John 9:1-41
IF you lose your eyesight because of a cataract, and get that fixed, you can see again. If you have never seen and you get eyesight as is the case of some individuals who had congenital cataracts, the longer you have been blind, the less likely removing the cataracts will accomplish anything. The neurologist Oliver Sacks, said that you have to die as a blind man and be reborn as a sighted man. In other words, you have to put new software in your brain to interpret what is coming in through the eyes.
So when you read this long story, what catches your eye? The miracle, yes, but it’s an interesting one, isn’t it? Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead by simply calling his name and telling him to come out. Here he makes mud from dirt and spit, and smears it into the man’s eyes. Is that significant? Saint Ambrose saw the significance. God created man from mud and Jesus takes mud to repair this man. Not a long stretch. Maybe he had no eyes and now he has them because Jesus created them for him. But the man’s miracle isn’t complete; he has to wash in a pool, a specific pool named “Siloam” which means “the one who is sent”. Again another church father saw this as reminiscent of baptism, because at baptism we become members of the body of Jesus, the one who is sent. Maybe that’s a little bigger stretch.
But then the action proceeds. The apostles already kicked it off with their question -- “If he’s blind, who sinned, him or his parents?” Kind of like asking “When did you stop beating your wife?”
But think for a minute about the blind man -- he’s wandering around in a daze of happiness -- he probably has a goofy grin on his face; he’s staring at birds and flowers and people are taking notice. They aren’t even sure it’s the same man who used to sit and beg; they have never seen that one staring at things and grinning with joy. But he assures them that he is. And then we begin the contact with the Pharisees. Now you have to remember that John often uses the word “Jews” to refer to the Pharisees. This has gotten us Christians into a lot of trouble down through the years. I don’t know what was going on in John’s mind, but there are apostles and the parents of the man and Jesus himself standing around, all of whom are Jews.
You know how when you are reading or watching a detective story, the detective cleverly discovers who the villain is by asking questions and following up with more questions and investigation? If you go back and read this story, it’s like a reverse detective story. The blind man tells everybody up front that Jesus made mud and smeared it on his eyes and he washed in the Siloam pool and could see. And he keeps repeating that. But the Pharisees don’t believe him. And they keep gathering evidence. They ask the parents, who say, “we don’t know how he gained his sight, but he’s been blind since he was born.” Then they turn to the blind man again and point out again that Jesus is obviously a sinner, so the blind man can’t possibly be right. And he tells them again. And finally, because he sticks to his story, always coming back to “I was blind, and now I see” they throw him out of the synagogue. I think John was going for a little humor here.
But the lesson for us is clear. Are we like the Pharisees? Are we missing the presence of God in our midst because of our preconceptions? I think that much of the time we do. Part of the problem is that we don’t know what the presence of God should look like. Or even worse, we think we know. Look at the Pharisees in this story. They have concluded that Jesus is a sinner because he healed on the Sabbath. Now the Pharisees had a point. They aren’t irrational; in the case of an emergency, Sabbath rules could be overridden. But Jesus could have waited to work the miracle, but didn’t – so he is seen as a sinner. A sinner cannot be a conduit for a miracle; they know God doesn’t work through sinners. They’ve made two logical assumptions that keep them from seeing the miracle in their midst, the hand of God in the healing of the blind man.
God is always working in our midst. Even when bad things happen, we know that God chastises his sons and daughters with the intention of bringing them closer to himself. So let us open our own eyes as well. There is a wonderful exercise. In the evening at the end of the day look back on your day just for a minute. What happened that you did not expect to happen? What were the consequences? How was God involved? Because he is especially the God of surprises.
