Daily Devotional: John 9:1–12
1 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.”
12 “Where is this man?” they asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Jn 9:1–12.
Almost every time I read this story, I see it from a different angle.
The first time I think I read this story, what struck me most were Jesus’ actions. He doesn’t see the situation as punitive, but as opportunity, and he redeems the degradation of the man, as he spits into the mud not out of disgust for the person but for the redemption of his heart. He takes the sound a beggar blind man must have heard a million times, in derision, and makes it the gateway to his healing.
The second time, I saw it from the viewpoint of the disciples, and how alike they are to Job’s miserable friends. They assume the whole world works as a meritocracy, and that God rewards good deeds and punishes sin, full stop. What this man is suffering with is clearly the work of somebody’s sin. The disciples can’t see the message of Job — that, sometimes, innocent suffering does indeed occur, and that there is way more going on behind the curtain of suffering than we can perceive as simply a behavior-based reward/punishment system.
This time, though, I am seeing it from the eyes of the blind man (har har.)
This blind man literally did nothing to “receive his miracle.” There is no cry like the other gospels, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” There is no honor. There isn’t even a request. Literally, the blind man has zero interaction with Jesus until the mud’s already reaching his eyeballs.
It upends the typical charismatic notions of how we have to “grab hold by faith” or “contend for your miracle” or “position yourself to receive.”
This man did nothing.
This isn’t to say that all of those things don’t have their place or their value or their time. We’ve all seen the miracles that work in the exact opposite way, right? That there are times when Jesus, is in fact, moved by bold faith, or sheer stubbornness, or shameless entreaty.
But damn it all if we don’t try to put it into a box and a formula. Instead, sometimes, it’s basically dumb f-ing luck to be in the right place at the right time, and Jesus just decides to move and do something miraculous.
Let’s simply be open to the possibilities, which are infinite, in the ways we allow God to move however He sees fit in our lives.
