The blind to see - John 9:1-18

While still in Jerusalem, “Jesus passed by, (and) he saw a man which was blind from his birth.” First, the IM points out that one of the most common miracles that Jesus performed was to heal the blind. Having poor eye sight myself, I can totally understand how blindness could be so much more common anciently. My vision was corrected for years with glasses and contacts, and now I’ve had lasik and it was amazing, but if I had lived in Jesus’ time, I probably would have been considered blind, as well as many people that I know and love. The IM comments that Isaiah had predicted that the Messiah will come and give sight to the blind. Secondly, when we are given an account of those who Jesus heals, we aren’t usually given much on the background of these people, but interestingly, we are told specifically that this man was born blind, which gives a very different perspective on this story in a few different ways.

The disciples, seeing the blind man, asked Jesus, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” The IM comments, “The disciples’ query reflects two concepts found in the Judaism of their day- that suffering was the result of iniquity and that there was a premortal existence of some kind.” I hadn’t derived a connotation of a pre-existence from that verse before, but it makes sense. If that man was blind because of a sin that he committed, but he was born blind, then he would have committed that sin before he had been born. Another interesting fact is that one of the footnotes for this chapter, I thought it was this verse specifically, but it’s not, references a verse from the Old Testament that says something to the effect of “I will visit judgment of the sin of the parents on their children and their children’s children, even to the 3rd or 4thgeneration.” It if easy for me to look at this situation and say, “of course this man’s blindness wasn’t a punishment for sin,” because we’ve had 2,000 years to look back on Jesus’ teachings on the subject. But that was a very firmly held belief back in the day, that any suffering one experienced was a consequence of someone’s sin. The IM quotes President Boyd k. Packer as teaching, “It is natural for parents with handicapped children to ask themselves, ‘What did we do wrong?’ The idea that all suffering is somehow the direct result of sin has been taught since ancient times. It is false doctrine. That notion was even accepted by some of the early disciples until the Lord corrected them… There is little room for feelings of guilt in connection with handicaps. Some handicaps may result form carelessness or abuse, and some through addiction of parents. But most of them do not. Afflictions come to the innocent.”

Jesus answers them, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while I am with you; the time cometh when I shall have finished my work, then I go unto the Father. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” I think about that phrase often “that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” There was a woman once, who was called to the general Relief Society presidency and she had never been married. I don’t remember if I was married at the time or not, but I remember thinking, it’s so great to have someone in a leadership position like that who has dealt with the affliction of singleness to be an example to the others who deal with it also. I remember thinking that God must have chosen her for this trial, and that while it sucked for her because she probably wanted to be married just like everyone else does, I could see how her affliction benefitted others. I think about Oliver Cowdery who desperately wanted to translate part of the gold plates, and how it would have been a credibility disaster if he had been able to do it. Was it a wicked desire for him to want to translate? Of course not. Was it a wicked desire for that woman to want to get married? Not at all. However, sometimes we have to deal with adversity, or things that don’t turn out the way we want them to, because of how it works in the big picture. I often ask myself if my situations will be one of those, where I don’t get something I want, but by denying it to me, the Lord will be fulfilling some higher, more important purpose. The IM quotes Elder Dallin H. Oaks as teaching, “we are sent here to be tested. There must be opposition in all things. We are meant to learn and grow through that opposition, through meeting our challenges, and through teaching others to do the same… The Lord will not only consecrate our afflictions for our gain, but He will use them to bless the lives of countless others….If we see life through the lens of spirituality, we can see many examples of the works of God being furthered through the adversities of His children… When we understand this principle, that God offers us opportunities for blessings and blesses us through our adversities and the adversities of others, we can understand why He has commanded us again and again to ‘thank the Lord thy God in all things.’”

Jesus doesn’t seem to ask the blind man if he wants to be healed, but it must be implied, or maybe he was speaking to the man and the disciples at the same time and knew that the man wanted to be healed. Jesus did something different this time, “he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.” I heard a talk once about how the Lord’s ways are not our ways, and one thing the guy said was something like, “no optometrist would use spit and clay to heal someone of blindness, but that’s what Jesus used and the man was healed.” Good commentary on God’s ability to use anything and everything for our good.

JTC points out that this blind man was well known in his community saying, “He was evidently a well-known character; many had seen him in his accustomed place begging alms, and the fact that he had been blind from birth was also common knowledge.” Because of his notoriety, everyone was astonished by the fact that he could see! Imagine watching disease progress around you your whole life, there is never any relief, any disease would only progress in severity, devastating your whole life, until finally taking it. You would never have seen anyone recover their eyesight after losing it, and surely not one who had been blind his entire life. It would have been mind blowing to see it happen to someone you know. If we had two guys that looked alike and one could see and the other could not, it wouldn’t be far fetched at all to deduce that they were two separate people who just happened to look alike. So this man’s friends and neighbors debated, “Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, this is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he.” This man basically has to prove that he’s the same guy who was blind and begging before, that’s how unheard of this type of recovery was.

They asked him what happened, “How ere thing eyes opened?” And he answered them, “A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received my sight.” They couldn’t believe what had happened, and since they didn’t know where Jesus was, they took this newly-recovered man to the Pharisees. I don’t know if they did that because the situation was so unique or if it was some sort of ritualistic way for the man to be recognized in society as a seeing person, kind of like with the lepers, he could come back in to society after being certified as cured by the religious leaders of the time. For whatever reason, they took him to the Pharisees, and they asked him the same question about how he had recovered, and the man said, “He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see.” I would imagine that these Pharisees knew about Jesus and were desirous to kill him, because they were the same Pharisees of Jerusalem that had been trying to cause problems for Him previously.

The Pharisees have an understandable response, “This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day.” Sure, makes sense. How can anyone perform a miracle that could happen through no other means than the power of God, on the Sabbath day, clearly this man was of the devil, who has absolutely no power over nature or the universe to facilitate healing.  The people listening saw the discrepancy as well saying, “How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?” By their fruits ye shall know them. How can a man who is not of God, wield God’s power for the benefit of others in such a way that there is no denying where that power came from. They asked the man what he thought about Jesus, and the man answered, “he is a prophet.” JTC comments, “The man knew his benefactor to be more than any ordinary being; as yet, however, he had no knowledge of Him as the Christ.” But spoiler alert: the Pharisees think that this is all a scam and don’t believe that this guy was actually born blind, so they call for his parents. And we’ll cover that tomorrow.”