John 9- Blindness and Sight

1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

Most of our readings today are related to sight.

In our reading from the first book of Samuel, the prophet is looking for a new king to anoint over the people of Israel. He is directed to the sons of Jesse, and he initially considers the oldest Son, who seems like the obvious choice. But Samuel hears God say to him, 

“Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Sam 16:7). 

The son who gets selected is the youngest, David, who they didn’t even think to bring with them. … How people see things, is not how God sees things.

In the letter to the Ephesians, we read about darkness and light, and being asleep or being awake. Again, we have this theme of sight, of vision. Obviously, we see best in the light, and it is hard to see in the darkness. We have an ancient fear of the darkness. The night is when dangerous predators are prowling about and when they are harder to notice. … Night is also associated with sin. It’s when people get up to all kinds of trouble. The darkness hides them, so they can sneak around unseen. … Night is also when we are asleep. We don’t notice what is going on around us when we are asleep. We are sort of blind to our surroundings. 

These metaphors are used to encourage us to live as children of light- to be awake! And to stay away from the darkness, and the shameful acts that are associated with the darkness. God is associated with light, with sight, and with what is good and true. … We will see this same language on the lips of Jesus in our Gospel reading where he says, 

“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“ (Jn 9:4-5).

Our reading from the Gospel of John is also about blindness and sight. … In the Gospel we encounter a man who was born blind. And this becomes an opportunity for the disciples to ask Jesus a question. … Tragedy and disease in the ancient world were often thought about as a consequence of sin. But, if you have a child born blind, this creates a problem for that way of thinking. Can a child sin in the womb? Or might the child be dealing with the consequences of the sin of the parents?

Jesus rejects these two options to explain the man’s blindness- That he somehow sinned in the womb, or that his blindness was due to the sin of his parents. Instead, Jesus says that the meaning behind his blindness is the opportunity for God’s works to be revealed in him. Then Jesus, the light of the world, makes some mud with his saliva, which might make us think about God’s creation of human beings from the dust of the ground. Jesus seems to be acting as creator, not just healer. … He then spreads the mud on the man’s eyes and tells him to wash in the pool of Siloam. The man comes back able to see and this starts an incredible drama.

First, some doubt that this is the same blind man who used to beg, but he reassures them that it is indeed him, and that someone named Jesus healed him. The Pharisees then investigate. Instead of celebrating God giving this man his sight, they are stuck on the fact that this happened on a Sabbath day. Working for the man’s healing sounds like a violation of the Sabbath, especially since Jesus was making mud, and perhaps because the man was instructed to travel to the pool of Siloam, which, if it was far enough away, may have violated the sabbath traditions.

There were all kinds of activities that were allowed on the sabbath. For example, the priests were working in the temple on the sabbath, but that wasn’t considered a violation. So, there was a set of activities that were allowed on the sabbath, and a set of activities that weren’t allowed. Jesus’ point wasn’t to overturn the sabbath. He was challenging the human traditions that they used to help them practice the sabbath. His argument was that healing belongs with the set of activities that are allowed on the sabbath. … But the Pharisees are scandalized by the idea that this healing took place on the Sabbath. The man who did this healing can’t really be a holy man if he violated the Sabbath to do this healing. But how could a sinner do a healing like this?

They turn to the man who had been blind to see what he thinks, and he replies that he thinks Jesus is a prophet. Then some doubt that the man really was blind, so call in his parents as witnesses to find out if he was born blind or not. They get him to repeat his statement over again and they seem to be badgering the witnesses to try to catch them in a lie or to get them to doubt their statements. … It starts to feel like a courtroom drama. And, in a sense, it is. But it’s actually the pharisees that are on trial in the divine courtroom.

As the trial drags on, it starts to become obvious that many of the Pharisees seem to be unwilling to see, and the formerly blind man has gained spiritual sight in addition to his physical sight. The man speak to his interrogators saying, 

 “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing” (Vv.30-33).

Still unwilling to see, and reinforcing the old model of sin and disease, they respond defensively, 

"You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?’ And they drove him out” (v34).

Jesus finds him and he moves him from thinking of him as prophet to the “Son of Man”. And then he worships Jesus. He comes to an even more full spiritual sight.

The end of the reading returns to the themes of blindness and sin- 

“Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see’, your sin remains” (9:39-41).

The Pharisees assume the man was blind and “born entirely in sins” (9:34). They are stuck in the old model, and Jesus is challenging their model. The Pharisees think they see. But spiritually, they are blind. … Blindness is not what God has ever wanted. Blindness belongs to a fallen world, and Christ enters to re-create the world. … … This story isn’t primarily a story about the healing of a blind man. It’s actually a story about judgement- Judgement regarding who really has spiritual sight and who is spiritually blind.

As we continue our journey through Lent, one of the things that can happen is that we become aware of parts of our lives where we are spiritually blind and in need of healing. … The Pharisees in our Gospel reading were unwilling to shift their way of seeing, which left them blind. Their inability to be open to correction left them blind. Their rigidness might have been comforting for them in the sense that they didn’t have to change and they knew all the answers. They could assure themselves of their “rightness”- that they see things clearly. They didn’t have to do the hard work of reconsidering how they are looking at the world, or how they are looking at God. … There was this incredible miracle, and their blindness was exposed. They were unwilling to see what God was doing right under their noses. They were blind to God.


A good question to ask during Lent is, are their ways in which we might have a little bit of that blindness in us? … Are we open to God shaking our lives up? Or would we rather ignore what God is doing to keep our lives comfortable? We might not be particularly happy with the way things are, but things are familiar and predictable, which feels safe. … But, what if God is wanting to challenge us to see something in a new way, and that makes us uncomfortable? Are we open to God healing our blindness so we can see in new ways? AMEN.