A Picture of Spiritual Blindness

We’re told the man in our gospel reading was “blind from birth.” But, when Jesus spread mud in his eyes, he now had two things preventing him from seeing: First, he suffered from a lifelong disease, but second, even if his eyes functioned adequately, he now had mud in them.

At first, it must have seemed like Jesus only worsened his situation. Maybe some onlookers thought Jesus was mocking this man, only adding insult to injury. They might have even laughed as he spat in the dirt and rubbed the concoction in his face. And we, too, from our current perspective and age of numerous medical advancements, might be tempted to roll our eyes. But, somehow, about two thousand years ago, simple mud did cure blindness. As Jesus wiped this man’s face clean, he opened his eyes, and for the first time, light peered in. Light shone from his eyes for the first time as his cloudy, dull pupils were suddenly brilliantly clear.

We know that it wasn’t the method that made the difference but the man. Jesus went around Judea, curing people of their ailments and raising some of them from the dead. He was often able to do so with a single word or simple touch. But among all the healings Jesus performs, this one sticks out. I mean, why use mud at all? We know that he could heal without a mediating substance. Why would he spit into the dirt and rub it into this man’s eyes? In addition to being gross, it seems inefficient.

One reason he might have done so would be to give this man a more physical experience of his healing. As someone who lived his entire life blind, he would have been forced to navigate the world via his other senses, feeling his way around. So by giving this man a more visceral experience, Jesus acts out of empathy, providing him with an accommodating mode of healing. On the other hand, he may have sought to signal who he really was. We read in Genesis that “the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground.” Maybe John includes this account to continue his theme of Jesus being the maker of all things, who speaks us into existence from mere dust.

But, whether his choice of using mud was a simple act of kindness or a clue to his ultimate creative power, it certainly paints a picture. For those who first witnessed this healing and the countless Christians who have read it throughout the centuries, I think we’re drawn to this narrative partly because of its vivid and expressive nature. It feels like a scene from a movie overflowing with symbolic meaning.

I believe the end of our reading can provide insight into precisely the picture Jesus is trying to paint…

Starting with verse 39, Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”

By spreading mud in this man’s face, Jesus paints us a picture of the Pharisee’s spiritual blindness–a sort of willful blindness. Just like the man healed, the Pharisees have a twofold problem; They have two things preventing them from seeing Jesus. Like all of us, their fallen nature prevents them from fully perceiving the truth of Jesus. Still secondly, they have contributed significantly to their first problem by applying thick layers of muck over their eyes. And for a Pharisee, worse than admitting you were blind from birth would be admitting you put mud in your own face and needed someone else’s help, even if it was God’s help.

I love this quote from Martin Luther, “God receives none but those who are forsaken, restores health to none but those who are sick, gives sight to none but the blind, and life to none but the dead. He does not give saintliness to any but sinners, nor wisdom to any but fools. In short: He has mercy on none but the wretched and gives grace to none but those who are in disgrace.”

Meditating on today’s reading, we could add, “God wipes clean the faces of none but those with mud in their eyes.”

The Pharisees’ Problem

The Pharisees have a problem. It’s starting to become clear that Jesus is no ordinary teacher. He’s on another level. You can’t compete when you don’t compare, and by comparison, he’s starting to make them look bad. Jesus has otherworldly power, but the Pharisees choose to ignore that. You can tell they have it out for him because even when they discover the healing is legitimate, that’s not enough. And out of ignorance, they try to trap Jesus on a technicality. In other words, they are trying to catch Jesus slippin’.

Instead of opening their eyes, they choose to close them more tightly. They insist that Jesus healed the wrong sort of man, a blasphemer. It’s unclear how they determined his blasphemy. Maybe he was a blasphemer simply because he didn’t acknowledge the Pharisee’s doctrine. Perhaps the Pharisees assumed that he was a blasphemer because he was blind, and somehow God had punished him with blindness at birth for his wrongdoing. But, in any case, we know he wasn’t ultimately a blasphemer because he believed when presented with the truth of who Jesus is.

They also accuse Jesus of not healing this man at the right time of the week. It was the Sabbath, the day of rest. “No healing should be done on the Sabbath!” they declared to the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus was the one who commanded to Moses, “Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy,” to now have his own words used against him for giving this man rest from his afflictions! If only they could see the tragic irony there.

The Pharisees are always much more concerned about who did something and when they did it than what they did and why they did it. They forsake substance and meaning for status and protocol. And in their efforts to prosecute Jesus, they fail to see their own shortcomings. They have mud in their eyes, and they refuse to acknowledge it. They refuse to recognize Jesus. Jesus puts his power on display in such a way that even a blind guy could see it.

But, as he tells us, it turns out only a blind person can see it.

It’s Our Problem

If you ask a Lutheran Pastor “What do you think was the greatest discovery during the Reformation?” They are likely to respond, “The recovery of justification by grace alone through faith alone.” And that’s a good answer, but I wonder to what extent “the recovery of a truer, Biblical understanding of human sin.” was really the cornerstone of the reformation. Because we cannot understand the Gospel until we recognize that we have fallen short of what God demands. Until we realize that even our best efforts fall short of saving us, Christ’s death doesn’t make sense. Until we acknowledge that we do not see things clearly on our own, we can’t begin to focus on what Christ has won for us.

The Pharisees thought they could earn God’s favor and stay on his good side by working at it. But it’s impossible to keep up that way of thinking for long simply because your own conscience will condemn you. So, they made up their own way of getting on God’s good side and invented countless rules they had to follow in a particular way, and then they looked down on anyone who didn’t live as they did. To substantiate their claims to righteousness, they had to label others as unrighteous. And that is always the move self-righteous religion makes. Whenever you might be worried you don’t measure up, self-righteous religion tells you to measure down. “At least I’m not like so-and-so,” it says. “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector,” the adherent to self-righteous religion prays.

But, if you’re anything like me, that sounds uncomfortably familiar. It sounds like what I find myself doing all the time in my head. I’ll catch myself trying to bargain with God and establishing my own righteousness on the perceived failures of those around me. Like the Pharisees, often, instead of confessing our blindness to God, we opt to pile mud on our own faces and pour sludge into our own hearts.

God’s Word, Our Way Out

But, when Jesus gets involved, recognizing the mud we pour on ourselves can change us. When we allow the Word of God to be mixed into our mud, it can become like a salutary medicine for us. When something comes from the mouth of Christ, it has untold power. Like ordinary water or ordinary bread and wine, when you mix mud with God’s Word, healing takes place.

By admitting we have specks in our eyes, some that we were born with, some others threw in there, and yes, some we put in there ourselves, we allow God to speak into our dust. As First John declares, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But, If we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

A Vision of Jesus

In reading this passage, I kept finding myself struck by how marvelous it was that this blind man’s first sight was Jesus. As he opened his eyes, peering back at him was the loving face of our Lord–how remarkable, how beautiful! I was also stuck that that’s just how it will be for every blind person who has faith in Jesus. When they pass from this world to the next, they will wipe their eyes, and seeing for the first time, they will behold Jesus in all his glory.

But, you know, God’s Word promises that’s what it will be like for all of us. In the 13th chapter of Corinthians, the famous chapter on love, St. Paul says this, “For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face.”

Sin has done a number on every aspect of our world, our hearts, our minds, our will, our bodies, and yes, even our 5 basic senses. Even those of us who have been blessed with a 20/20 vision in this world will see more clearly in the next. Because in the world to come, Jesus will wipe away all the muck that prevents us from seeing as we ought. We will see as we never have and know and be known as we never have.