NOTES for Joh 9:1-38
The evangelist John tells us today an astonishing and, to a certain degree, exemplary story. Exemplary because, beyond the events that happened to a particular man - the man born blind, to whom the Lord Jesus gave sight - this account speaks of what happens when every person meets God. And it can also be called exemplary, alas, because it gives a characteristic and typical example of people's attitude toward what the Lord Jesus does.
First of all, several important points draw attention. The disciples proceed from the notion, widespread everywhere among religious people, not believing people but precisely religious people, that every suffering is always the fruit of a specific sin of a specific person. That is why they ask this question: who sinned, the man born blind himself, or his parents? In whose sin is the cause of this man's suffering?
The Lord does not answer this question. He speaks about what should be done. This happened to the blind man, He says, so that the glory of God might be revealed. Therefore the issue is not who is guilty and whether the measure of suffering corresponds to the gravity of the sin. For Christ's disciples, another person's pain, weakness, or suffering can be an opportunity for love, compassion, and mercy - that is, for what is the true glory of God. And for Christ the matter stands the same way. That is precisely why His mercy heals the man born blind.
The disciples' question can 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 can be called practical: according to Him, suffering is subject not to explanation, but to healing and consolation. It is important to feel this in order to be a disciple of Christ.
And it is also essential that Christ really did violate certain regulations, but the Gospel clearly lets us understand that the Lord refuses to accept our zealous religiosity as the will of the Father. Fulfilling the external requirements of religion and obeying the will of the Father are things of completely different scale. With our zealous attitude toward ritual details and indifference toward people, whose heirs are we - Christ's or the Pharisees'? A sad and painful question. Yet it still must be asked, so that we may correctly understand what in the life of the Church is essential and primary, and what is superficial and secondary.