NOTES for Joh 9:1-40

How does spiritual life differ from religious life? Perhaps first of all in its attitude toward miracles. This is not surprising: a miracle is a revelation manifested by God, which is very difficult for a religious person to ignore. Religion finds itself in an ambivalent position with regard to miracles: a nonreligious person has no need of miracles at all; he can allow himself to ignore them in principle, simply assigning them to the realm of the (temporarily) unexplained, and rest there. The religious person is different: as a rule, religion needs miracles and relies on them to one degree or another; accordingly, religious consciousness cannot ignore a miracle in the way nonreligious consciousness does.

However, religion accepts not every miracle, but only one that does not contradict its own doctrine, and religious consciousness evaluates every miracle that comes into its field of vision accordingly. If what happened fits within the framework of the relevant religious doctrine, the miracle is judged genuine; if not, it is perceived as false or inauthentic, proceeding, for example, not from God but from dark powers. From the point of view of a person living a full spiritual life, however, a miracle in itself is sufficient testimony to God's intervention.

From the point of view of a person for whom religion is in first place, a miracle must be evaluated for conformity to doctrine - roughly (though not necessarily exactly) as the Pharisees do when considering the question of the healing of the man born blind. They are ready to acknowledge the miracle - but only if an explanation can be found that fits within the framework of their religious and theological concept; otherwise they are ready to thank God for what was done, but in no way ready to acknowledge the rightness of the One through whom He did what He did.

Thus the primacy of religion leads into a spiritual dead end the person who is ready to follow his own religious concepts unconditionally, despite all the testimony received from above.

Today before us is a vivid example of what bias is: the Pharisees question the man who had been blind. What is happening looks more like an interrogation. They repeat their questions as if in passing, try to catch the healed man, try to find at least some hook in his words. When their supply of methods is practically exhausted, they have to deny the very fact of the healing altogether. They drive themselves into a corner. It looks as though their opinion has been formed in advance: "This cannot be, because it can never be." Especially on the Sabbath...

Despite the unprecedented eloquence of an illiterate beggar, clearly given to him from above, they remain deaf. "How can such a sinner teach us anything?" This recalls their own words: "Search and see that no prophet comes from Galilee" (John 7:52). Again the same wall, against which the living experience of a person's encounter with God is shattered.

It is so easy, by our own knowledge and firm certainty about something, our own certainty and not certainty that comes from the Lord, to wound another person and deprive him, if not of convictions and faith in God, then at least of faith in people.

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.

Looking at a man blind from birth, everyone in ancient times and in our own day asks himself the same question: why did this happen to him? Who is to blame? In Gospel times people thought the fault lay either with the man himself, whom God was punishing for sins in this way, or with his parents: it was supposed that the consequences of a sin committed by parents could fall on the children. Jesus, however, looks at the situation in a completely different way.

He does not say who is to blame. He only says that this case, like many others similar to it, is an opportunity for the manifestation and action of God's power and God's love. For Him, evil is the place where God has not yet manifested Himself. Of course, the whole world is created by God. Therefore evil was not intended in the world from the beginning. And from the beginning there was no evil in the world. It appeared in the world when a will opposed to God was found in the world. In God's creation there is no evil substance, but there is evil will. Because every bearer of will is free. And evil is the reverse side of freedom. But there is no meaning in evil.

By definition. In fact, meaning in the created world is possible only as the Creator's design for it. What takes place according to another will, one opposed to the Creator, cannot have meaning by definition. Therefore evil is meaningless and inexplicable. Even the very existence of a will opposed to God is not an explanation. It is a necessary condition for the existence of evil in the world, but even it does not give evil meaning. And Jesus, unlike His disciples, does not try to look for what is not there. For Him, evil is a meaningless anomaly of creation, subject to correction, and nothing more. There is no evil in the Kingdom. And if He, the King of this Kingdom, is here, then there will be no evil here either.

For the Savior, the answer to the question "What should be done?" is not directly connected with the answer to the question "Who is to blame?" Of course, it is necessary to resist the forces of evil in the world. But even the disappearance of these forces by itself would not lead to the disappearance of the consequences caused by their activity. Only the breath of the Kingdom can change the situation and remove these consequences. This is exactly what Jesus does, for by His own words He came to save those who are perishing.

In the Synodal translation a difference in grammatical forms can be traced here, as also in John 8:12, and in Matt. 5:14. It turns out that when Jesus addresses the disciples, He calls them the "light of the world," while when He speaks of Himself, He uses the expression "light to the world." On this basis one could build an entire sermon, could one not? However, when the Greek text is examined, no such distinction is found. Accordingly, practically all modern translations put here the same grammatical form as in Matt 5:14: "light of the world." And there is meaning in this too, if the Teacher speaks of Himself and of the disciples in the same expressions. It is simply that while He lives His earthly life, He fulfills this function: to bring light into this world enveloped in darkness; after His Ascension this function passes to His disciples.

One phenomenon of religiosity is the prism through which a religious person looks at the world. The Pharisees had such a prism: after all, they were deeply and, in many ways, sincerely religious people. That is why they were not satisfied with the simple and fairly obvious explanation of what had happened, the explanation that satisfied the man born blind whom Jesus healed. The healed man was not as religious as the Pharisees investigating the case, and in a certain sense that made things simpler for him.

He reasons without looking back at the Pharisees' religious concepts. Did this Man heal me? He did. That means God is with Him. It cannot be otherwise. Especially since healings like this had never happened before. The case is unique. What other proof is needed?

For the Pharisees, however, everything is not so simple. They have other criteria. And the main criterion is not the presence or absence of healing. It is not the fact that God's power is manifested and at work. The main thing is conformity to certain criteria taken from the corresponding religious tradition. Such criteria are, of course, invented by people. But to a religious person they usually appear to be given by God, not invented by people. And therefore the conformity of what is happening to these supposedly God-revealed criteria is the most important thing. Even if there is a miracle before one's eyes, it cannot be considered genuine if it does not conform to religious criteria.

The Pharisees investigating the healing are trying to do exactly this, questioning the healed man again and again about what happened to him. They are trying to find at least some hook that would let them obtain an explanation that satisfies them. But there are no hooks. And the healed man cannot understand what they want from him. He has explained everything. Everything is clear to him. The Pharisees assure the healed man that the Man who healed him cannot be from God; their religious criteria clearly say this. Then how is the healing possible?

But to the healed man himself all these arguments seem like an artificial and useless theory. He says: I know only that this Man healed me; as for how it happened, who He is and where He is from, you know better, so sort it out yourselves.

In the end, after failing to find an explanation that satisfies them, the Pharisees investigating the case drive the healed man away. No person, no problem. Perhaps the matter will even be forgotten on its own. And the healed man finds the Savior. He, at least, has certainly lost nothing.

What does Jesus mean when He speaks of those who came before Him? If we consider the purely historical aspect, the answer is more or less clear: obviously He is speaking of the numerous claimants to messiahship who appeared in Judea then almost every day — appeared in order, in Jesus’ words, “to steal, kill, and destroy.” For all of them ended their preaching with a call to uprising, to a messianic war, a call that was almost always heard, and the consequences were not slow in coming: the Roman army suppressed all such movements harshly and mercilessly. Jesus, however, speaks of Himself as the Shepherd who cares for the sheep and does not want to destroy them needlessly, for He brought into the world the Kingdom, for the establishment of which no uprising is needed.

But this is only one side of the question. For when Jesus speaks of false shepherds, He is also addressing the Pharisees; it is they whom He calls blind, and He tells them that if they acknowledged their blindness, they would not bear sin upon themselves. Yet the Pharisees as a whole, unlike the Zealots, for example, were by no means supporters of holy war, though, of course, they awaited the Messiah no less. Of what, then, does Jesus accuse them? They certainly could not be accused of neglecting pastoral care: in this respect the Pharisaic teachers and rabbis were very zealous. But toward what was their zeal directed? First of all, and unsurprisingly, toward the religious education of their flock.

But religion in itself does not yet guarantee a full spiritual life. It can be either a help or an obstacle on the way into the Kingdom; if one makes it an end in itself, the consequences for spiritual life can be very sad. And the Pharisees were always inclined toward such absolutizing, although, of course, as always in such cases, much depended on concrete people. Unfortunately, however, there were many such mentors who were ready to sacrifice a person for the sake of religious norms and rules, and Jesus’ words applied to them in full measure.

Of course, many of those who were supposed to lead people along the spiritual path were objectively not ready for it. In that case a simple acknowledgment of their unreadiness would have been enough to remove responsibility from themselves: after all, no one would expect guidance from someone who had admitted this. But, as usual, very few were ready for such an acknowledgment. Who wants to sign his own pastoral incompetence?

And then the shepherds turned into those very false shepherds of whom Jesus spoke. And they bore sin upon themselves: for falsehood is always sin, and false shepherding is a double sin. Here the matter concerns the way of righteousness and the way into the Kingdom, and therefore salvation — something with which one must not play.