One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see

 

 But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight.  And they asked them, saying, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind?  How then does he now see?"  His parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know.  He is of age; ask him.  He will speak for himself."  His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.  Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, "Give God the glory!  We know that this Man is a sinner."  He answered and said, "Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know.  One thing I know:  that though I was blind, now I see."  Then they said to him again, "What did He do to you?  How did He open your eyes?"  He answered them, "I told you already, and you did not listen.  Why do you want to hear it again?  Do you also want to become His disciples?"  Then they reviled him and said, "You are His disciple, but we are Moses' disciples.  We know that God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we do not know where He is from."  The man answered and said to them, "Why, this is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes!  Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.  Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind.  If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing."  They answered and said to him, "You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?"  And they cast him out.

Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said to him, "Do you believe in the Son of God?"  He answered and said, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?"  And Jesus said to him, "You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you."  Then he said, "Lord, I believe!"  And he worshiped Him.  And Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind."  Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, "Are we blind also?"  Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.'  Therefore your sin remains."

 

- John 9:18–41 

 

In our current reading, Jesus is at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem (a section of John's Gospel which began with chapter 7).  Yesterday we read that as Jesus passed by, going out of the temple, He saw a man who was blind from birth.  And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"  Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.  I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."  When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.  And He said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which is translated, Sent).  So he went and washed, and came back seeing.  Therefore the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind said, "Is not this he who sat and begged?"  Some said, "This is he."  Others said, "He is like him."  He said, "I am he."  Therefore they said to him, "How were your eyes opened?"  He answered and said, "A Man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, 'Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.'  So I went and washed and I received sight."  Then they said to him, "Where is He?"  He said, "I do not know."  They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees.  Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.  Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight.  He said to them, "He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see."  Therefore some of the Pharisees said, "This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath."  Others said, "How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?"  And there was a division among them. They said to the blind man again, "What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?"  He said, "He is a prophet."

 

  But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight.  And they asked them, saying, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind?  How then does he now see?"  His parents answered them and said, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know.  He is of age; ask him.  He will speak for himself."  His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.  Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."   In John's Gospel, we already understand that the terms the Jews is most frequently used as a political one, to designate the religious rulers in the temple, and not the people.  Unless specifically indicated otherwise, all the people in John's Gospel are Jews, including Jesus and the man that was born blind, as well as the author of the Gospel.  Here the religious rulers quiz the parents of the man who had received his sight from Christ's healing (see yesterday's reading, above).  The Gospel notes the fear of the parents, who simply reply, "He is of age; ask him.  he will speak for himself."   In a sense, the healed man is on his own, and must testify for himself.

So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, "Give God the glory!  We know that this Man is a sinner."  My study bible comments that with Jesus not present, the Pharisees call Him a sinner, but earlier when He asked them face-to-face, "Which if you convicts Me of sin?" (John 8:46), they evaded the question.  Give God the glory! was an oath formula which was used before giving testimony.  But this healed man will indeed give God the glory -- the more he is pressed, the stronger his faith seems to become, while the Pharisees dig deeper into their own self-deception. 

He answered and said, "Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know.  One thing I know:  that though I was blind, now I see."  Then they said to him again, "What did He do to you?  How did He open your eyes?"  He answered them, "I told you already, and you did not listen.  Why do you want to hear it again?  Do you also want to become His disciples?"  Then they reviled him and said, "You are His disciple, but we are Moses' disciples.  We know that God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we do not know where He is from."  The man answered and said to them, "Why, this is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes!  Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.  Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind.  If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing."  They answered and said to him, "You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?"  And they cast him out.  The formerly blind man who is now healed become a model of Christian witness.  My study bible says that many people do not bear witness to Christ because they fear they will be asked questions they cannot answer.  This man's answer to people who are far more educated than he is provides us with the correct solution:  he admits what he does not know, but follows up with what he does know.  My study bible says that this formula:  "That I don't know, but what I do know is this," is foundational to witnessing one's faith to others.   Note that for his honest testimony, he has been cast out of the temple.   My study bible also adds that the unprecedented nature of opening the eyes of one who was born blind is a confirmation of Christ's divinity.   This was understood as one of the signs of the coming Messiah (Isaiah 35:5, 42:7), and a prerogative which was considered to belong solely to God (Psalm 146:8). 

Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said to him, "Do you believe in the Son of God?"  He answered and said, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?"  And Jesus said to him, "You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you."  Then he said, "Lord, I believe!"  And he worshiped Him.    My study bible comments that, having opened the blind man's eyes, Christ also opens his heart and illumines his spirit to the truth of Jesus' identity.  This healed man has moved from knowing nearly nothing about Jesus to the conclusion that He could not possibly be a sinner, and then through confessing that He must be from God (see the verses immediately preceding these), to finally seeing Him as the divine Son of God and worshiping Him.

 

And Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind."  Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, "Are we blind also?"  Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.'  Therefore your sin remains."   The transformation the formerly blind man has gone through, subsequent to Christ's healing him, is also a process of illumination.  But here Christ shows the Pharisees have lapsed into a deeper and stubborn darkness; they are therefore deliberately spiritually blind.   Christ says, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind."  In this passage, we have observed how this happens.  Christ's coming into the world brought judgment to the world, not because He came to judge, my study bible says (see John 12:47-48), but because of our own human accountability to Him.  Those who see and hear Him but who do not believe are judged by their own faithlessness, their response to Christ and His word.

The presence of Christ Himself acts as a kind of pivot point.  The man who has been healed of his blindness gravitates toward faith, which we can observe through the events of this chapter, and especially in today's reading.  Gradually, as things progress, and as he's pressed to find his own answers, he comes to a deeper and deeper faith.  He does this specifically by relying upon his own experience.  That is, upon what he knows to be true.  The religious leaders also come with their own assumed truths to this discussion.  Jesus is already their enemy; they already seek to take Him and prosecute Him (see, for example, this reading, in which the temple officers have been told to arrest Jesus and they fail to do so).  Moreover, the religious leaders must protect their positions, which they think Jesus, with His growing following of disciples, threatens.  The divisions among them, and among the people, which John has documented throughout his Gospel and especially in the scenes from the religious festivals in Jerusalem, also add to the unease of the religious leaders.  So they are already inclined to seek ways to dispute that anything good can come from Jesus, or that He could be truly a Man from God.  As we observe their responses to Jesus, in contrast to the healed blind man, we can see them digging more deeply and firmly into their own blindness to Christ and what He does.  We must make the observation that this is how judgment works.  It is not about Christ coming into the world to declare who is who.  It is all about our responses to Christ, His teachings, His word, His work in the world -- all of which is given by the Father (see, for example, Jesus' testimony to this in John 5:19-30).  It is not therefore a question of Christ imposing judgment, but rather of our response to the truth of what Jesus does and teaches, and in the word He gives -- all of which is from the Father, the fount of all that is.  As Jesus indicates in today's reading, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind."   And in His word to the Pharisees and their deliberate and chosen blindness:  "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.'  Therefore your sin remains."   A true blindness is one thing, but one chosen despite greater awareness is another.  These religious leaders know full well the Scriptural truths and spiritual history of Judaism which Christ fulfills, but they choose, in their knowledge, to find ways to deny it, and to deny the witness of what is before them.  Let us note the contrast with the healed blind man, who sticks to the truth of his own experience and the reality of what has happened to him.   The presence of that experience is important, its immediacy informs the healed man what is true, and to what it is that he testifies.  Let us notice, also, how this experience has pulled him out of his environment.  He is brought into a place in which his identity as an individual is shaped and formed, and inadvertently brought out of a collective identity, as he is cast out of the temple by the religious leaders.  This is a form of martyrdom, in which his testimony to his experience of Christ gives his life shape and distinction; he is no longer simply of the world or of his time and place, but has been drawn, in a sense, out of the world (John 15:19).  His own testimony, his experience of being grilled by the religious leaders, further hones that process, as he sticks to the truth of his experience, and the humility to admit what he doesn't know.  Another important aspect of this testimony is simply how the healed man is riveted in the here and the now, so to speak.  To get down to the brass tacks of experience requires us to truly connect with the presence of what exactly we know, what has happened, and to focus on the present without distraction.  In the face-to-face encounter with Christ, and our retained experience of it, we find ourselves.  At the same time, we observe the religious leaders shrinking from that acknowledgement of what is immediately in front of them.  Let us witness this healed man's witnessing and consider our own lives.  What is your experience of Christ?  Could you testify to God's love in your life?  How does that bring you completely "present" right now?  How does that take you out of "the world"?