The Encounter with the Jews and with the Blind Man from Birth

The Evangelist John chose to tell a series of signs performed by Jesus to present his work of new creation. Jesus is the reveler of the Father and the creator of a new humanity. The first part of his discourse from Cana to Cana showed the novelty brought by Jesus in the institutions of the biblical tradition. Starting from the second sign of Cana, in which the son lives, Jesus focuses on man. And John shows a series of signs in which Jesus changes the condition of man, heals the paralytic, enabling him to walk on his legs; he feeds the hungry people showing that he is the bread of life, as the word of God and as an anticipation of the Eucharistic gift that will make people live for him and the Father.

The following sign is found in chapter 9, where the encounter with a man born blind is narrated. We find the sign of bread with the consequent discourse in chapter 6. We have the sign of the man born blind in chapter 9; two more chapters remain in the middle. Chapters 7 and 8 are in some way a preparation for the solemn narration of the man born blind.

John chooses to set the various episodes during certain Jewish feasts. The scene of the multiplication of the loaves is set during the Passover feast. Chapter 7, on the other hand, mentions another festival, that of the Tent, which is celebrated precisely six months after the Passover. Therefore, at the time of spring, equinox of autumn, six moons after the Passover. Jesus goes up again to Jerusalem, and in the temple, he encounters several people and clashes with the Jewish authorities.

In chapter seven, in verse 37, we find a detail worthy of attention. After the various encounters, clashes, the last day, the great day of the feast of Tent, “Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: Rivers of living water will flow from within him.'”

The theme of water returns. He had promised the Samaritan woman the water of life. Now he announces that from within his own will flow a spring of water. The last day of the feast of Tents was characterized, in the Jewish liturgy, by a solemn procession in which the priests drew water from Siloam. They carried it to the top of the temple mount, pouring these bowls of water along the sanctuary walls, invoking the gift of autumn rain after months of which not a drop of water came. The earth was thirsty, and the blessing of the rain was invoked to give life to nature.

During that solemn procession of the water, Jesus shouts, attracting attention, ‘those who are thirsty come to me and drink those who believe in me. The source of living water is me. The scripture had said it.’ Probably he alludes to the water from the rock to the water that rises from the temple, as described symbolically by the prophet Ezekiel. ‘I am the new temple; I am that rock from which water flows which will truly give life.’

The evangelist, at this point, intervenes to explain this. “He said it referring to the spirit that the believers would receive in him.” There was not yet the Spirit because Jesus had not yet been glorified. Not that there was no Spirit in himself or the world, but it had not been communicated to people. It is the risen Christ who, in the glory of the cross, shares the water from his heart; from the open side, the crucified makes flow blood and water. That water is the sign of the Spirit that flows from the new temple, which is the body of Christ and is the water of the sacraments, water of the Spirit that makes new humanity live.

These words provoke further discussions. Then follows chapter 8, the episode of the adulterous woman. Such an episode is missing in many ancient codices. Many scholars believe that it is not part of the Gospel of John but has been inserted here, coming from another tradition. The whole chapter 8 is an intense controversy between the Jews and Jesus. The clash reaches its climax. It begins with a formula of Jesus in which he presents himself: “I am the light of the world, who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Let’s take note of the passage through different symbols before Jesus presented himself as water, the source of living water. Now he presents himself as the light of the world, he who can illuminate until the fullness of life is reached. The Jews challenged him, and they reject his revelation. Jesus insists to the point of saying, “before that Abraham was I am.” ‘I am’ is the proper name of God. Jesus comes to identify himself with the Lord God, who revealed himself to Israel. He uses the appropriate name of God to identify himself. Then they collected stones to throw him, but Jesus hid and went out of the temple.

“Passing by, he saw a man born blind” – thus begins chapter 9. But it is important to place it after chapter 8 because it is a sequel; there is no narrative break. Chapters 7, 8, 9, 10 are a single unit set in the context of the feast of Tents. On the most solemn day of that liturgy, in which Jesus reveals himself as the source of living water and the light of the world, the Jews reject him and would like to stone him. Jesus must flee and hide, going out hastily out of the temple not to be caught by his adversaries; he stops in front of a beggar blind from birth.

Chapter 9, inserted in this context, is a perfectly composed narrative unit with a parallel concentric scheme, i.e., different passages that tend towards a center. The beginning and the end correspond to each other. Jesus and the blind man are facing each other at the beginning and the end. There is a kind of investigation in the center to know how that man born blind has acquired his sight.

If you think about it, this is not a healing but a creative intervention. John is keen to retain that the man was born blind, not become blind, not a disease that caused him to lose his sight or an accident. It is just a congenital problem; it is part of his nature, so he lacks something to see. Never in the whole world has ever been heard that one has opened the eyes of a born blind. Even today, despite the enormous progress in science, doctors cannot give the possibility of seeing to someone born blind.

So, the intervention of Jesus is not therapeutic but creative. He does not heal from a disease but must create the organ of sight. After having presented a theological discussion on sin, which could be of the blind himself or his parents, the evangelist focuses on some gestures that Jesus does. “When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes, and said to him, ‘Go wash in the Pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back able to see.” It is an example of a paratactic story, with many conjunctions and a series of verbs one after the other with very few descriptive elements.

We first note the strangeness of the gesture. Jesus does not need concrete means to accomplish a prodigy. We remember that to that father in Cana when he said, ‘go in peace, your son who is in Capernaum is better and lives from that moment.’ Therefore, at a distance, his word is effective. In this case, instead, he dwells on making a strange gesture, spitting on the ground. It is not a nice gesture in itself. Then we must imagine Jesus stooping down to mix the saliva with the soil; he needed to lower himself. Jesus bowed down to form this mud. He took it and applied it to the eyes of the blind man. We notice that the blind did not ask him for anything; he is a poor beggar sitting at the temple entrance. It is Jesus who sees him; he did not see anything. The disciples are the ones who ask him: ‘was he born blind because of his sin or of his parents?’ Jesus answers: “neither he nor his parents. It serves for God’s works to be revealed.” Without the man asking for the miracle, Jesus performs a sign. With that mud, he rubs his eyes and sends him to wash.

If we know how the city of Jerusalem was constructed, we understand the difficulty that the blind man encounters because he is in front of the temple door but is sent to wash at the Pool of Siloam that is very far at the end of a series of alleys and stairways in the old city. He does not simply send him to the first wash house he finds; he sends him into the pool of Siloam. Given the term is Semitic, John translates it for his Greek audience and explains that the name Siloam is significant.

It means ‘sent.’ Why does he explain it? Because it is an important name. It is the pool of the one who is sent. That man obeys the word of Jesus. He goes, washes in the pool of the one who is sent, and gains the sight. A new creation comes about. Why did Jesus make mud? Why did he mix the saliva with the earth? What does he want to bring to mind? It is an important symbol. It refers to the creation of Adam, the first man, formed from the dust from the ground and the breath of God.; the saliva recalls the breath. Now, the saliva united with the earth makes the mud that is applied to his eyes and, for sure, makes him very uncomfortable.

He heard someone spitting on the ground, then he feels his hands on him with some dirt rubbed on his eyes and hears, ‘go and wash in Siloam.’ That man could have reacted badly, refuse, get angry, insult. The episode is not told realistically but in a powerfully symbolic way. It is the journey of the new creation. That man is the image of the catechumen, of the one who is catechized, trained, and completes a formative itinerary until he acquires sight. He is recreated, the organ of sight is created for him, but the path he has to tread is the maturation of his faith until he adheres to Jesus.

That mud must remind of the creation of man. The pool of the one who is sent must remind of Jesus; He is the one whom the Father sends, and the pool of the one who is sent is the baptismal font, the symbol of baptism. That man who washes in the pool of the one who is sent acquires the possibility of seeing. It is the story of the man who, by meeting Christ through the sacraments of faith, receives the possibility of seeing God, of knowing him fully. Jesus is the light of the world; Jesus is the one who allows us to see God. He is the great revealer of the Father. He is the one who opened the eyes of humankind born blind, unable to know God by their nature. But Jesus revealed himself and performed a gesture of new creation.

The narration places a scene of an investigation. They want to know how that man born blind managed to acquire the sight. The Pharisees question him. They ask him who did it. And he narrates the event. The problem is that it is on the Sabbath that Jesus made the mud. It is an element that returns in several episodes. Jesus, in some way, violates the law. Jesus performed a gesture forbidden on Sabbath, and yet it is a creative gesture, and it is good work. He did great good to that man born blind. The Pharisees say, discussing among themselves, that this man cannot be from God because he does not observe the Sabbath. Others object if he were not from God, how could he do works of this kind, and there was a schism, they were divided, contrasts.

The Jews are unable to accept that Jesus gave sight to a man born blind, and therefore they hypothesize that it is a trick, an artfully organized fraud, for which they summon the parents of the blind man. Here we are at the center of the episode; the center is always vital. Neither Jesus nor the man born blind appear, but only the Jews and the parents. ‘The Jews ask: is he your son? is it true that he was born blind? Why does he see now? The parents respond: He is our son. We know that he was born blind, but how he sees now, we do not know.’ And they do not want to commit. ‘Ask him; he is old enough. We know nothing.’ John presents the figure of these parents as the image of those Jews who, for not wanting to accept Jesus, do not want to know anything about Jesus. Despite the positive effects of Christian preaching, they wanted to remain in the dark. It is the image of those who are afraid of the authorities of the synagogue.

An essential but anachronistic detail is that of the expulsion. ‘The Jews had already established that if one recognized him as Christ, he would be expelled from the synagogue.’ In Greek, he uses the term ‘ἀποσυνάγωγος’ – aposynagogos. It is a technical term in Greek that they used to indicate those excommunicated from the synagogue. A similar law was promulgated—not at the time of Jesus but in the ’80s when a part of the synagogue was decisively closed against Christian preaching. They sent out those who recognized Jesus as the Messiah.

The parents of the blind man are those who fear the Jews, and out of fear, deny the evidence. The Jews summon again the man who was blind. They ask him to give glory to God. We know, they say, that this man is a sinner. The blind man responds as a free man, capable of reasoning with his head without fear: ‘If he is a sinner, I don’t know. One thing I know. Before, I was blind; now, I see. So, I have to take into account what he did for me. How did he open your eyes? I have already told you; you have not listened to me. Do you also want to become disciples?’ He had better never said that! They insult him, throw him out. Here he is excommunicated. You will be his disciple, they tell him. We are disciples of Moses, and we know that God spoke to Moses. Instead, he, Jesus, we do not know where he comes from. Remember that important adverb of place. Even the steward at Cana did not know where the wine came from. ‘This is just the strange thing,’ the man says, ‘that you do not know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes. If he were not from God, he could not do anything ‘… for which that man has matured a choice of faith and adhesion to Jesus.

They told him: ‘you were born in all sins, and you want to teach us!’ And they threw him out. Now that man reencounters Jesus, who asks him: ‘Do you believe in the Son of man?’ ‘Who is he that I may believe in him?’ ‘It is I, you see him, thanks to him you can see.’ And that man prostrates himself and worships Jesus. ‘I believe, Lord.’

It is the summit of the journey of the catechumen who, illuminated by Baptismal grace, adores him, recognizing Jesus as God, the light of the world. Jesus concludes the discourse: “I came into the world precisely so that the blind can see.” Woe to the one who presumptuously thinks to see and does not need salvation. Do you mean to speak of us? The Pharisees who listen to him said. Oh, yes, indeed, I mean you. If you were physically blind, you wouldn’t have sinned. Instead, from the moment you have the presumption to say, ‘we see, we understand, we know, we are self-sufficient,’ your sin remains. Not letting yourselves be saved, you cannot be saved.

Immediately follows the discourse on the shepherd. It is the follow-up, the theological application, to the great baptismal sign with which Jesus shows God, who makes one capable of seeing the work of salvation.