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Year 2, Week 34, Day 4

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of John 9.

Today’s reading continues the record of events that began in the previous day’s reading. John’s Gospel account extends the report of events from John 7-8, which occurred during the Feast of Tabernacles. John 9 describes what occurred immediately after Jesus left the Temple during the Jewish celebration: “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:1-2). The matter of whose sin caused this man to be blind was not the most important matter to Jesus. Jesus believed that other matters were more important to consider: “Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:3-5). Thus, Jesus healed the man: “Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing” (John 9:6-7). While the middle section of today’s reading explores the hostilities from the Jewish religious establishment, and even the intimidation that was put upon the healed man and his family, the chapter ends with the healed man worshipping Jesus: “He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him” (John 9:38).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was the range of responses to Jesus’ healing of the man born blind: “They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath” (John 9:13-16a). The Pharisees are very upset that a blind man is healed on the Sabbath. Earlier, John recorded that the Pharisees were upset for the same reason, when Jesus healed a man who could not walk for thirty-eight years (see John 5:1-16). Why was a reason to rejoice be such an occasion for disdain? It seems that the Jewish religious establishment are concerned only with themselves, their own agenda, their own authority, and their own control of the people. They perceive that Jesus is a real threat to them.

The miracle that Jesus performed in healing the man born blind demonstrated His Messianic identity: “In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see” (Isaiah 29:18). The response of the Pharisees demonstrated the judicial sentence that they were under: “Go, and say to this people: “‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed” (Isaiah 6:9-10). Jesus, “the light of the world,” appears and the Pharisees are blind to Him. While their blindness is connected to the judgment that is upon them, their blindness caused by their misdirected loves: “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed” (John 3:19-20). 

The Pharisees intimidate the healed man’s parents in order to level an accusation of a false healing: “The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” (John 9:18-19). The man’s parents did acknowledge that their son was born blind but they refuse to be clear about the matter of his healing. John explains why they were obtuse: “Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue” (John 9:21b-22). They even seek to intimidate the healed man: “They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen” (John 26-27a). The Jewish leaders expelled him from their midst: “They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out” (John 9:34).

But as the man was expelled, he was sought out by Jesus: “Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” (John 9:35). And while the man can physically see, His spiritual perception is not clear: “He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you” (John 9:36-37). Jesus concludes by summarizing the range of responses to His teaching and healing: “Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind” (John 9:39). The Pharisees had physical sight but were blind to the glory of Jesus, but to the man Jesus healed, as “the light of the world,” Jesus drew the man from spiritual blindness to spiritual light.

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe