with the Church, at Easter. It is a story of how contact with Jesus transforms blindness into sight, darkness into light, searching into finding.
We see the stages of faith through which the blind man passes. We see a progressively deepening knowledge of Jesus who is; firstly, merely a man (9,11); then, a prophet (9,17); next, a doer of good from God (9,33); and finally with Jesus’ own help he comes to accept and worship him as the divine Son of Man. (9,37f).
What has your faith-journey been like?
Who is Jesus for you?
Who are you for Jesus? Have you ever witnessed to somebody the way Jesus is working in your life?
Fr Geoff O’Grady