John 9:8-38

John 9:8-38     A Blind Man Comes to Spiritual Sight

8 His neighbours and those who had seen him before as a beggar, said,
"Is this not the fellow who used to sit here begging?"
9 Some said that it was he;
others said, "No, but he is like him."  
He insisted, "I am the one".

The focus of the narrative turned to the blind man and the various groups who would interact with him. Its purpose would seem to be to emphasise and to illustrate in graphic detail the attitudes expressed in the previous controversy. The man’s answer could not have been more direct. 

The Man Called Jesus

10 So they said to him, "How is it then that your eyes have been opened?"
11 He replied, "The man named Jesus made some clay
and anointed my eyes,
and told me to go and wash in the pool of Siloam.  
So I went off and washed,
and now I see again."

The blind man identified his healer as the man named Jesus. His journey to deeper insight had begun.

12 They said to him, "Where is he?"  
He said, "I do not know."
13 So they led the man who had been blind to the Pharisees. 
14 Now the day on which Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes
was a Sabbath. 
15 So the Pharisees interrogated him once more how he saw again.  
So he answered,
"He spread clay on my eyes,
and I went and washed,
and now I see."

Up to this stage in the prolonged controversy, most of those in interaction with Jesus had not been specifically identified as Pharisees. Their appearance in the story probably reflected more directly the conflicts taking place between the community of the Beloved Disciple and their contemporaries. 

Noting that the day was the sabbath served to focus and intensify the Pharisees’ opposition (and recalled the arguments that followed the healing of the crippled man [Chapter 5]). Law and its traditional interpretation came into conflict with reality. The former blind man would stay with the reality; his adversaries with their blinding preconceptions.

16 Some of the Pharisees said,
"This man is not from God,
because he does not keep the Sabbath."  
But others said,
"How can a sinner do works like that?"  
And there was division among them.

The Pharisees’ problem became more clearly focussed: accept the obvious (and what it said about Jesus), or deliberately ignore the obvious (in favour of their cherished interpretation of Torah). 

Jesus as Prophet

17 They said once more to the blind man,
"Since he opened your eyes,
what do you say about him?"  
He said, "He is a prophet."

Rather than face their difference of opinion and seek an unlikely consensus, the group of Pharisees sought, firstly, to find a way, desperately, to deny the existence of the problem.

Forced by the Pharisees’ opposition to reflect on his experience, the blind man looked more closely at the man who had healed him and came to the conclusion that he was a prophet. In the preceding controversy, some of the crowd had reached the same conclusion [7:40]

18 The Judeans did not believe that he was blind and could now see,
until they summoned the parents of the man who could see again,
19 and asked them, "Is this your son, whom you claim was born blind?
How then is he now able to see?"
20 His parents answered,
"We know that this is our son
and that he was born blind.

The narrative reverted from the use of the word Pharisees to speak again simply of the Judeans. Perhaps, in this way, the author wished to insinuate that the problem was not specific to Pharisees, but to all members of all groups. How do people cope with information that challenges their customary ways of organising experience? 

The people’s hope of undermining the evidence so that they might retain, without challenge, their unquestioned interpretation of the Torah backfired. The fact of the healing could not be denied.

Threat of Exclusion

21 How he can now see we do not know,
nor we do know who opened his eyes.  
Ask him, he is old enough; he can speak for himself."
22 The parents said this, because they were frightened of the Judeans,
for the Judeans had already decided
that if anyone publicly declared him to be the Christ,
they would be expelled from the synagogue.
23 That is why his parents said,
"He is old enough, ask him".

Rather than face the risk of their being expelled from the synagogue, the man’s parents chose to effectively exclude their son by denying any responsibility for him.

The formal decision to put out of the synagogue anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Christ/Messiah originated with a decision reached by leading Pharisees at Jamnia some time after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD. The implementation of the decision took some years to become general throughout the Diaspora. 

24 So they summoned the man who had been born blind a second time,
and said to him, "Give glory to God.  
We know that this man is a sinner."

The interrogation was continued by those Judeans who had definitively come to the conclusion that Jesus had sinned by breaking the Sabbath. There was a wonderful irony in their putting the man under oath with their formula Give glory to God: he would indeed give glory to God, but not as they imagined. Their hope was that, under pressure, he would back down on his story. In fact, as the narrative unfolded, he would give glory to God by proclaiming the work of Jesus and declaring his faith in Jesus as the Son of Man, and formally worshipping him [verse 38].


Give Glory to God

The author did not recall the story simply to congratulate the members of his community for their faith. He wished to deepen their faith, so that they might truly come alive.
 
The basic problem with their opponents was their complacency. They were comfortable that they knew their Torah and were certain that their interpretation was a true reflection of their tradition. They were unwilling to face the possibility of change. Their conviction of their orthodoxy and heritage blocked them from the obvious newness of Jesus, and obscured their sensitivity to deeper truth.
 
The Beloved Disciple was concerned lest his community might become similarly complacent. For the Disciple, faith was not a question of knowing the right answers, but of responding to the reality of Jesus as the living human embodiment of the faithful love and mercy of God. For him faith was trust – trust leading to ever deeper relationship in love. Faith was personal encounter; not so much knowledge about Jesus, but knowledge of Jesus, learnt through long and loving continuing in his word [8:31]. His concern was that their on-going experience of opposition (as laboriously recorded in the long account of controversy) not dishearten them, on the one hand, or harden them, on the other, but that it would lead them to confront again, and wholeheartedly reaffirm their personal faith in the Lord they professed.
 
The task facing Christian believers today is to see through and beyond the details of the long conflict as outlined in the narrative and learn to confront their own world. The modern world sometimes attacks the Christian’s faith; sometimes simply ignores it as irrelevant. Rather than dampening enthusiasm, the current scene can be the occasion for believers to ask once more why they believe and in whom they believe, not in the hope of finding ever smarter answers, but of allowing reality to lead them beyond where they are to an ever deeper faith, and thereby “give glory to God”.
 

25 He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know.  
But one thing I do know,
that I was blind and now I see."  
26 So they said to him again,
"What did he do to you?
How did he open your eyes?" 
27 He answered, "I have already told you,
and you did not listen.
Why do you want to hear it again?
Do you want to become disciples of his?"

Rather than retract what he had already said, despite their bullying, he gently chided them.

28 They heaped abuse on him and said,
"You can be his disciple.  
We are disciples of Moses. 
29 We know that God spoke to Moses,
but we have no idea where he comes from."

They persisted in seeing their interpretation of the law of the Sabbath as an expression of their fidelity to Moses (through whom the Sabbath law had been originally promulgated). Their unwillingness to look more deeply into the mystery of Jesus prevented their reaching the obvious conclusion about his origin. Their comfort in their group-belonging undermined their ability to face the necessity to change. Their blindness confirmed explicitly what Jesus had earlier said of them: I know where I come from and where I am going.  You know neither where I come from nor where I am going [8.14]. 

A Man from God

30 The man answered, "This is amazing;
you do not know where he comes from, and he opened my eyes!
31 We know that God does not listen to sinners,
but if someone is devout and does his will,
God listens to him. 
32 It has never been heard of
that someone opened the eyes of one born blind.
33 If he were not of God,
he would not be able to do anything."

The formerly blind man saw what had happened to him as more than healing. He had been born blind. He had never seen. What Jesus had done was nothing less than an act of creation.

The man took up the Jews’ previous claim: We know that God spoke to Moses, and added his own claim: if someone is devout and does his will, God listens to him. In the light of Jesus’ creative work, he must be of God.

Under pressure from the continuing conflict, the man’s insight increased and his faith deepened. But it was not yet quite complete.

Excluded

34 They answered back,
"You were born in sin through and through,
and are you teaching us?"  
And they threw him out.

The reaction of his questioners was definitively to exclude the man. In line with the common understanding of physical disability in the community, they labelled the man a sinner.  By labelling him a sinner, they believed that they no longer needed to face the problem threatening their group adhesion.  


Facing the Problem

The problem confronting the group was too dangerous to face. If Jesus really were of God, then many of their traditional presuppositions about the Sabbath would have to be changed. Their sense of God would have to be revised: Jesus was re-defining their sense of God. God had not stopped all creative activity with the sixth day of creation: God continued to work, even on the Sabbath. God was the God of ever-renewing creation, of life, of growth and of abundance.
 
Yet, their strict Sabbath observance grounded their sense of identity as a group. Any revision would threaten their former treasured stability.
 
In their minds, their loyalty to God justified their exclusions, even to the extent of violence. It justified their earlier decision to kill Jesus [8:59].

 


Their unwillingness to change and to face their possible disunity was too strong. Yet, they could maintain their stance only by closing their eyes to the obvious – by deliberately choosing blindness.

The incident had begun with Jesus stating that the man’s blindness was not the result of sin. It concluded with the Jewish leaders guilty of sin because of their blindness.

The community of the Beloved Disciple saw their own experience foreshadowed in that of the blind man. They knew, too, how it felt to be driven out. Yet, by telling the story in the way he had done, the Disciple was also warning his community against the danger of their behaving similarly – without ever being aware of it.

Faith in the Son of Man

35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out,
and when he found him he said to him,
"Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

Until now, the man’s statements about Jesus had been a series of ever deepening logical conclusions. He had one more step to take: from logical conclusion to belief and the personal surrender in trust that true belief involved.

By inviting the man to believe, Jesus identified himself as the Son of Man. The title had occurred previously in the narrative, 

  • sometimes in an indefinite context [1:51; 6:62], 
  • sometimes in relationship to his being lifted up (on the cross and in resurrection) [3:13-14; 8:28], 
  • and sometimes in the context of his being the ultimate criterion of eternal life according to whether people accepted him or not [5:27; 6:27; 6:53].
36 He replied, "Who is he, Lord, so that I can believe in him?"
37 Jesus answered,  
"The one you are looking at and who is speaking to you,
he is the one".
38 He said, "I believe, Lord",
and fell on his knees before him.

Though it was the same Greek word that was translated as both sir and Lord, the translation has picked up the intended nuance. Lord expressed the response of full faith. The blind man’s confession of Jesus as Lord echoed that made earlier in the narrative by Peter at the end of the bread of life discourse: Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the message of eternal life.  We trust you.  We know that you are the holy one of God [6:68-9].

Next >> John 9:39-41