Text for the Week: The Healing Light

Scripture: John 9:1-17

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man who was blind from birth. ² Jesus’ disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned so that he was born blind, this man or his parents?”

³ Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents. This happened so that God’s mighty works might be displayed in him. ⁴ While it’s daytime, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work. ⁵ While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶ After he said this, he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and smeared the mud on the man’s eyes. ⁷ Jesus said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (this word means sent). So the man went away and washed. When he returned, he could see.

⁸ The man’s neighbors and those who used to see him when he was a beggar said, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?”

⁹ Some said, “It is,” and others said, “No, it’s someone who looks like him.”

But the man said, “Yes, it’s me!”

¹⁰ So they asked him, “How are you now able to see?”

¹¹ He answered, “The man they call Jesus made mud, smeared it on my eyes, and said, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and then I could see.”

¹² They asked, “Where is this man?”

He replied, “I don’t know.”

¹³ Then they led the man who had been born blind to the Pharisees. ¹⁴ Now Jesus made the mud and smeared it on the man’s eyes on a Sabbath day. ¹⁵ So Pharisees also asked him how he was able to see.

The man told them, “He put mud on my eyes, I washed, and now I see.”

¹⁶ Some Pharisees said, “This man isn’t from God, because he breaks the Sabbath law.” Others said, “How can a sinner do miraculous signs like these?” So they were divided. ¹⁷ Some of the Pharisees questioned the man who had been born blind again: “What do you have to say about him, since he healed your eyes?”

He replied, “He’s a prophet.”

Questions

1. Is there any significance to the man in this story being “blind from birth”, if so why is it important that Jesus heals this man?
2. What is the relationship between day and night in verse 4 and how do they relate to Jesus being the light in verse 5?
3. How do Jesus’ actions constitute work in the Pharisees’ minds and how do these actions violate the command to keep the Sabbath?
4. What is the relationship of sin, blindness, and healing, what does it mean that Jesus says this man did not sin and heals him while the Pharisees say he was a sinner and abandon him?

Background

Related Scriptures: Deuteronomy 5:6-10, John 1:1-18

Blindness in this passage serves both as a physical impairment and a metaphor for spiritual awareness.

This passage is more concerned with the principle of Jesus’ healing than with Jesus or his authority to heal, the question is, “was his healing appropriate”.

For more background check out my video here

Reflection

John 9 is a story that must be read on two levels, the physical and the metaphorical, on the physical level we see the story of Jesus bringing healing to a man and we ask why is that healing significant. But there is also a metaphorical level where blindness and sight stand in for one’s ability to recognize God’s work in the world. The story begins with the disciples questioning Jesus about how sin is related to a man’s blindness, clearly they are reading passages like Deuteronomy 5:9 to mean that God will directly inflict suffering on a person because of sin, whether that sin is the person’s or the person’s parents. Obviously, reading passages this way misses the point of the passage that God’s mercy far exceeds any punishment inflicted by God, but we still struggle today with the idea that we suffer because God is punishing us for our sins. Jesus rejects the disciples’ idea and says that the man’s physical impairment will be used to glorify God. Jesus is going to take this bad situation and use it to glorify God, and we notice that even when Jesus heals the man, he does not seem to interact with the man but with the disciples, he only interacts with the man later. Unlike other places where Jesus asks about a person’s need or desire to be healed, this healing seems to be about metaphorically opening the disciples’ eyes as much as it is about bringing relief to this man’s suffering. Jesus wants us to realize that sin is not the direct cause of such natural suffering and that God’s desire for the world is to end it.

Jesus, the light of the world, bringing healing shows us that God desires wholeness in the world and that when Jesus enters the world  pain and sickness are eliminated. This is especially apparent since blindness was a condition that was often associated with death in the ancient world. Jesus healing the blind man is a sign that he is bringing life to the world and that in his eternal presence there was no room for disease and death. Just as when there is light in a place there is no room for darkness. Healing is a natural part of Jesus because healing is reestablishing wholeness in a person’s life, which God desires to bring to every person. Thus when Jesus heals people of recognizable physical aliments it is a manifestation of Jesus bringing wholeness and God’s presence into that individual’s life.

The idea of God’s presence entering a person’s life is evident from the conversation surrounding the man who was healed. We notice that Jesus’ only words to the blind man were to wash and yet when the man’s physical sight was restored he was also able to understand who Jesus was and that God had restored his sight. His physical healing represented his spiritual sight. This is contrasted with the Pharisees who remain stubbornly opposed to Jesus and are thus the ones who end the passage in blindness. Blindness represents someone who is completely unwilling to understand what God is trying to do in the world, in this chapter the blind man and the disciples may not have understood in the beginning but they were willing to learn. The Pharisees represent those people who witness to God’s work in the world and dismiss it to remain in control. The Pharisees remain blind because they refuse to see how the man in front of them is forgiven, healed, and proclaiming God, they choose only to see a sinner promoting a message that would have them loose their power. And so the passage ends with the man being dismissed from the places the Pharisees control but walking in the light of God’s healing and restoration, while the Pharisees sulk in darkness. It is as Jesus’ disciples walk in the light of Jesus and begin to accept the healing he brings that they enter into the “we” of verse 4. It is when the blind man is healed that he is able to talk about Jesus and lead others in a way that they might find him. We too accept Jesus’ healing and become participants in the work he is doing.

Takeaway

Jesus brings the healing and wholeness that the Father wants for all humanity. When we acknowledge that God wants to bring healing to the world we establish ourselves as those with sight, and as those who walk in the light we can participate with Jesus in bringing such healing into the world.