NOTES for Joh 9:1-38
Today the evangelist John tells us an astonishing and, to a certain extent, exemplary story. It is exemplary because, beyond the events that happened to a particular man, a man blind from birth to whom the Lord Jesus granted sight, this account speaks of what happens to every person in an encounter with God. And, sadly, it may also be called exemplary because it presents a characteristic and typical instance of how people respond to what the Lord Jesus does.
Several important points attract attention first of all. The disciples proceed from an idea found everywhere among religious people, not believers, but precisely religious people: that every suffering is always the fruit of a particular sin committed by a particular person. This is why they ask: who sinned, the man born blind himself, or his parents? Whose sin caused this person’s suffering?
The Lord does not answer this question. He speaks of what must be done. This happened to the blind man, He says, so that the glory of God might be revealed. The issue, therefore, is not who is guilty or whether the measure of suffering corresponds to the gravity of the sin. For Christ’s disciples, another person’s pain, weakness, or suffering can become an opportunity for love, compassion, and mercy, that is, for what constitutes the true glory of God. It is the same for Christ. This is why His mercy heals the man born blind.
The disciples’ question may be called a scientific-theological approach to suffering, and the fruitlessness of such an approach is obvious. My ways are not your ways, says the Lord... By contrast, the Lord’s approach to human suffering may be called practical: according to Him, suffering is not to be explained, but healed and consoled. It is important to grasp this in order to be a disciple of Christ.
It is also significant that Christ really did violate certain regulations, yet the Gospel makes it clear that the Lord refuses to accept our zealous religiosity as the Father’s will. Fulfilling the outward requirements of religion and obeying the Father’s will are things of entirely different orders. With our zealous concern for ritual details and our indifference to people, whose heirs are we, Christ’s or the Pharisees’? It is a sad and painful question. Yet we cannot avoid asking it if we are to understand correctly what is essential and primary in the life of the Church and what is superficial and secondary.