Thomas J Parlette
“Healing a Blind Man
John 9: 1-41
3/15/26
Ann Landers once told a story about a woman who was just getting out of the shower when her doorbell rang. As she put on her robe and went downstairs, she called out,
“Who is it?”
“It’s the blind man.”
Oh, well, she figured she was safe, so she didn’t bother to tie up her robe and she opened the door. The man standing there looked at her in shock and said, “Where do you want me to hang these blinds you ordered, ma’am?” (1)
Turned out, the guy’s eyesight was fine
That’s not the case for the man in our passage for today. The passage says quite explicitly that he was born blind – been blind his whole life. But that doesn’t matter to Jesus – he comes to bring sight to those who live in darkness.
John 9 is part of what scholars refer to as the “Book of Signs.” This term refers to the first 12 chapters of John’s gospel, which include seven miracle stories, or signs, as John calls them. These stories include how Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana, the time he healed an official’s son, the healing of the paralytic at Bethesda, the feeding of the 5,000, the time he walked on the water, the raising of Lazarus and this one, the healing of a man born blind.
Several things make this healing story unique. In most of the healing stories we read about in the other Gospels, the people who want to be healed make that desire known – they call out to Jesus, or their friends bring them to Jesus, or a family member seeks Jesus out and begs for his help. This story is unique because this man born blind never asks to be healed. In fact, we’re never told that Jesus asked his permission to help him either – apparently Jesus just went ahead and did it.
The manner that this healing takes place is unique as well. Usually it’s enough for Jesus to say, “You are healed,” and that’s the end of it. But here, after saying that he is the light of the world, Jesus spits in the dirt, makes some mud and spreads it on the man’s eyes. Then Jesus tells the man to go wash in the Pool of Shiloam – and disappears from the story.
Another unique feature of this story is the question that the disciples ask Jesus. They ask if the man was born blind because he sinned or because his parents sinned. This was a common belief in the ancient world. If you were born with some affliction of condition, there had to be a reason. Most people assumed that sin was the reason. If this man was born blind, well, he couldn’t have done anything wrong yet, so it had to be because his parents had sinned, hence God’s punishment was laid upon this blind man.
But Jesus takes a surprising stance. He says, sin is not the issue here, nobody is being punished, nobody has done anything wrong – this man was born blind so that God’s work might be revealed in him.”
Interesting, and quite the opposite of what people expected to hear. What Jesus was saying is that all the challenges, difficulties and trials we face in life are simply opportunities for the power and grace of God to be revealed.
Helen Keller once said, “I thank God for my handicaps. For through them I have found myself, my work, and my God.”(2) The challenges we face, as individuals and as a church, are simply opportunities for the power and grace of God to be revealed.
Yet another interesting part of this story is that after the man is healed and receives his sight, there is nothing in the way of celebration. No one appears to be happy for the guy, we’re not told anybody emerges from the crowd to give him a hug and say “Congratulations, we’re so happy for you!” There’s none of that. In fact, some of his friends and neighbors don’t even seem to recognize him now that he can see. The question that dominates this part of the story is “How?” That question comes up 6 times. How did this happen? How can this be? The people of the village take the man to see the Pharisees and an investigation ensues.
The Pharisees also ask multiple times how this happened, what did Jesus do? They also have a hard time getting past the fact that Jesus did this on the Sabbath – which, of course, you weren’t supposed to do because it might constitute work. That happens to all of us sometimes, that in spite of what appears to be reality, in this case that obviously Jesus broke the Sabbath laws, there is always something more to the story.
Preacher Ozzie Smith Jr. remembers a time when his father-in-law helped him see this clearly. He says, “He showed me a piece of white paper, and he took a pen and drew a small dot on that paper. He handed it to me and asked, “What do you see?” I said – “I see a dot.” And he said, “Boy, you missed the whole sheet of paper, you missed the possibilities that exist for a clean, blank page. You could write a story on that piece of paper, you can draw a picture, compose a song. But you focused on that tiny dot and missed the possibilities.” (3)
We all do that sometimes, just like the Pharisees did. We focus on the tiny dots, the mistakes, the errors, the insurmountable problems at hand or whatever bad is going on that grabs our attention. But there’s always more than the tiny dots of life – they will always show up, but there’s always something more. Remember why this man was born blind, according to Jesus – to give God’s power and grace a chance to be revealed. And that’s what Jesus does here – he reveals that with God there is always more than we expect.
Think about how this story progresses. Jesus heals this man, without being asked to do it, and no one in this man’s community seems to be all that happy about it. His friends and neighbors let him down. His church let him down, even his mother and father let him down.
This week our Bible study group took a close look at this story. We talked a little bit about Vincent Van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night. I’m sure you’ve seen it – it’s probably one of the most recognizable paintings in the world. I used to have a print of that painting hanging on my wall – I looked at it everyday – and our study guide author Adam Hamilton brought out something I had never noticed before.
Usually, when we look at that painting, our eyes are drawn upwards, to the night sky, the stars and the swirling motions of the clouds. Few of us look down to the village below. We can see the lights on in many of the houses there, but there is a church, with a tall spire in the village, and it is noticeably dark. Many art scholars consider this deliberate.
Vincent Van Gogh was a deeply religious man. For a time, he considered going into the ministry. He even served as an assistant minister in a local church – but he was a bit over-zealous in his evangelism, and he rubbed some people the wrong way with his intense personality. Eventually, the church leadership suggested that he was not suited to the ministry and should pursue other interests. This left a mark on Van Gogh. He would forever feel that the church had let him down. Art scholars think that Van Gogh may have painted the church in The Starry Night as a dark, cold place, because that’s how he felt about organized religion. (4) As much as I have looked at that painting over my life, I have never noticed that before.
Perhaps this man born blind felt that way about the religious community of his day. Perhaps he felt abandoned and let down. After all, instead of rejoicing with him over this miracle, they basically put him on trial, and threw him out of the town.
Well, Jesus heard about what happened to the man he had healed, and he returns to offer his explanation. He lets the man know his true identity as the Son of Man, and the healed man affirms his faith in Jesus.
Then Jesus says he has come so that the blind may see, and those who see may become blind. It’s a classic Jesus reversal statement, remarkably close to his more well- known statement “The first will be last and the last will be first.”
The Pharisees overhear this and quickly ask, “Surely we are not blind are we?” Perhaps they are shocked by Jesus reversal statement, or perhaps they are looking for Jesus to walk back his comments – “Oh no, I didn’t mean you guys, you’re fine, it those other guys that are blind.”
But Jesus does do that. No, he actually pushes it a little farther. “If you were actually blind, you would have no sin. But you say “We see, we understand, we know God’s ways” – but you don’t. So, your sin remains.” In other words, they are still focused on the tiny dot and not the whole sheet of paper, so they remain blind to God’s power and grace at work in this blind man’s life.
Everyone in this story lets the man born blind down, but not Jesus. Jesus is there at the beginning and the end, revealing God’s power and grace. It’s been a slow progression, but in the end, the man born blind comes to faith, and that’s what brings him sight, that’s what brings him light. In the end, Jesus words “I am the light of the world” are fulfilled in this miraculous sign of sight restored.
May God be praised. Amen.
Ann Landers, “The Washington Post,” October 13th, 1998, Homileticsonline.com.
Michael L. Lindvall, Connections, Year A, Vol. 2, Westminster John Knox Press, p 91.
Ozzie E. Smith, “Come and Get It,” Day1.org, January 9th, 2022, Homileticsonline.com.
Adam Hamilton, John: The Gospel of Light and Life, Abingdon Press, 2015, p 32.
