Sunday of the Blind Man
A homily on the Gospel of John 9:1-38
It goes without saying that there is suffering in the world— a whole lot of it. I don’t need to convince you that things are askew, that conflict is rampant, too many people find themselves destitute and without enough to live on; sickness and disease cut short lives and make life full of misery for many.
Why do I start with such bleak observations? Not to focus on the negative or cause us to despair, but rather to help us perceive what is going on in today’s Gospel reading from St. John. It deals precisely with these issues— the issues of suffering, and what causes it; how sin infects our world; but also how the good God, the creator of all things, came to his fallen creation to refashion it and restore it to its primal beauty.
In today’s Gospel we hear about a man who was blind from birth. The man didn’t, as happens to some, become blind later in life, from an illness, an injury, or something similar. Moreover, Christ is emphatic here that this blind man’s suffering was not because of his own sin or the sin of his parents. At that time, just as today, many people assume that physical infirmities, sickness, maladies and other such things are a direct result of a sin committed by the one suffering. One hears very simple solutions given, that someone is suffering, or that a whole group or people, or even a nation, suffers because of a particular or a collective sin. There certainly are times and there are cases when it does seem that physical sickness or suffering is the direct result of sin. But not always, and so we have to be careful. Even in the writings of the church fathers, you can find some quotes to support the idea that sickness results directly from sin. Again, we must be careful, and also bear in mind how we read Scripture and how we read commentaries and Patristics interpretations. We do not select quotations in isolation; but as the great twentieth-century theologian, Fr. Georges Florovsky, said, we must acquire the mind of the fathers, the “consensum patrum.” The blind man in today’s Gospel, for example— how do you explain the cause of his suffering when he was born blind? He could not have sinned before he was born, obviously. Thus his suffering cannot be the result of a sin he committed, nor is his suffering the result of a sin committed by his parents. This is not to say that his parents were sinless; no, but rather their sins were not the direct cause of the man’s blindness.
The disciples want to know why this man suffers from blindness, and they pose their question in such a way as to assume that the sickness must be the result of someone’s sin. To a certain extent this is true, but we must adhere to Christ’s words in today’s Gospel, and understand that a direct equation between sickness and sin misses the larger picture. First we need to understand “sin.” We use the term all the time; Scripture, as well as our prayers and hymns, are full of language that calls us sinners— “Behold my transgressions are ever before me, and against thee only have I sinned” (Psalm 50); “if we say we are sinless, we deceive ourselves” (1 John 1:8); “. . . To save sinners, of whom I am the first . . .forgive my transgressions, both voluntary and involuntary” (Prayer Before Communion). We all know the big sins— murder, theft, adultery, dishonesty, covetousness, those given in the Ten Commandments. Yet sin is more than the individual acts we may commit, or when we fail to do what we should, such as honoring our parents. Indeed, sin is literally missing the mark— knowing the good, but failing to do it. But sin is also a condition, even a force. Sin as a condition means that our human nature— what we possess in common, what makes humans human— is in a fallen condition, a type of sickness. We inherit this fallen nature (we don’t inherit Adam’s guilt, as is taught in some traditions). Not only is our human nature sick, and lacking in proper health, but with our fallen nature comes physical sickness, suffering, and death. All of this is to say that when we take this broader, more comprehensive view of sin, we then perceive how yes, sickness and suffering result from sin, but because with our turning away from God our human nature lacks true health. I do not emphasize our fallen state, our sinful condition, to cause us to despair; rather, with this understanding of our fallen condition, we can then more fully comprehend how it is that Christ restores us and makes us whole.
Now, let us return to today’s Gospel, which is such a profound meditation on sickness, health, and Christ’s role in our health and restoration. Note how Christ replies to the disciples’ question about who sinned. Christ says that this man was born blind so that the works of God should be revealed in him. His blindness was not a punishment; his blindness instead provided the means for a miracle. The miracle we hear of in today’s Gospel is in accord with what he hear throughout the Gospel of John, where Christ is revealing to his disciples his divinity. The Gospel tells us that Christ spat upon the ground and made clay with the saliva. He then anointed the blind man’s eyes. Why does Jesus do this, spitting on the ground and making clay? By doing this, Christ further reveals who he is; in the beginning, when God fashioned the world, he took clay and fashioned man, and breathed into him the breath of life. We hear in the Psalms that the heavens and earth were created by the Word of the Lord (Psalm 32). The Word of God, the one who created and fashioned the world, is Christ, the son of God. By taking clay and anointing the blind man’s eyes, Christ is showing himself as the very creator and fashioner of mankind. He restores the man born blind to wholeness, as only the Creator can do. His sight is not just restored; indeed, he is made whole and given new eyes to see with. In our turning away from God, we depart from true health; with Christ taking on our human nature, we are then able to be restored and made whole, to attain to the likeness of God.
This Gospel story raises questions about the nature of suffering, as so often the Gospels deal with Christ paying attention not only to the soul but also the body of those he encounters. At times suffering may come as a punishment, a direct consequence of sin, and then suffering comes about as a means of correcting us and leading us to repentance. But at other times it may come as a way to strengthen us, to test us, and to reveal the majesty and the grace of God. In suffering the power and mercy of God becomes manifest, as in the example from today’s Gospel. We are not given easy or simple answers to why suffering occurs. What we do know is that we live in a fallen world. There is death, there is sickness. There is suffering. All of these result from the condition of sin, the ancestral curse that sickens our nature— in Paradise none of this existed, where mankind dwelt in wholeness, in communion with God. Yet we do not lose hope, because Christ has come in the flesh to bring about our restoration, our healing, our transfiguration— like the blind man whose very eyes were made new, Christ refashions us. Paradise is not just about absence— the absence of sickness, suffering, and death. It is also about presence. The presence of God, communion with God that is the very definition of Paradise. Something that we can begin to encounter here and now. Christ restores that broken communion; in the Garden, God walked with Adam and Eve. The blind man was restored to sight— his eyes are remade; and the Gospel accounts ends by telling us that “he worshiped him.” Our restoration leads us to this; communion with God,which comes about through worshiping and abiding with Him.
For further reading, see the following:
Jean-Claude Larchet, Theology of the Body St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2017
Peter Bouteneff, How to be a Sinner, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2018