Reverend Jonathan Waits
See (John 9)
April 6, 2025
For someone accustomed to sight, being blindfolded can be a disorienting experience. I remember once our youth minister did an activity to teach us about trusting Jesus where they had us all put on blindfolds, loaded us in the church van, and took us to a park across town, but didn’t tell us where we were going. If you can believe it, I was the smart-alecky kid who kept up with all the turns the van made and knew exactly where we were the whole time. That’s not totally my fault though, as the driver took all the main roads and didn’t try to disguise the route at all. It so happened that I had a pretty thorough map of the city firmly rooted in my memory then. Without that, though, I would have been sorely tempted to peek through the blindfold just so I knew where I was. Being able to see is essential to getting through life.
Of course, that doesn’t feel like it is necessarily the case. Lots of people do just fine without their eyesight. One of the chemistry professors in the department when I was doing my undergrad work was blind. He walked to campus each morning. He navigated his way all over campus without any issues at all. He had good graduate-level lab assistant to help when he was teaching lab with his students, but other than that, there really wasn’t any difference between him and any of the other professors.
As this professor made abundantly clear, there are different ways to “see” in order to navigate through the world without physical eyesight. At the same time, there are also different ways to be blind. Sometimes people who have perfect use of their eyes can’t see reality even when it is staring them in the face. There are ways of being blind that are disruptive, but not debilitating. There are also ways of being blind that can prevent us from going anywhere in life that matters. Our next stop on our journey through John’s seven signs sees Jesus dealing with both.
This morning we are in the sixth part of our teaching series, All Signs Point to Jesus. For the last several weeks and with just a couple more to go as we prepare to celebrate the greatest sign of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, we have been looking at what the apostle John identifies as seven signs, or miracles, Jesus performed during His ministry that are particularly instructive in terms of helping us understand who He is. As we have talked about, these miracles are all called “signs” because their importance goes beyond the miracles themselves to what they reveal to us about Jesus.
Along the way of our journey so far we have seen Jesus turn water into wine at the wedding of some family friends, heal a royal official’s son with a word and at a great distance, heal a man who had been paralyzed for almost 40 years, feed an enormous crowd of people with what amounted to a big snack as His starting point, and walk on water. We’ve learned something different and important about Jesus from each of these stories, but if you’ve noticed, there has been a bit of a theme running through them. They have all been about helping us see who Jesus really is in one way or another. Jesus has been aiming to take us from spiritual blindness to spiritual sight.
Well, the next miracle we are going to look at as John’s sixth sign, serves as a kind of commentary on our whole journey so far. Jesus heals a man who was born blind which opens the door to a conversation about real blindness that needed to happen. And, as we will see, this miracle, while still being a sign in terms of what Jesus was using it to accomplish, is the first one in our series that really was all about the miracle. If you have a copy of the Scriptures handy this morning, join me in John 9.
This story, like so many of the stories in John’s Gospel, takes place in Jerusalem. Matthew, Mark, and Luke organize their presentations of Jesus’ life mostly around His Galilean ministry. Yet while John doesn’t completely ignore that part of Jesus’ ministry, it had already been told. Many of the stories John tells are organized around the various trips Jesus took to Jerusalem during His ministry for the various feasts and festivals that compelled pilgrims from other places to make a trip to the temple for worship if they could. This story unfolds during Jesus’ trip to Jerusalem for the Festival of Booths, still practiced today as Sukkot. It’s all about Israel’s remembering their time in the wilderness during the Exodus journey, and God’s faithfulness to them during that hard season.
Sometimes when God moves, it is in the times and places we expect Him to act. Other times, He shows up in an encounter that feels totally random until we get all the way into it, look back, and realize it was something He had set up and put in place all along. We just weren’t looking for it. Jesus’ next miracle here has this latter kind of a feel to it. Look at this with me in John 9:1: “As he was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth.” Jesus was just walking along and suddenly sees this blind man sitting there by the side of the road.
And maybe He wouldn’t have done anything for the man except that his disciples asked Him a question. “His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’” Now, we read this question and our first reaction is to laugh derisively at the offense of it. How dumb could these guys be to ask something like this? What an offensive thought that his blindness was someone’s fault. Yet this was an incredibly common thought about the gods and how they behaved in that day. When everything that happens in the world is the direct result of the action of God or some god, then people will always look for a divine explanation for it.
In the minds of the disciples and any other Jew or pagan who saw the man, their assumption would have been that his condition was the result of not just sin’s being in the world generally, causing havoc and destruction at every level, but of someone’s particular sin. Either he was being punished by God for doing something wrong, or perhaps his parents had sinned before he was born, and he was being punished for their sins. After all, didn’t God say that He would visit the sins of a person on his family to the third and fourth generation? Well, no, that’s not a correct understanding of what God was saying there, but more importantly, no, because that’s not how God operates. He’s not vindictive like that.
Accordingly, Jesus quickly spoke to correct their thinking here. At the same time, He pointed them forward to a new way of understanding how God can redeem natural evil such as this man was actually experiencing in order to reveal Himself and His kingdom for people to see more clearly what life there is really like. Come back to the text with me at v. 3: “‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ Jesus answered. ‘This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him. We must do the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’” In other words, God planned to accomplish something incredible through this man’s life. He was going to use him to reveal Jesus as the one who can help people see what really is. He was going to use Him to reveal that Jesus is the light of the world.
Setting the stage accordingly, Jesus set about healing the man. “After he said these things, he spit on the ground, made some mud from the saliva, and spread the mud on his eyes. ‘Go.’ he told him, ‘wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means ‘Sent’). So he left, washed, and came back seeing.”
So, this miracle involves another pool in Jerusalem, the Pool of Siloam. This is another one of those places where skeptical archaeologists used to accuse John of having made up details until just a few years ago when some utility workers in Jerusalem were cleaning up and upgrading some sewer lines and accidentally found an ancient pool that archaeologists later identified as the Pool of Siloam. It had been built over and forgotten about for almost 2,000 years, but there it was the whole time. The very place Jesus sent this man to wash. And, like when Jesus healed the paralyzed man, the wonder of His restoring sight to this man born blind should not be lost on us. It wasn’t just about restoring ocular nerves. Jesus had to do a phenomenal amount of restorative and positively creational work in the man’s mind so that seeing for the first time wasn’t a completely disorienting experience that left him worse off than when he started.
Well, the change this man experienced may not have been debilitatingly disorienting for him, but his family and friends were another story. Verse 8 now: “His neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar said, ‘Isn’t this the one who used to sit begging?’ Some said, ‘He’s the one.’ Others were saying, ‘No, but he looks like him.’ He kept saying, ‘I’m the one.’” Folks struggled to believe it was really him. They couldn’t conceive of how he had gone from blindness to sight. “So they asked him, ‘Then how were your eyes opened?’” In other words, prove it’s really you. “He answered, ‘The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So when I went and washed I received my sight.’ ‘Where is he?’ they asked. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.” He didn’t know, of course, because he couldn’t see Him.
This was a mystery. It was a physical mystery. It was a spiritual mystery. So, eventually, they took the man to the people whose job it was to help solve mysteries. “They brought the man who used to be blind to the Pharisees. The day that Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes was a Sabbath.” When you are trying to help someone see something, sometimes the reason they can’t is because they are so fixated on something else. The only way to get through to them in that instance is to take away or otherwise mess with the thing that has become the focus of all their attention. Jesus wanted the various religious leaders of the Jews to see God’s kingdom; to see what was really real about the world. But they were so focused on the minutiae of the Law that they couldn’t see beyond the end of their theological noses. So, Jesus kept doing things like performing miracles on the Sabbath in order to get their attention. His tactic worked, but they weren’t always so appreciative of His efforts.
“Then the Pharisees asked him again how he received his sight. ‘He put mud on my eyes,’ he told them ‘I washed and I can see.’ Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man [Jesus] is not from God, because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.’ But others were saying, ‘How can a sinful man perform such signs?’ And there was a division among them.”
At this point, they continued to question the formerly blind man because in their state of division, they were unable to figure out what to do with what had obviously happened. Their bafflement resulted in an increasingly humorous back and forth between the man who couldn’t see until he could, and who now could see far more clearly than merely his physical eyes allowed, and the Pharisees who were so blinded by their devotion to the law that they couldn’t make sense out of what was literally standing in front of them.
“Again they asked the blind man, ‘What do you say about him, since he opened your eyes?’ ‘He’s a prophet,’ he said.” He didn’t yet have a category for thinking that Jesus could be the Messiah. “The Jews did not believe this about him—that he was blind and received sight—until they summoned the parents of the one who had received his sight.” They finally concluded it was all an elaborate hoax. Maybe his parents could help them sort things out. Bringing in the man’s parents, of course, rather insistently begs the question as to why he was a beggar in the street if he had living parents who could have helped them, but John doesn’t touch that and so neither will we.
“They asked them, ‘Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’” And I love this next part. The guy’s parents throw him straight under the bus. “‘We know this is our son and that he was born blind,’ his parents answered. ‘But we don’t know how he now sees, and we don’t know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he’s of age. He will speak for himself.’” In other words, “Leave us out of this! We don’t want any part of whatever trouble is brewing here.” John tells us directly they were terrified of getting involved.
So, the Pharisees bring the man back in and start questioning him yet again. This is where things start veering off the rails. “So a second time they summoned the man who had been blind and told him, ‘Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.’” The way they “knew” that was because the healing happened on the Sabbath. It’s tough when we get so stuck on the idea that God will only work one way or at one time or through one kind of people that we can no longer see when He does something to depart from what we understand the norm to be. As for this formerly blind man, all the norms in the world didn’t matter. There was only one thing that concerned him. “He answered, ‘Whether or not he’s a sinner, I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I can see!’” When you are blind and someone gives you your sight, you don’t care what you should believe about him. His impact on your life and telling others about it is the only thing that matters.
“Then they asked him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’” At this point the guy starts to get exasperated, and the conversation falls completely to pieces. “‘I already told you,’ he said, ‘and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don’t want to become his disciples too, do you?’ They ridiculed him: ‘You’re that man’s disciple, but we’re Moses’ disciples. We know that God has spoken to Moses. But this man—we don’t know where he’s from.’ ‘This is an amazing thing!’ the man told them. ‘You don’t know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does his will, he listens to him. Throughout history no one has ever heard of someone opening the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.’” That just further enraged the Pharisees, so they attacked him too. “‘You were born entirely in sin,’ they replied, ‘and are you trying to teach us?’ Then they threw him out.”
Oh, the arrogance! Oh, the judgmentalism! Oh, the blindness to what was right in front of them! The Pharisees were so stuck on the idea that the world only operates in one way—the way they understood—that they couldn’t see at all the obvious movement of God in their midst.
And that might have been the end of the story here, but Jesus knew there was still a bit more to tell. He tracked the man back down after all of this so He could give substance to what the man was now able to see but to which the Pharisees were still blind. “Jesus heard that they had thrown the man out, and when he found him, he asked, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ ‘Who is he, Sir, that I may believe in him?’ he asked. Jesus answered, ‘You have seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you.’ ‘I believe, Lord!’ he said, and he worshiped him.”
And here it seems like we have reached a happy ending point in the story. The formerly blind man gained His sight, went through a hard experience because of it, but then met Jesus again at the end. And they all lived happily ever after. Except there’s still just a bit more. There just a bit more because Jesus didn’t heal this man simply for his own sake. This wasn’t just a miracle. It was a sign.
“Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind.’” In other words, I’m here to help people see what really is. But there’s going to be a judgment element to this. Those who can’t see spiritually are going to be given the chance to have their eyes opened. All it takes is their willingness to follow Jesus. On the other hand, those who self-righteously think they can see just fine on their own are going to discover just how blind they really are. Their refusal to see what’s right in front of their faces will become its own form of judgment. As they keep insisting that what’s there isn’t really there at all, eventually they will become entirely unable to see it.
This pronouncement from Jesus should get us thinking. It certainly got some of the Pharisees thinking. “Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things and asked him, ‘We aren’t blind too, are we?’ ‘If you were blind,’ Jesus told them, ‘you wouldn’t have sin. But now that you say, “We see,” your sin remains.’” That is, “If you didn’t have access to the knowledge of the things of God; if you hadn’t had the way of salvation standing right in front of you, inviting you to follow Him, the things you did in ignorance wouldn’t be held against you. But because of your very self-righteous confidence that you can see the things of God just fine, then you are fully accountable for rejecting them.”
You see, like this man who was physically blind, apart from Jesus, we spend our days going through life without being able to see what really is. Our spiritual eyes are closed to the reality of God and His path through life, a path that isn’t always easy to walk living as we are in the world that is broken by sin at every point, but which will always lead us to what is good—what is best—in the end. And we make up all sorts of excuses for our blindness. I’m too hurt. There’s not enough evidence. God isn’t really good. But all such excuses come out of one of many places of ignorance—we can’t see. Yet as long as we insist that we can, we’ll remain blind. And lost. But like He did for this man in both the physical and the spiritual sense, Jesus wants us to see what really is.
Jesus wants you to see what really is. He wants you to see that love really is the best response to the people around you. He wants you to see that you don’t have to prove your own worth to anybody such that humility really is the best approach to engaging with the world. He wants you to see that every single person around you is possessed of inestimable value and thus should be honored and cherished as one uniquely created and loved by God. He wants you to see that there is purpose and design stitched into every part of creation meaning no life is worthless no matter how small, and that even in our worst pain God can still accomplish His good plans for us. He wants you to see that walking a path of purity—an example would be living out of the truth that physical intimacy is morally appropriate only within the context of marriage, and that pursuing it outside this God-designed context will always contribute to our blindness to the realities of creation, or at least will create huge, gaping blindspots in our spiritual vision that will effectively neuter our ability to produce good, Gospel fruit in our lives—is always going to lead to the greatest amount of flourishing in your life. He wants you to see that living a life marked by sacrificial generosity will increase your joy twofold, once when you live in obedience to His command, and once when you see the impact of your giving. He wants you to see that gentleness is the strongest strength there is, that compassion and empathy are always better than anger, that there’s never not a reason for hope, that kindness really does count, and that obedience leads to greater flourishing than the alternative. Jesus wants us to see what really is.
Imagine being able to see—to really see. To be able to see the people around you through God’s eyes, not yours. To be able to see the circumstances you are facing through the lens of God’s coming kingdom and not worry about them anymore, but only live by faith and with faithfulness. To be able to see your own self as one who is so precious to your heavenly Father that He was willing to give up His own Son in order that you might live so that you can live toward others with the perfect humility of one who truly knows her worth. Jesus wants us to see what really is.
But we can’t do it on our own. Just like this blind man couldn’t fix his eyesight under his own power, neither can we do the same for our spiritual eyesight. We have to be willing to let Jesus in, to let Jesus be Lord, to let Jesus be our Savior. We have to be willing to say, “Yes, Jesus, I want to follow you and not my own path any longer.” That’s such a simple solution—but it’s not easy. If we’ll receive it—receive Him—we will be able to see. Jesus wants us to see what really is. He wants us to see Him, because once we see Him, we’ll be able to see everything else as it really is. Jesus wants us to see what really is. So, let’s look to Him. Let’s look through Him. And let’s really see.