One of the features of John’s gospel, and I confess, difficulties for me, is the way he slips between the huge cosmic and abstract language of Jesus and the down to earth detail of much of the narrative. While this is an inevitable consequence of writing about the incarnation, John seems to write off this world, with little sense of God’s will being done here as in Heaven. So often Jesus and the people he talks to are hopelessly at cross purposes and little useful resolution seems possible. I‘m left wondering what it all means for me, or anyone wanting to understand better what being Christian-or recognising Jesus -is all about. The story of the healing of the man born blind exemplifies some of this.
The story in chapter 9 of the gospel follows the accounts in the previous chapters in which we see increasing hostility from-and provocation of, the Jewish authorities and Pharisees in particular. There are two standards in play the worldly, earth bound, literal and legalistic standards of the Pharisees and Jesus’ timeless and other worldly claims: “I belong to the world above” says Jesus (8:23) and “Before Abraham was born, I am” (8:58). And yet Jesus is also very present and immediate- “I am he (i.e. the Messiah) I, who am speaking to you now” he tells the Samaritan woman ((4:26) and, as we heard, he’ll say almost the same to the man born blind (9:37). Frequently, Jesus will say the time is not right, yet, for an action
urged on him. He is timeless, but conscious of immediacy and even manipulative of occasion.
The preamble to the story- the question “Who sinned, this man or his parents?”- The surprising answer, that it was to glorify God, explains in a word what Jesus’ actions in the world are all about. It introduces too the idea of Jesus as light; daylight is the time for work and action-activity at night is likely to be nefarious. The darkness of blindness is a sign of sin, both the punishment for sin and/or the evidence of sinfulness. But even in this preamble to spectacular action -and healing a man born blind is indeed, somehow more impressive that healing a man who becomes blind- but even this miracle is not concerned with the individual in question but is for the glorification of God, to demonstrate God’s power, power beyond earthly limitations.
We need to keep in mind that God’s first, most elemental act was the creation of light, and thus with day and night, the creation of time. Jesus’ divine mission and origin, indeed his own divinity is shown in him sharing in God’s most essential actions, specifically in his consciousness of timing.
This identity with God is also, perhaps, what explains the controversy over Sabbath breaking. It might seem that Jesus’ constant healing people on the Sabbath was pointlessly provocative; surely, I’m tempted to ask, couldn’t he have waited a day and saved himself a
lot of trouble? It does, however, have a point: the sabbath is the day of rest because God chose to rest on the seventh day after the exertions of creation; if God can choose to rest, He can also choose to work. Healing on the sabbath demonstrates both that the healing is a creative act, and that the actor is himself divine. That is why sabbath breaking, for us a minor, misdemeanour, is what the Jewish authorities found so profoundly offensive.
So, the healing of the man born blind is a demonstration of God’s power and Jesus’ identity; but it’s recounted in a particularly earthy manner. I don’t just mean the faintly disgusting paste made of spittle mud- even divine spittle is distinctly unappealing albeit a very immediate image of the incarnation, the divine mixing with the earthly. The theme of identity recurs in an almost banal way- is this really the blind man? His piping up with “I am the man” has an ironical twist- being born blind, he could have had no conception of how others saw him. Parents are brought in to confirm, in a cautious was, his identity (they want to have nothing to do with any controversy). And, of course, Jesus’ own identity is throughout in question.
Another aspect of earthy humanity, even, banality is brought out if one imagines this story as a Monty Python sketch- which is how it first struck me reading it again for this sermon. The man born blind shares a good deal with Brian in the Life of Brian and surely John
Cleese is one of the Pharisees. The constant half and deliberate misunderstanding is pure Python dialogue. This humour is intended; it again brings out the earthy, indeed mundane, aspect of this story of divine activity.
It’s a little surprising that John seems unaware or uninterested in the other feature of the story which struck me. This story is about a man who was born blind; he had never seen and suddenly his eyes work. He would not, immediately, have seen in any meaningful sense. As we do as babies, he would need to learn to see. We do have a hint of this insight in the blind man’s uncertainty about who it was who healed him. He, of course, did not see Jesus spitting on the ground; he only felt his finger and heard his voice. It was “The man called Jesus” i.e the man whom he heard others calling Jesus, who anointed him (let’s hope he did not realise what the ointment was!) At the end of the story he asks who it was that healed him. “You have seen him” says Jesus “indeed it is he who is speaking to you”. Does Jesus realise that he couldn’t possibly recognise anyone so soon after his eyes were made to work? Perhaps he (or John does) and thus, it’s by voice that he’s recognised. Here, however, as throughout, we are talking about two levels of recognition; the man can recognise Jesus as the Son of Man, even if he can’t yet properly see Jesus in a physical sense.
So, I hope I have shown that it’s an interesting story, and like many others about how we can come to recognise Jesus as divine and as the bringer of light and salvation. But I’m left asking; So what? To be sure we all need to recognise Jesus, but what are we to do with our lives as a consequence? It’s obviously a valuable, indeed vital, feeling to know we are loved and can be forgiven and when we need it healed; it’s perhaps encouraging to be assured that we can enjoy eternal life (I’m not so sure about that). But this emphasis on personal salvation seems to me a little selfish, but then I am, through the grace of God, lucky enough, so far, never to have been crushed by misfortune. I am, however, sure that what mostly gives meaning and satisfaction to life, is to try to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven. That is what we are saved for- but there is little of that in John’s gospel. We must be content with his injunction that we love one another, which is of course the foundation stone of any building of the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.