Or, Seeking the Facts to Question the Facts
Scripture: John 9:8-23
Date: December 16, 2012
Speaker: Sean Higgins
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Spiritually blind men cannot see the facts. Or, they see enough of them, hate them, and seek to shut the lid before they see any more. Sin is not primarily an information problem, though sin does cause men to lie about the truth. Sin makes men willfully blind to the facts; they can’t handle the truth because they don’t want the truth, and they will keep asking questions until they can find answers that fit with the “facts” that they prefer.
John 9 is a story about two types of blindnesses (maybe three if we include the disciples’ blindness to need). The characters come into focus as the chapter develops and not many of them have eyes to see.
It began as Jesus “passed by…a man blind from birth” (verse 1). He and His disciples were in Jerusalem around November or December and they happened to cross paths with this blind beggar. Though the disciples turn the man’s need into a seminary class discussion about causes, Jesus sheds light on the purpose of God to display His sight-giving work.
The light-shining, sight-giving work is mostly about helping men see with their hearts. Jesus does give physical sight to the blind man as an illustration. He made mud with His spit, wiped it over the man’s eyes, told him to wash it off in the pool called “Sent,” and it worked so that the man “washed and came back seeing” (verse 7).
Verses 8-41 record the reactions to the miracle. Five different interactions get follow-up attention: 1) the man and his neighbors (8-12), 2) the man and the Pharisees (13-17), 3) the man’s parents and the Pharisees (18-23), 4) the man and the Pharisees again (24-34), and 5) the man and Jesus (35-41). Jesus is gone between verse 7 and verse 35 and, because of that, there’s a temptation to skim this section. If you’re driving from Seattle to Chicago, do you really need to pay close attention to everything in Montana? There’s so much of it. But in the Bible, and in light of John’s self-conscious editing (see John 20:30-31), this long road of reactions is important.
This morning we’ll consider the first three stops and see the inverse proportionality of clarity: the blind man’s clarity increases while the everyone else’s clarity decreases.
The first group that reacted to the sight-seeing man were those closest to him, his neighbors, and it turns out that they weren’t that close to him after all. They question, Is this really the man?
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?” 9 Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10 So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” (John 9:8-12, ESV)
Blind men didn’t have too many vocational options before them, so begging was the most common source of income. This blind man may have had a favorite spot, probably not too far from his home. That means that he went to the same well over and over; he begged money from the same men day after day. They were used to ignoring him, but now they noticed that something was different.
Some were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some others were saying, “It is he.” Some others were saying, “No, but he is like him.” At least things stand out. First, the tense of the each verb for speaking is imperfect, emphasizing that it kept on happening. “They kept on saying” or, in other words, they were arguing about it. Second, no one was saying anything to the blind man, they were arguing about him. It hurts how common this is in John’s Gospel and in our experience.
Someone else kept talking too. He kept saying, “I am the man.” It’s as if they were huddled in a circle and the man kept trying to break in and answer their question. He finally got their attention, though they didn’t believe him. So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” At least that was a reasonable question, though they’re not asking because they’re excited for him.
Isn’t that senseless? Isn’t that blind? They can’t rejoice with him. They doubt first, question second. The man is on trial for his identity when a great miracle just occurred.
The man answered anyway and told them what he knew. He knew it was Jesus, not much for now but his understanding would grow. Again, no one is glad for the man. They want to know where Jesus is. “Tell us where we can find this mud-making miracle worker.” The man answered, “I do not know.”
The second group that reacted to the sight-seeing man were those with spiritual responsibility for him, the Pharisees, and it turns out that they didn’t care much for him.
13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. 17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.” (John 9:13-17, ESV)
The arguing neighbors didn’t make much progress even when they included the man himself. So they brought him to the Pharisees. After all, something must be wrong. It appears that they were convinced about the man being born blind, but it doesn’t sit well with them how he got his sight.
[The crowd] wanted to have simple, cut-and-dried, categorical answers to their questions. Crowds, like the neighbors in this story, are notoriously emotional and reactional. They generally are looking for noncomplicated leadership guidance and quick answers to important questions. (Borchert, 316)
Verse 14 supplies an key piece of information: Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Jesus went out of His way to cause trouble again. He chose this day, not any time Sunday through Friday, to pass by. Didn’t He learn His lesson after healing the paralyzed man in chapter five? He didn’t need to learn a lesson, He did it quite on purpose.
Jesus’ method of making mud violated one of the thirty-nine interpretations of “work” that the Jews tacked on to the law about Sabbath work. To make mud was similar to kneading bread, a prohibited act. Not only did this method awaken faith in the blind man, it also awakened blindness is the religious leaders.
Note that the Pharisees assume, at least for the moment, that a miracle had occurred. The asked how it happened. The man seemed to grasp that they were looking for evidence to condemn Jesus so his answer this time removed the making mud part. The Pharisees didn’t care. They had already made up their minds.
As we’ve seen before, they can’t agree. Some said…”This man is not of God for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” A sinner is what you didn’t want to be, similar to “cursed” or “guilty” (Lenski, 688).
The Pharisees were supposed to give an answer, but they didn’t have one. They turned back to the seeing man and asked him what he thought, seeing if he would take a side. It is striking that they would ask him. They typically would not have asked his opinion about anything. Now they were forced to deal with this beggar.
The former blind man gets even more specific and bold. He’s had a little more time to process the new reality and he’s seeing even more clearly. Again, the Pharisees assume the miracle and the man says, “He is a prophet.” Perhaps thinking of Elijah or Elisha, Jesus could do this miracle as one from God. It is a similar response as the woman at the well (John 4:19). This was not the answer the Pharisees wanted.
The third group that reacted to the sight seeing man sere his own family, his parents, and it turns out that they didn’t have much connection to him either. They question, Was this really a miracle?
18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight 19 and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” 20 His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. 21 But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” 22 (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) 23 Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” (John 9:18-23, ESV)
The Jews are the Pharisees, the religious leaders, not a separate group than those we met in verse 13. What is surprising is that they hate the facts so much that now they deny what they already acknowledged. What they’ve assumed to be true so far, that he had been born blind and could now see, they claim not to believe. Since they couldn’t prove their point about Jesus being a sinner, they try to prove that He didn’t perform the miracle in the first place. They send the blind man out (since they call him back in verse 24) and call the blind man’s parents as witnesses.
They asked, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” Maybe the parents can shed some light on how this happened.
I’d like to give the parents some sympathy but it’s hard to give much based on the story. Even without the parenthesis in verse 22, why were they making their son beg? Even more, where is their excitement? Their son could see! John Calvin wrote,
By their silence they show their ingratitude; for, having received so distinguished a gift of God, they ought to have burned with desire to celebrate his name. But, struck with terror, they bury the grace of God. (380)
All they could see is how much trouble this was causing for them, and how much more trouble it might make. They distance themselves from their own son. It’s as if any other way would have been better than Jesus healing him.
In their weak answering they do at least confirm that the man had been born blind, which the Jews did not want to hear. Things probably weren’t better for these parents in the synagogue after that day for all their attempts to stay in good graces with the leaders.
They throw all the focus back on their boy. “Ask him.” They had already been drawn into the discussion more than they wanted and they answered to evade.
Blood is not thicker than blindness. The parents were blind to their need, blind to the miracle, blind to the fear-based authority they submitted to. They weren’t loyal to their own son because of their blindness.
John adds, (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) I wonder how he knew that. Did Jesus tell His disciples later? Did the Spirit reveal it to John as he was writing? Or was it just that obvious to everyone watching?
However it was that he knew the parents’ motivation, the secret agreement of the Jews was also known. They had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be the Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. It wasn’t a level playing field. They had agreed to disagree with a certain set of truth. It means that their questions were cover. It’s also something that couldn’t be fixed with facts. They already agreed to punish those who maintained certain facts.
People are watching. They see what we fear, to whom and how loyal we are. Granted, perhaps these parents repented later and we don’t know it. But in trying to save their place, they lost their place in our esteem. Being careful looks like being gutless. Their cowardice has been translated into hundreds of languages and passed down over multiple generations. They were blind to the consequences of their cowardice.
Spiritually blind people are purposefully blind. In each case, the neighbors, the Pharisees, and the parents were all threatened by Jesus. A pounding question from this passage is: What did they love so much that they hated the facts?
They loved darkness. They preferred blindness. It’s hard to believe, except that we know that we once did the same thing. Unless Jesus opens eyes we are blind and without hope in the world. They had an emotional attachment to life as they knew it. If this miracle were true, if Jesus really made a blind man see, then Jesus could not be ignored. Worse, Jesus required repentance (and still does). Men don’t want to give up their sin. It blinds them from seeing their slavery.