Jesus Heals the “Man-Born-Blind,” and Gives Him Faith

What a tremendous Scripture reading we are given for the Fourth Sunday of Lent! Chapter 9 of the Gospel of John recounts the miraculous healing of “the man born blind.” This is a magnificent text, rich in meaning on so many levels: the mystery of Christ, the grace of salvation, the liberation of fallen humanity from the blindness of sin, the role of human freedom. John 9 is almost inexhaustible as a text for lectio divina and offers many perspectives for theological and exegetical work.

Here we will focus on only one aspect of this narrative, insofar as it is the story of the conversion of a human person — the “man-born-blind”— to a way of “seeing” that is not only physical, but that above all empowers him to adhere to Jesus in faith and love. The disability of blindness was regarded as a particularly grave and mysterious affliction in most ancient cultures, including first century Israel. The loss or diminishment of one’s sight (even in old age) was a special cause for sorrow and a sense of impoverishment, distancing people from a full engagement with the world that was ordinarily so accessible to the whole realm of their senses, and often placing them in a condition of dependence on others for the basic needs of life. 

But the man we meet in the story of John 9 was afflicted with a form of blindness beyond anything caused by common human ailments, accidents, or violence: he was “blind from birth.” He was regarded as a “defective” human being in a way that often failed to distinguish his physical handicap from his essential dignity as a human person created and loved by God. He had no experience of sight and was physically incapable of seeing. We don’t know the nature of his condition in terms of modern medicine, but it may have involved a congenital disfigurement — some Church fathers claim that he had no eyes at all, but in any case his blindness seemed immediately apparent to others. The disciples were so struck by his appearance that they assumed it to be some punishment for sin (John 9:2), and after his cure his neighbors didn’t even recognize him as the same person (9:8-9). 

Clearly, the process Jesus used to “open his eyes” was no ordinary medical treatment. Through his making mud paste from the dust and his saliva, putting it upon the places where the man should have had functioning eyes, and having the man wash in the pool of Siloam (9:6-7), Jesus effected a mysterious physical transformation that enabled him to see. Up to that moment, the experience of this man was nothing except the hindrance of being blind in a visual world full of people who took seeing for granted and structured their environment in a visual way. Nevertheless (as becomes evident in the discourse that follows) he was not lacking in intelligence and had a basic knowledge of the religion of Israel. Still, the strange innate deformity of his physical blindness had compelled him to be a beggar, to live on the margins of the community. At no point in this story do we even hear his name.

Perhaps he regarded himself as “the blind beggar” and nothing more. He asked nothing of Jesus, and probably didn’t even notice him, but Jesus — the “light of the world” (9:5) — chose this man in the compassion of his heart and re-formed the man’s body so that he could see for the first time. Jesus did this for him personally, but also as a sign of the love he wants to give to all of us, to make of our poor humanity a new creation. He heals the man “so that the works of God might be made visible through him” (9:3). God is present, acting, offering salvation through Jesus. The physical miracle is undeniable, but it is also an invitation to faith in Jesus. 

When his sight was given him, the man-born-blind knew his benefactor only as “the man called Jesus” (9:11), but he soon found himself the object of disputation. The religious authorities found fault with Jesus for doing an active work that “broke the Sabbath” (9:16). But the formerly blind man had already begun to see with more than his renewed bodily eyes. He knew he had been touched by the power of God. To the doubting Pharisees he declared that Jesus was “a prophet” (9:17). 

Yet the controversy only deepened. His own parents were afraid to support his testimony to Jesus (9:18-23) and the religious authorities had clearly set themselves in opposition to Jesus, insisting that Jesus was a sinner. The blind man had lived his whole life on the margins, far from theological erudition and disputations. He was a poor man, a simple man. But he couldn’t deny the facts, which were overwhelming to him and which should have been clear to anyone else who knew him: “If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see” (9:25). The powerful men of Judaea insisted that Jesus could not be trusted. His actions didn’t meet their criteria of someone who was from God. They closed their hearts to Jesus and insisted to the formerly blind man that it was dangerous to follow Jesus, that they didn’t know the source of his power, or where Jesus had come from. 

But the once-blind and now-seeing beggar was further enlightened in front of the ironic opposition of the religious experts, and he found the courage to call them out: “This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything” (9:30-33).

This humble statement was not only entirely reasonable; it also expressed the basic terms of the Mosaic Covenant that the religious leaders claimed the authority to interpret. Their only refuge at this point was violence: they throw him out of the meeting place. The formerly-blind man found himself once again “marginalized” by human society, but his heart was open and he was one step away from faith. Jesus came to him, and the man looked at Jesus with his newfound eyes. Jesus said, “‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered and said, ‘Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him and the one speaking with you is he.’ He said, ‘I do believe, Lord,’ and he worshiped him” (9:35-38). In this final encounter with Jesus, the man-born-blind was given the eyes of faith and the full adherence of conversion.