The Vision to See What is Deeply True

This story is double layered. It is a particular story in time telling us what is true for all time.  The gift of sight for one man was the basis for John to tell us about a deeper spiritual healing that we need to see the presence of God in our own lives. In spiritual darkness we appeal to “luck” or “dispassionate fate” as an explanation of what is true. What Jesus is doing in this healing of a blind man is to say that what is deeply true is outside the boundary of the religious systems of blame, condemnation and excommunication.  Jesus is the “vision healer” that allows us to see what God is really doing as He works among us. In particular Jesus is opening our eyes to see that it is He who is at work doing the will of God in our lives:
Liberating, healing, rescuing, redeeming, saving.

John 9:1-11 New International Version

9 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. ² His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

³ “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. ⁴ As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵ While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

⁶ After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. ⁷ “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

⁸ His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹ Some claimed that he was.

Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”

But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”

¹⁰ “How then were your eyes opened?” they asked.

¹¹ He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”