Eye-dentity

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     Among all of Jesus’s encounters with people recorded in the Gospels, perhaps the most quirky is the story of the man born blind, found in the ninth chapter of John. People talk about the man all the time as if he weren’t there. Have you noticed?

    The disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (verse 2).

    Hello? I’m right here!

    Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” (verse 3).

    An explanation, please? Oh, here it comes…

(Jesus) spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud (verse 6).

    Anointed? Funny word to describe putting mud in a man’s eyes – and by the way, no one has addressed me yet.

     I wonder why the man is left lingering in anonymity for so long. Even Jesus lets a lot happen before speaking to him. Reading the rest of his story, you’ll see that he isn’t called by name at any time – not even by his parents. He was the man born blind, and a beggar, and that was all the identification his family and neighbors seemed to require… or all they could handle. But I think Jesus was up to something unexpected – aside from the obvious, I mean – and had his reasons for letting the man’s invisibility cling beyond the point of being polite. Of the whole assembled crowd, I think Jesus was the only one seeing.

     Now, if somebody put mud in your eyes, you’d want to – what? – go wash it off? Of course you would! Jesus said to the blind man, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (verse 7). He went. He washed. He came back seeing. “Siloam,” according to the Gospel writer, means “Sent.” There may have been a pitcher or a trough or a washbasin closer – we don’t know – but the blind man went where Jesus sent him. What Jesus said, coupled with what the blind man did, carried the day.

     And then it started happening all over again – people talking about the man who had been blind as if he weren’t there:

    The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him” (verses 8-9).

    Are you kidding me?! He kept saying, “I am the man” (the rest of verse 9).

     The man’s identity had been wrapped up in his blindness and begging. When he came back seeing and not begging, the people weren’t sure who he was. Herded off to appear before the Pharisees, the confusion continued: his parents were asked, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind?” (verse 19).

    Oh, good grief… not again! What’s wrong with these people?

     Hey, Church. Jesus sees you.

     Whatever secondary things, whatever false things you attribute your identity to, Jesus sees you. You are who Jesus says you are. Same goes for me. No claim stands above his. He had everybody in that crowd figured out: he made the blind see and those who claimed to see were blinded. Jesus shows up and hands out the titles – nobody picks his own.

     The human eye is an aggravation to those who don’t give the Creator credit for creating it – its complexity and reliability are insanely difficult to chalk up to happenstance. So, of course Jesus chose to open the eyes that had never seen. Of course he chose “the dust of the ground” – like the first man was made of – coupled with his own spit, as a poultice. Of course God and only God, who had created all things out of nothing, could make sight out of mud. If Jesus hadn’t been doing it expressly to bring glory to the Father, you could’ve said he was showing off.  

     Finally, Jesus and the formerly blind man got a chance to talk. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him (verses 35-38). Whatever anybody else said about him (if not to him), this man was a believer in the Son of Man, the one who had opened his eyes.

     This man’s story – even this snippet of time – is rich and multilayered. Detail after detail intrigues us as hearers. And yet, we’re not given his name. Taking a somewhat informed guess, I think God did that on purpose, so every generation of hearers could plug themselves in, could at least entertain the possibility of receiving the identity given them by the Son of Man. The man’s neighbors and family would have left him at “blind” and “beggar.” Jesus brought him to “believer.”

     Who does Jesus say you are? Ask him.

  

Grace and Peace (received in truth),

 

John