As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. 8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?”… John 9:1-8
Here in John 9… Jesus passes by this man who had sat begging, presumably at the entrance to the temple, for such a length of time that he’d become known to people as “the man who sits and begs”. The disciples’ theological question to Jesus seems quite an inappropriate question to ask in front of a man born blind, but I am sure it wasn’t the first time this man born blind had heard it asked. It almost seems like here at the beginning of John 9 we have a mini version of the book of Job. Like Job’s friends the disciples assumed this man’s life of blindness and destitution was due either to his sin or his parents sin and who better to ask for an opinion on the matter but God himself.
I can’t help but think about how this question must have eaten away at this poor man. It seems the disciples wouldn’t dare suggest that God had anything to do with this man’s affliction and I imagine they were caught off guard by Jesus’ reply… “it wasn’t that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” In essence Jesus was saying the most important part about this man’s sickness is not the origin of it but the outcome. This man’s life long ailment, the cause of his pain, sorrow, and shame was to be used to display the works of God! The next thing that happens is crazy… Jesus bends down to the dust that this poor man was laying in, hocks a loogie, makes some mud, rubs it in the blind man’s eyes and when he washes it off he can see! What!?!
The thing that really strikes me is that Jesus, who is God, the everlasting one, the high and lofty one before whom angels cry holy, holy, holy, is in this very act of kindness displaying what He is like. He doesn’t treat people like theological problems to be solved but rather he is kind and compassionate… he came from the heights of glory but he has no problem in bowing down to touch a desperate blind man begging by the side of the road. Truly there is no pit of despair too deep which Jesus can’t reach!! If he cared for a man such as this and redeemed even his most hopeless and painful woes than he cares about me too and my problems and my spells of despair are not beyond his loving touch! This is our God, this is what He is like, He spits, He makes mud, and He really cares about us.
