Reflection on the Man Born Blind (John 9:1-41)

It would be helpful to read this Gospel narrative before the post below.

Dear Sir: I call you Sir because you are not given a name in this story. Only one of the blind men in the gospels is given a name and it is Bartimeus. But, without a name your existence is all-the-more important to us who must learn from you. You are lonely. You make your livelihood, as all blind men do, by begging. Blind women suffered an ignominy of their own by doing simple tasks of cleaning homes for food, not money. As a blind man, you cannot be trained for a craft or a trade; your circle of existence is a meagre radius outside the house where you live with your parents. You can only beg. That is your trade, your living. And it is dangerous. Some people steal your coins from the little purse you have attached to your belt. You try to protect that purse, but you do not see the deft hand that reaches from behind and snatches it quickly from under the tattered folds of a tunic you hug closely to your chest. You usually sit near the roadside and sometimes move closer to the Pool of Siloam because kinder people gather there. The history of the Pool attracts people who are religious, people who realize the water comes from a tunnel that provides water for refreshment and healing. But it has not healed you. On good days, you hope for healing. 

You recognize people by the sound of their voices, and you turn to offer a wave of the hand, a wave that slices the air with half-hearted cheerfulness because you don’t know if your friends have seen it. You hear the wooden wheels of the farmer’s cart passing by and the clamor of the children and sheep running after him. Sometimes the cacophony of life is too much, and you walk slowly to the wall of the Pool and work yourself into a crevice where you can sit and privately cry: if only you could see and make yourself useful. If only you could see your parents and the house you live in. If only you could learn a trade so you could support them because they have supported you all these years. 

One day the Teacher comes along walking toward the Pool. When his disciples see you, they ask about the old belief of sin causing blindness. You listen to the discussion, and it confuses you. What could he mean by saying he is “the light of world?” You begin to tremble: will you ever see this “light of the world?” Just then he offers you a poultice of mud and spittle he has made and smears it over your eyes. Ordinarily, you would think you are being ridiculed; some charlatan is about to show a trick. This has been done to you before and people laughed and called you names when the trick failed. But you went to the Pool as he told you to and you washed your eyes. And it was as if all the heavens opened; shaking and screaming you touched everything: the wall, the nearby grasses, the people passing by who shied away from the madman you had become. 

Then you are shoved violently into the assemblies of Pharisees not once but twice and you continue to proclaim, “This man was a prophet,” “If this man were not from God, he could never have done such a thing,” “I know this much, I was blind before; now I see.” You are thrown out of the Temple delirious with joy because you can see.

Your story means a lot to me, Sir, as it has for countless believers searching for its meaning over the centuries. Here is my reason.

Reflection

Later, in the story the man asks if he may “see the Son of Man” in order to believe in him and Jesus answers, “you are speaking to him now.” In humility, the man kneels and says, “I do believe, Lord,” and he worshipped him.

I listened to this story from last Sunday’s Liturgy on the eve of my eye surgery. I realize I am very blest in countless ways, especially with good health. Why was this eye problem such a worry? Where was my faith, that no matter the outcome, this was an experience meant for me to appreciate God’s will in my life. People are receiving life-threatening diagnoses every day; children are dying of rampant illnesses and starvation. My challenge was nothing in comparison. There was something in my spirituality which I was not seeing. Let’s see how the man born blind can help me.

It has slowly occurred to me that the cure of the blind man is not as important as is his new awareness that Jesus is the light he needs to see and follow. This is why he has no name, no compass point of existence, but out of that swirl of dusty humanity Jesus shows to all the surrounding skeptics that when we do not recognize God’s love in him, the savior, we are then truly blind. Perhaps the blind man is each one of us at some point. When we come to recognize Jesus, we will see.

It is a stirring in the depths of one’s soul to ask what God wants of us when we encounter a physical or spiritual challenge, we never expected. Maybe during this Lent, we can recall those challenging times in our lives and determine if we ‘saw’ them as a way to appreciate grace and live it fully. If not, it is never too late to do something about it in prayer or in an action of some kind. Let’s leave behind these fears and angers buried in our souls. Let’s bring them up and be free enough, like the man born blind, to say in joy: “I do believe, Lord.”