Cure of the Blind Man

It's a beautiful Gospel and one I took great delight in studying. You might know and recall that in John's Gospel, which we are studying today, he never refers to miracles strictly speaking as miracles; he always refers to them as signs, because there is so much more that they signify. Beyond the appearance of what happens on the surface, they signify that something more spiritual is happening in our lives. We have to ask ourselves: What does this healing of the blind man signify for us?

Scripture scholars suggest that it signifies how the early Christian community tried to recall what we all need to go through in our baptismal commitment to Christ. Scholars further suggest that this was used and interpreted as a baptismal catechetical teaching in preparation for the Easter vigil where catechumens entered into the baptismal waters that would give them true enlightenment of faith to see who Jesus was. The man born blind, whom Jesus healed, was a model for all catechumens and Christians demonstrating our own conversion process.

That being said, in the opening lines of the Gospel Jesus walks along and sees this man who has been blind from birth. There is something right there, "blind from birth." He has nothing in himself that would provide the necessary ingredients for vision. Jesus' disciples asked, "Rabbi, was it his sin or his parents' sin that caused him to be born blind?” In the Old Testament, the prevailing belief was that any illness came from God since they believed everything came from God (both good and bad; health and sickness). They imagined that if God allows a person to have a sickness or disease, then that person must have done something wrong.

In that view of God's justice, they believed either the person, or his/her parents had sinned. The disciples are just presuming what their contemporaries presumed: somewhere along the line, this man did something wrong and that's why he is blind or perhaps his parents did something to sin against God. Jesus loudly, clearly and emphatically refutes this thinking. He says: "Neither his parents, nor this man have sinned."

Even today we need to hear this because there still lingers the thought that when something bad happens we must have ticked God off. We must have done something bad if an ill fortune falls our way. I've heard it said of people with AIDS "their sin has brought this upon them." This sets up a very bad theology of God who is a persecutor. I don't believe in that and it's one of the distortions that needs to be healed. We need to have a greater vision of who God is—and God is not a God who hurts us, but a God who heals us. Jesus comes to say this. Earlier in another part of the Gospel he says, "I have not come to condemn the world. I've come to save the world." We see in Jesus the perfect vision and revelation of God. Moreover we see him at work in this very man's life.

Then Jesus says: "I am the light on the world." I highlight that short phrase because I believe that's the theme of this Gospel story and one of the many themes of the whole Gospel of St. John: Jesus is the light of the world. Apart from Him, we live in darkness and all that the darkness suggests. That is where the evil one lingers and lives but in the light we have love and peace and joy. Jesus brings that light into the world and into all of our lives.

People who have had near death experiences talk about coming into that light; a light that's indescribable; a light that's more than any florescent light bulb could ever suggest; a light that infuses warmth and love and an almost indescribable life energy. That is what Jesus means when we says, "I am the light of the world." He wants to just shine that light upon us.

Back to the Gospel scene: Jesus spat on the ground and made mud with his saliva and smeared the man's eyes with that mud. That sounds revolting doesn't it? It's repulsive to us today that Jesus would use his own spittle. In ancient times they considered a person's saliva to have certain curative elements. Further, they believed that fluids such as blood and saliva carried the person's spirit. It is Jesus' spirit that has such healing power as he anoints him and blesses him on the eyes.

Then Jesus says to him, "Go. Wash in the pool of Siloam." Siloam means: "One who has been sent." The man then goes and washes and comes back, able to see. Wow. He had never been able to see all his life. John here is making a subtle but beautiful connection between the name Siloam (meaning one who has been sent) and Jesus who he refers to throughout his Gospel as the one who was sent from God who comes to wash away our sin so that no longer blinded by our sin he could give us a vision of God's love. It is in that love that we discover everything is new; a new creation of God.

I see my friend Dave here. I'll never forget, for whatever reason Dave never had his eyes checked for years and years and years. Betsy took him one time to the doctor to have his eyes checked and they gave him a long overdue prescription for glasses. That first day Dave said he came back and said all day long: “Wow, I can't believe everything I've been missing all these years.” Can you imagine what this man in the Gospel must have felt since he had never seen anything?

Now can you see what the Lord wants to reveal to all of us? We have hardly a fraction of the vision of all that God is and all that we could be. This world is a reflection of God's great goodness. This is what the Lord is trying to open us up to see. As we look at this man, we might see ourselves, hopefully, and this desire to see through the eyes of Jesus in the light of the Lord. As we follow the rest of this story, we will see that the man is not only healed physically but, more importantly—especially for John's community—he is healed of his spiritual blindness giving us the greatest insight into who God is.

There were four encounters he had with four different people that gave him new insight just as we might imagine our encounters and experiences with people and events in life give us new insight through hindsight. The first people who encounter this man born blind (but who can now

see) are his neighbors. His neighbors are people accustomed to see him. When you think of the neighbors, think about how we categorize people and make assumptions and have prejudice about them. They asked of him, "Isn't this the fellow who used to sit here and beg?" Finally the man himself said, "Yes. I'm the one all right." And then they said to him, "How are your eyes opened?" And he answered, "That man they call Jesus healed me."

At this point we see that the blind man saw Jesus only as a man—an extraordinary man but a human. From this point, his faith will grow but not easily. He grows as often our faith grows: through a struggle of encounters with other people that will challenge him and contest everything he states and believes. This is especially true for the next people he meets called the Pharisees. Keep in mind that the Pharisees were the religious lay group of the day who were the enlightened ones because they studied the Scriptures and they thought they knew the truth. They saw it the way you should see it, called a spade a spade, and a sin a sin. They were a righteous people but unfortunately, as we will learn, they were self-righteous than God-right.

They took the man who had been born blind to the Pharisees who began to inquire how he recovered his sight. Some of the Pharisees asserted, "This man [Jesus] cannot be from God because he does not keep the Sabbath." Notice now the Pharisees are the blind ones who do not see Jesus for who he truly is. Then the Pharisees addressed the blind man, "What do you have to say about him?" The blind man now can see that he is a prophet. We can see the man's vision improving, he now calls Jesus a prophet from God. John is setting up this contrast between the man born blind (who can now see) and the Pharisees who thought they could see so perfectly but were just growing increasingly blind through the cataracts of their own pride and prejudice. We have to be aware of the Pharisee in you and me; the tendency to think we see it so perfectly and fail to recognize our own blind spots.

The man is led to his parents and the Pharisees ask them, "how do you account for the fact that he can now see?" His parents answered, "We know that this is our son. We know that he was blind at birth but how he can see now or who opened his eyes, we have no idea. Ask him!" In the Scripture commentaries we're told, as John writes, his parents answered in this fashion because they were afraid of the Jews who had already agreed that anyone who acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah would be expelled from the synagogue.

In fact not at the time of Jesus, but later in the early second century when John's community was writing and reading this Gospel, we know that the Christians were being expelled from the synagogue if they proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah. Do you see how they are reading their own circumstances into this Gospel understanding? If we had that same perspective we might wonder how this applies to us. We have to see that sometimes, like the parents of the blind man, we are afraid to look at truth as it truly is and what it calls us to see and say; to be and become.

But the man himself—again he was a model disciple—has no fear for what he has seen and even under the criticism of the Pharisees, speaks boldly and says, "If this man [Jesus] were not from God, he could never have done such a thing.” With that, the Pharisees threw him out bodily. He

represents those Christians that saw Jesus as Messiah and spoke out the truth, professed their faith boldly and were expelled from the synagogue.

Now keep in mind, it wasn't just a matter of being kicked out of their "church" but out of their whole family and their whole community. They would have been totally alienated from any sense of their economic security and well-being; they paid a great price for truth. For the man born blind, not only does he recognizes Jesus as a great prophet, but he himself is becoming a prophet: one who speaks the truth and tells it as he sees it and says it as it is.

The fourth encounter is the most beautiful encounter: the blind man with Jesus himself. When Jesus heard of the man's expulsion, Jesus sought him out and asked him, "Do you believe in the son of God?" And the man answered, "Who is he sir that I may believe in him?" Who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? This is what always leads us to greater insight, to greater spiritual vision. Jesus said, "You have seen him." I think there is a reason he uses these very words: "You have seen him." You have experienced him. You know him. He is speaking to you now. And the man said, "I do believe." Believing is seeing and he bows down to worship Jesus and that's the proof of his recognition. He saw Jesus as truly the Son of God for he bowed down to worship him.

There is the great insight of this Gospel. His sight leads him to stand before Jesus. We too want to see Jesus and to see through the eyes of Jesus how he looks on us, looks on others, and looks on our life. Ironically the Gospel ends with the Pharisees asking the question—and pay attention to the use of irony here that John the evangelist loves to use. They asked Jesus, "Do you think that we are blind?" And Jesus in effect says, "You're worse than blind because you even refused to see." It's one thing to be blind, but it's even worse to refuse any insight to see at all.

Remember the Gospel began then by the disciples asking the question, "Is this blindness caused by sin?" John ends his Gospel by saying, "No, this physical blindness is not caused by sin, but spiritual blindness is." Spiritual blindness is caused by sin and this is the sin that Jesus wants to cure. This is the blindness that Jesus wants to heal. What a great story!

I offer for reflection three insights to help us see. My first insight and suggestion is that we admit that we are all a little blind; that none of us can claim to always see the full picture or have the full understanding. We all work from limited viewpoints. Just as when we drive a car there are blind spots and we must compensate for that by looking over our left shoulder before changing lanes. If not we might crash!

The same is true in life! Unless we make allowances for our blind spots we will come crashing down, colliding with other people and worse yet with God and God's will for our life. Let me use other names for blindness to understand this in different ways. One synonym for blindness is stubbornness...closed or narrow mindedness. We all know people who are blind to their piece of the truth but can't hear anybody else's. Arrogance. Pride or prejudice. Isn't that one of the worst ways of not seeing people as God sees: prejudice or pride. Pride makes us feels superior. Worse

yet, one of the most common causes of poor vision today is a sense of inferiority blinded to our self-worth and blinded to how God sees us so wonderfully and lovingly.

Perhaps worst of all is a lack of faith that alone gives us God's vision. Jesus is the light. Without that light, we are in total darkness and only able to see this life in human terms, not with eternal perspective. That perspective puts everything into a very clear light. This faith is what we must come to grow in, much like the man born blind.

I ask the question, do you recognize your own blind spots and do you make compensation for them? Where do you go for insight? I believe we need to ask Jesus—who says he is the light of the world—for his insight. Jesus will give us this insight as true as he gave it to the man in the Gospel. We are that man born blind. We're born with a handicap—a human condition—of needing God’s divine intervention to show us the way through life. We look for God’s guidance as much as a blind man would need the guidance of another to walk him along.

The Bible is that guidance—that's why we study the Gospels. We are most enlightened. We see it and receive it through prayer and we ask for God's light to come to us. We see it and receive it through many various inspirational people and material. The resources are as wide as this world. I find that Jesus gives us insight through significant people in our lives, especially our family and our close friends who know us and love us and see us from an objective perspective. I believe we need to seek them out and ask for their honest feedback and for their critical suggestions. We need to go to them to ask and trust that God will speak to us through them. I would like to encourage that if you are making any decision about anything, stop and ask first for Jesus' insights. Believe me, he wants to give it to you just as he gave sight to the blind man. He will do this in a very simple way through insights, intuitions, and realizations. Most especially, he will speak through the people who know us and love us.

Finally, this last point important but hard to hear and to do. Look at the parents in this Gospel. Their mistake was that they did not have tough love. They didn't speak the truth as they knew it. To not cause waves or make any difficulties—and worst yet, to save themselves from trouble— they backed off and kept their mouths shut.

These parents represent many of us—if not all of us from time to time—when in our own family, in our workplace, and in our own world we fail to speak the truth to one another in love. We need to speak the truth honestly with humility and always with charity and sensitivity in love. The only exception I would make is sometimes we can foresee that to speak truth could only be counterproductive and in such a case I think we are better off not speaking out. But more often than not, I believe the truth sets us free. It certainly did for this blind man.