John 9:1-14 Jesus spits

A miracle story

Chapter 9 begins with a sign. However, to get to that point we place Jesus and disciples in a context that does not flow from the previous chapter. Commentators have noted the jump in sequencing, particularly because previously Jesus had fled the temple in fear of his life, but now he encounters a blind beggar, probably within the vicinity of the temple. Similarly we have not encountered the disciples since chapter 6, but now they have joined him. Sanders and Mastin suggest such that “John is more concerned with the theological development of his story than the verisimilitude of its details.”

Such theological development is an issue explored by Dodd who argues that trying to synchronise the chapters would disrupt the flow and continuity of the story in its context. Dodd writes that “10:19-21, similar as it is to parts of 7 and 8, seems to be anchored in its present place by the reference to the healing of the blind, which would be senseless unless 9:1-7 had preceded it. It would indeed be quite agreeable to the Johannine method to regard this back reference as designed to clamp the whole of 9:1 – 10:21 into a unity…a sequence of narrative, dialogue and monologue.”

As such we begin to understand that the story sits within a broad theological framework which is intended to develop an understanding about who Jesus was, namely the light of the world. Sanders and Mastin note that although the scene opens with “characteristic abruptness and quite without circumstantial detail” it is nonetheless “”dovetailed into the preceding episode with which it is closely united by the common theme of the encounter between the light and the darkness.”

And indeed, very quickly in this passage we have Jesus reinforcing this message in the context of what appears to be a “rabbinic aphorism”.

Having re-established this theme, we enter into a chapter which is heavy with irony, contrasting the growing faith of a new disciple with the growing blindness of the church authorities.

John 9:1-15 (NRSV)
9 As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, 7saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.
8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” 12They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”
13They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.”

Brown praises the construction of chapter 9 as a masterful work, tightly written in order to illustrate significant themes. The miracle described in these verses set the scene for a longer analysis of what Dodd describes as light, glory, and judgment. Dodd suggests that “The statement ‘I am the light of the world’, is illustrated dramatically, after the evangelist’s manner, by a scene in which Jesus gives sight to the blind. The story, however, immediately passes onto the judgment which the unenlightened pass upon the enlightened: The Pharisees’…condemn the man to whom Jesus has given light.”

Most commentators therefore suggest that the miracle is to be read symbolically, as an illustration of the concept of Jesus as the light of the world breaking through, and those who see being expected to make a choice about what that might mean.

However, as an illustration of the depth of meaning in this passage we find echoes and reminiscences of the cultural context in which this story was recounted, and indeed of Jesus’ life. It is these elements of the passage, within its broad symbolic framework, that makes the passage attractive and warrants deeper investigation.
The sign

Nobody asked for this miracle. Indeed as those who were walking together approached the blind man, the discussion centred on the contemporary philosophical/theological connotations behind blindness from birth. However, “without waiting even to ask if the man wants to see, Jesus at once proceeds to cure him.”

Jesus cuts through the debate with his terse explanation that the man in essence is there to serve a purpose and then acts. The blind man at this stage is a prop for the teaching that follows in the remainder of the chapter. However, despite the comparatively cursory recount of the miracle, this passage contains unique images which catch our attention.

One image is the physicality of the healing process. Instead of by word, or by dialogue, Jesus gets his hands dirty for this one. He uses his bodiliness, and the resources around him to effect the cure. The tangible nature of the action places Jesus in our world, and the world of the tradition in which he found himself. Brown notes that only John and Mark refer to Jesus using his spit in healing, unafraid to incorporate an action which could be misinterpreted as magic.

However commentators are quick to draw our attention away from this aspect of the story, moving their analysis to the second part of the process, which involves washing in the pool of Siloam. Thus Sanders and Mastin write,
“The use of spittle as a means of healing usual in ancient times is strictly not relevant here, since it was not the material means of the cure, but was simply used to make mud (which would stick on the man’s eyes) out of the dust of the ground, the material from which man was made. Jesus uses mud to complete the work of creation in the blind man. The cure is affected by the washing…and sending the man to the pool to wash is a challenge to his faith.”

The physicality of the action becomes subrogated to symbolic analysis as we encounter the theme of water. Brown highlights the purification associated with the pool of Siloam, and there has been significant commentary about the meaning of baptism associated with this passage. Dodd has written,
“As men (sic) enter the true life by birth from water, so they receive the true light by washing with water…the water of the pool is enlightening only if it is the true “Siloam”…the Son whom the Father sent.”

Brown has also strongly argued that the use of the water points to a significant yet not explicit reference to baptism. However, Barrett has critiqued this as a primary focus of the passage, arguing that writes “John …never makes the association explicit, and we impoverish his theology if we make it so. He is concerned with faith, conversion, light, darkness, judgment, rather than with particular settings for them, however important in their own way these may be.”

If the image of mud made from dust and spit is not regarded as “strictly relevant,” why does the author use the image at all? Maloney indicates it is to set up a situation where the man must respond to Jesus’ command. He writes, “Radical response to the word of Jesus is indicated by the use of four verbs: he went, he washed, he came back seeing…Within the context of the celebration of the Tabernacles, the waters of Siloam are crucial, and the narrator adds an explanation to make this clear. It is not contact with the waters of Siloam that effects the cure, but contact with the Sent One.”

Contemporary analysis therefore continues to promote the image of washing (or symbolically, encounter with the sent one) as the key event in the healing process. However, is it legitimate to heighten the symbolic encounter over the bodily encounter with Jesus the man?

The blind man
What might help us explore this question is another feature of the passage, namely the blind one who can now see, a character drawn with depth and integrity. Brown writes:
“The blind man emerges from these pages… as one of the most attractive figures of the Gospels. Although the Sabbath setting and the accusations against Jesus create a similarity between this miracle and the healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda (Ch 5) this clever and voluble blind man is quite different from the obtuse and unimaginative paralytic of Ch. 5. The blind man’s confutation of the Pharisees in v.24-34 is one of the most cleverly written dialogues in the New Testament.”

The sympathetic rendering of this character allows us to journey with him throughout the chapter. His own faith is clarified as he responds with integrity to the questioning by his neighbours and the Pharisees.

What is striking are the bare facts contained in his response. In the shock of the moment he tells people what has happened to him, symbolism and analysis can come later. Maloney notes that the man, when questioned recounts “the physical facts: the miracle, the clay, the anointing, the obedience and the sight.” He is everyman, telling people about an extraordinary thing that has happened to him. And it is this that becomes the impetus for choice.

The choice
To believe or not to believe. It is clearly a narrative feature of John that he uses semia in order to highlight conflict between those who believe and those who do not. Labahn indicates that
“The portrait of the revealer in conflict with the world and its leadership is an important aspect of the literary and theological strategy of the narrative of the fourth gospel.”

Devices such as setting the healing on the Sabbath, merely serve to reinforce the story which pits Jesus, as the light, against the Pharisees who represent the dark. Reinhartz is more explicit. He explains, “In the historical tale the Jews are cast as the arch enemies of Jesus and his disciples. In the cosmological tale they are identified with the forces of death and darkness that strive against Jesus as the divine Word and Light but fail to overcome him.”

What might be more relevant for the audience is the division between those who knew the blind man: those who cannot fathom what has occurred and those who accept the transformation. And so “The action of Jesus does not lead to the praise of God, but to schisma: Is this the man?” When people question the blind man, he uses the term ego eimi to emphasis on his identity – he tells us, this is truly me. Such an assertive statement does not lead all those within the story to believe wholeheartedly, but is used to convince us of the integrity of his lived experience.

Through the revelatory discourse that follows the miracle the theological implications of who Jesus was and is, are reinforced, and the audience is engaged in the story as people who can also make a choice.

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