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 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 eyeswas 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).
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 sonand 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.
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].
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].
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.
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.
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.
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,
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