John 9: The Man Who Was Blind and Now Sees
· #gospels #john
✝ Passage: John 9
The disciples open the chapter with a question that assumes suffering is always somebody’s fault: who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus rejects the premise entirely and heals him anyway, using mud and saliva and a walk to the pool of Siloam, an oddly physical, almost inefficient method for someone who elsewhere heals with a single word.
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Wrong question, real healing
The theology of the disciples’ question turns out to matter less than what Jesus actually does about the suffering in front of him.
Interrogated for being healed
What follows is almost comic in its escalation: neighbors, then Pharisees, then the man’s own parents, afraid of being expelled from the synagogue, all get pulled into interrogating a man whose only offense is being able to see. He doesn’t have a theological argument ready. He just keeps repeating what happened to him.
“One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see.” — John 9:25
Blindness that sees itself
Jesus closes the episode by turning the whole premise upside down: the man born blind sees, and the men who claim to see clearly are the ones actually blind.
“Those who don’t see may see, and those who see may become blind.” — John 9:39
Questions for study
- Why does Jesus reject the disciples’ assumption that suffering equals someone’s specific sin?
- What does the man’s simple testimony, “I was blind, now I see,” accomplish that a theological argument couldn’t?
- Why does interrogating a healed man become more urgent to the Pharisees than the healing itself?
- In what way might claiming to already see clearly be its own kind of blindness?