John 9:2-8

Who did sin, this man, or his parents?

What the Master and what the disciples saw

At such a time it was very wonderful that He should see anything but the way out. His life was in peril. The plot was thickening, the pursuers were more than ever determined to murder Him. At such times men are likely to see only what concerns themselves and their own safety. It is a blessed proof of the way in which that most gracious heart lay open to all the sorrow and needs of men. Find out what people see, and you will know what they are. People mostly see what they look for; and they look for what they want. It is curious to listen to the account of what people have seen; how some saw a dress, and some a face, and some saw nothing. “He looked for the worms, I for the gods,” was the complaint of a certain stager. Jesus saw a blind man. Some people are very blind to blind men. There is, you know, a colour blindness, that cannot discern certain colours. There is, too, an inner colour blindness, that never sees sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity. It looks on the bright side of things by looking away from all that is wretched. Ah, never was there such an eye for sad hearts as Jesus Christ’s. Once seeing the blind man, He can go no further. Pharisees and perils are alike forgotten. Pity saw her opportunity, and she could not be denied. Oh, what a Christ is this! Well may His name be called wonderful. And the only Christianity that is worth the name is that which makes us like Him. So that however we be driven, harassed, threatened, there is within the soul a great atmosphere where love dwelleth. In this great London of ours, with its turmoil of the streets, the hurry of the thousands on its pavements, the roll and rumble of its traffic--yet you know how God’s sky bends over it, and God’s great sun shines upon it, and God’s kindly stars do look down upon it. That is the very purpose of Christ’s coming--to open up in our narrow, little, earthly, busy lives a whole heaven of pity, of love, of gracious help. The Master saw a blind man. What did the disciples see? His lace was full of pity only; theirs was full of a curious prying. With them is was a case for dissection, a poor body for their anatomy, and they began at once with the scalpel knife. “Master, who did sin,” etc.? Alas! how full the world is of people who are ready to cast stones at those who are down--stones that may break no bones, but that do bruise spirits and break hearts! What a strange lack of feeling! And what an extraordinary notion! Bad enough to be blind, and bad enough to be poor; but to be both might well move our pity. But no; to be poor shows that he is bad; to be blind shows that he must be very bad. It is a horrible notion! Yet it lives and thrives today. Would not any stranger coming into our midst suppose that the rich people must be good--born good? It is the poor who are so bad--so very bad. Who are city missionaries for, and tract distributors, and district visitors, and Bible women? All for the poor; until one might think that the Scripture, which says that the poor have the gospel preached to them, implies that the rich do not need it. Has it not been said in scores of good books that the subject was born of “poor but pious parents”? Why, indeed, the but? “Of rich but pious parents” is a phrase I never heard, and yet it were the greater wonder. Cold-blooded discussion of great social problems that involve the lives of men and women and little children is bad enough, but ten thousand times worse is it when good people stand tip-toe and look down from their lofty superiority with cold, steel eyes and lips of scorn and talk of the poor as a “drunken, lazy lot.” It is enough to provoke men and women to curse the very name of religion. Nothing could be more unlike that blessed Saviour who saved the world by loving it. What a gulf is there oftentimes between the Master and His followers! Very notable is the answer of Jesus. “This blindness has not come from sin, but for your sakes, that His blindness may open your eyes; for you are blind except this blind man give you sight.” A Divine homoeopathy, like curing like. I constantly have my eyes opened by blind men. I never know, indeed, that I have any eyes until I see a blind man; then I go on my way thanking God for this wondrous gift of sight. That he may show forth the works of God. Who most enriched the world when Christ was upon earth--the rich man or the beggars? Think how infinitely poorer all the ages had been if, when Christ came, there had been no sick, no suffering, no need in the world. What depths of tenderness, what hope for all men, what mighty helpfulness, what revelations of Christ are ours today, because there sat of old blind beggars and such needy sufferers l Surely when men are rewarded according to their service, these shall have great recompense. (M. G. Pearse.)

The purpose of chronic suffering

While our Lord perceived only another opportunity of lifting a shadow, the disciples caught a new chance of repeating the weary and worn question of the ages as to the source of the shadow. Christ did not find any fault with His followers for inquiring; only He asserted that they had entirely misapprehended the philosophy of the poor creature’s history. And then He immediately put forth His almighty power, and bestowed upon him his sight as a new sense. Note

I. THE PATIENCE OF JESUS IN BEARING WITH HUMAN MISCONCEPTIONS OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. It would be unfair for one to indulge in any sharp comment upon the ignorance of the disciples. For other explanations of the origin of evil are in vogue and have continually been offered quite as wild as that which they proposed.

II. THE DISPOSITION OF SOME MEN TO INTERPOSE IN THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD’S WORLD. One of the ancient theories employed to reconcile suffering with benevolence, and relieve its mystery, has kept its place till our day--the existence of two spirits or principles of good and ill, warring with each other. The classic notion was that the jealous deities antagonized each other’s plans on Olympus. Wrathful gods and goddesses cut at those who confronted them, and men sometimes were caught on both sides, like unfortunate cloth between the shears. There were furies as well as fates; and it was the elements of disturbance in heaven which stirred up the affairs of mortals so on the earth. This story corrects everything in such a heathen mistake.

III. THE RECORD OF FOOLISH JUDGMENTS IN THE BIBLE IS NOT TO RE TAKEN AS AN INSPIRED DECISION. Some island people, when Paul was shipwrecked, openly stated that the reason why a viper fastened on his hand was because he was in all likelihood a murderer. When Job’s trials were at the highest, his miserable comforters accused him of sin, and that he had been in some way a hypocrite. It is an old and common insinuation which interprets misfortunes very much as Jesus’ followers did on this occasion and it is to be feared that this ungenerous world will never admit its mistakes in such particulars. Men call other people’s troubles judgments; and their own calamities.

IV. SUFFERING HAS SOME UNMISTAKABLE CONNECTION WITH SIN SOMEWHERE. For when our Lord told His disciples that neither this man nor his parents had sinned, we are not to understand Him as pronouncing them sinless. What He intended was that it was in no sense either a reckless calamity or a righteous retribution; for he was blind his whole life. And yet, we are not at liberty to pass by the warning which Christ gave, when the surmise was made concerning some on whom the tower of Siloam fell. A real connection must be admitted between the guilt of the race and the pain of the race. The conscientious conviction of mankind has a basis of truth. The wisest man there ever was on earth was inspired to say: “As the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.”

V. ALL CHRONIC PAIN IN ANY LIFE IS PART OF THE WISE PLAN OF GOD. Such a life, which, no doubt, had to himself seemed restrictive when men talked about the beauties that never gleamed in on his soul, was one definite part of the Divine purpose in the plan of redemption. And so in that splendid flash of vast disclosure, it was revealed that the eventful history of those darkened eyes was just a piece of God’s biography, rather than of man’s--a chapter in the book that records the dealings of our Maker with His creatures. And all this worried existence on earth was already written on the luminous pages of a volume of annals in heaven, before the blind baby was born in Judaea.

VI. SUFFERING IN THIS WORLD, IN ALMOST EVERY INSTANCE, MAY BE ASSUMED TO HAVE A VICARIOUS REACH. There is in it an element hearing outwardly on others. Some trials are the direct punishment of personal transgression; and others are the hereditary consequences of parental wickedness. But there is a class of chronic disabilities which seem beyond any reference to sin. Such may have in them a discipline for those nearest the sufferer. Who shall say how much this blind man’s darkness may have been instrumental in mellowing the tempers and softening the hearts of his family? Hardly any household can be found now in which there is not some victim of pain; and those who are watching and waiting are likely to grow gentle and considerate, and ingenious with expedients of alleviation, under the long scholarship.

VII. THOSE WHO ARE UNDER SUCH DISABILITIES ARE MOST OFTEN THE BRAVEST. Generally the bystanders put the questions, rather than those who are under the infliction. It was the disciples, and not the blind man, who raised the inquiry. For the poor groper never really knew what he lacked in his senses; he was only like a man who is told that it is a pity he has no ear for music; he cannot be made to appreciate the symphony the musicians give him. Possibly he had borne the life into which his deprivation drove him so long that he had become quite tame about it. There is nothing more beautiful or helpful than the cheer of some who are shadowed by great trials.

VIII. UNDERLYING EVERY GIFT OF OUR LOVING SAVIOUR IS A SUPREME SPIRITUAL GRACE. When the wonder of healing had been wrought, was the final cause of the man’s blindness reached? Had he served but the same purpose as the jars of water, the fish with the coin, the barren fig tree, the barley loaves? Had he groped around all these years in order to be ready when Christ wanted a thing to work a miracle upon? And had he when he had become an evidence of Christianity, and when he had humbled a few Pharisees to there vanish? No, indeed! He was looked up in the Temple, where he was using his new eyes, and there a fresh benediction met his believing soul. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

Blindness a talent to be used for God’s glory

The excellent Mr. Moon, of Brighton, the blind friend of the blind, was present at a recent meeting of blind people at Manchester, and among the remarks he made was this: “When I became blind, as a young boy, people condoled with my mother on the heavy dispensation with which I was afflicted. They were wrong, my friends. God gave me blindness as a talent to be used for His glory. Without blindness I should never have been able to see the needs of the blind.” It is worthy of note that this excellent man, Mr. Moon, as one of the uses of this “talent,” has given the gospel published, in raised type, in nearly two hundred different languages and dialects to the blind throughout the world!

Blindness leading to Spiritual sight

“Bob Roy” says in his description of Mr. Moon’s mission to the blind at Beyrout: “That poor fellow who sits on the form there was utterly ignorant. See how his delicate fingers run over the raised types of his Bible; and he reads aloud, and blesses God in his heart for the precious news, and for those who gave him the avenue for truth to his heart. ‘Jesus Christ will be the first person I shall ever see,’ he says; ‘for my eyes will be opened in heaven.’ Thus even this men becomes a missionary. At the annum examination of this school one of the scholars said, ‘I am a little blind boy. Once I could see; but then I fell asleep--a long, long sleep--I thought I should never wake. And I slept till a kind gentleman, called Mr. Mort, came and opened my eyes; not these eyes,’ pointing to his sightless eyeballs, ‘but these,’ lifting up his tiny fingers; these eyes. And, oh! they see such sweet words of Jesus, and how He loved the blind.’”

Who did sin, this man, or his parents?

Explanations of the disciples’ question

1. Some think that the Jews had imbibed the common Oriental notion of the pre-existence and transmigration of souls from one body to another, and that the disciples supposed that in some previous state of existence this blind man must have committed some great sin, for which he was now punished.

2. Some think that the question refers to a strange notion current among some Jews, that infants might sin before they were born. In support of this view they quote Genesis 25:22 and Genesis 38:28.

3. The most probable view is, that the question arose from a misapplication of such passages of Scripture as the second commandment, where God speaks of “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children” Exodus 20:5), and from a forgetfulness of Ezekiel 18:20, etc. There are few notions that men seem to cling to so naturally, as the notion that bodily sufferings, and all affliction, are the direct consequences of sin, and that a diseased or afflicted person must necessarily be a very wicked man. This was precisely the short-sighted view that Job’s three friends took up when they came to visit him, and against which Job contended. This was the idea of the people at Melita, when Paul was bitten by the viper, after the shipwreck: “This man is a murderer.” (Acts 28:4). This appears to have been at the bottom of the question of the disciples. There is suffering; then there must have been sin. Whose sin was it?” (Bishop Ryle.)

Suffering: its causes and privileges

There was no special connection between the parents’ sin in this instance and the blindness of their offspring. “On the contrary,” Christ seems to say, “great sufferers are not always or of necessity great sinners, or the children of great sinners. Far otherwise. There is pain and suffering caused by no vice in the sufferer, inherited from no transgressions of their parents: pain and suffering, not indeed created by God, but allowed by God, allowed in mercy as a favour, and in proof of love. The natal blindness of this afflicted man was for the glory of God.” And to suffer for such a purpose and with such a result is not a punishment but a privilege--a distinct and honourable privilege. This Divine philosophy of suffering was a new revelation given to the world by Jesus Christ. It was a revelation which apparelled suffering in robes of attractiveness, and turned the murmurs of lamentation into songs of rejoicing. The apostles gloried in suffering, directly the purpose of it had been unfolded and interpreted by their Lord. When they understood that the cause of suffering lay sometimes in the privilege of the sufferer to be the means of the manifestation, through his sufferings, of the Divine glory, they “rejoiced in their infirmities, if so be the power of God might be manifested in them.” They “counted it all joy” when it pleased God to let them fall into manifold trials, inasmuch as their trials afforded an opportunity for the glorification of God. Many other acknowledged advantages flow from suffering. It tends to wean men from the world, to purge away the dross of selfishness and strip off the tinsel from conceit. There is nothing like an abundance of trouble for keeping a man straight and helping him to remember his prayers. Suffering is not seldom thus its own reward Yet it is one thing to realize the benefits of suffering, another and far higher thing to realize its privilege. Think, e.g., of the man blind from his birth. How many long and weary hours he had sat near the Temple Gate, dark, lonely, miserable! How dreary his existence had been--sightless and hopeless, a stranger to the sense of beauty, looking onlythrough the deep darkness of life to the still deeper darkness of death! And yet how truly privileged he was! What a recompense after all those years of weary blindness to be permitted to be the instrument for “showing forth the glory of God!” It was worth being a blind and desolate beggar for! We, of this latter day, are not permitted to be the instruments for showing forth the glory of God miraculously. Our blind do not receive their sight, our dead are not raised, our lepers are not cleansed. But none the less truly does every Christian glorify God in his suffering body and his suffering spirit, whenever, by sweet holiness of patience, and heavenly-minded rejoicing in tribulation, he convinces the world that though the cause of all suffering is sin, yet no Christian suffering is without privilege. (J. W.Diggle, M. A.)

Blindness not judgment

A German pastor had made an engagement to preach before a meeting of the Gustavus Adolphus Society, at a distance of eighteen miles from his village. He had to walk all the way. The weather, which was fine at first, changed to violent rain, so that after walking half way with great difficulty, it seemed hopeless to proceed, as he could hardly drag his feet out of the mire. Greatly cast down, he found himself impatiently asking why it should rain so just that day, when he espied a solitary cottage, and gladly sought shelter in it. A young and sad looking woman was nursing her babe. Being invited to rest and dry himself, the pastor soon found that the beautiful babe was the cause of the mother’s sorrow, for he had been born blind. “The worst of it is,” said the poor woman, “no doubt it is all my fault; such a misfortune could only befall a child on account of its parents, for the poor dear children are innocent enough. For the last four months I have been tormenting myself to discover by what sin I can have brought upon it such a calamity.” Her tears choked her voice, and she sobbed convulsively. The poor creature was quite ignorant of this beautiful story, but the pastor read it and expounded it. When he prepared to resume his toilsome walk, it was with feelings of joy and gratitude not unmingled with shame. He confessed how the rain had vexed him, and that he had repeatedly asked “Why it must fall just today.” “Oh, my dear sir” she replied joyfully, “I know very well!” (J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)

Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him

Christ’s explanation of suffering

1. The man was sitting near to the Temple. It has been the custom in all ages for the needy of all kinds to get as near as they can to God’s house. It is on their part an instinctive homage to religion. Ii any man become known as professing religion he will have many applications for his pity. A congregational collection is the resort of every charitable institution.

2. If Jesus had seen this man on His way to or from worship, His conduct would not have excited special wonder. But it was when driven from the Temple and with His life in peril. But He forgot His danger in the fulness of His pity.

3. The disciples supposed that by making the man a subject for pity, Christ made him a fit subject for speculation. Some thought this calamity a fruit of parental sin, others a punishment for prospective guilt. They were wrong, but not so wrong as those who believe that sin will never be punished at all.

4. Christ’s solution of their difficulties suggests some important reflections.

I. THAT SUFFERING IS THE FRUIT OF SIN. Our Lord did not deny this incontestible principle in general, but only in this particular case. God’s laws in relation to the body, those of chastity, sobriety, industry and cleanliness, cannot be broken with impunity. If drunkenness and debauchery were checked the welfare of the country would be promoted and pestilence confined to a narrower region. If our great cities were governed with wisdom, if they were properly drained, the poor properly housed, the water pure and abundant, disease would be checked and good morals and happiness promoted. Asylums for the destitute, and hospitals for the sick are great necessities and embodiments of Christian loving kindness; but there wants something more than grappling with results, a grappling with the prolific cause. The great work of the Christian Church then is to deal with sin. Without sin our gaols would be superfluous, our workhouses not one tithe of their present magnitude, and half our hospitable beds empty.

II. THAT A GOOD DEAL OF SUFFERING IS NOT THE FRUIT OF SIN. People sometimes say “had there been no sin there had been no sorrow.” But where does the Bible say so? It is true that in heaven there is no sorrow, but then float is a place of rest and recompense, whereas earth is a place of trial and discipline. But there is this startling fact that the only sinless Being the world ever saw “learned obedience by the things which He suffered.” Don’t then say in the case of a given sufferer “Here is the wrath of God,” for the varied forms of affliction are often Divine appliances for testing our principles, developing our graces and practising our virtues.

III. PERSONAL SUFFERING IS SOMETIMES FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS, that their patience may be disciplined, their sympathy elicited, their character get its necessary training. It was so in the case of Lazarus--“I am glad I was not there,” etc. But some may ask, “What is to become of the people who bear the cross that others may have these opportunities?” Leave them with God. He has a vast universe and long ages to recompense them in. Jesus wore a crown of thorns, how glad today He is that He wore it! Mary and Martha were glad after he was raised that their brother died. Look at some of the sorrows of life. Why do the thorns grow? That you may have to pull them up and get improvement of character from the weeding. Why are children born ignorant and helpless? That you may care for them and teach them. Why do accidents happen? That you may minister. (C. Vince.)

Our proper attitude towards mysteries

Before a confessed and unconquerable difficulty (such as the origin and extent of evil) my mind reposes as quietly as in possession of a discovered truth. (T. Arnold, D. D.)

Origin of evil

Wise men will regard the entrance of evil as a man views a fire already begun in his house: it is too late to ask “How came this?” or “Where did the fire begin?” His single question will be, how he and his family and property can be secured. (R. Cecil, M. A.)

Christ and the blind man

1. We may learn from it to abstain from those superficial and dogmatic judgments on human life which, seeming to honour God with ready explanations of evil, really dishonour Him, and which are often cruelly unjust to men. Evil is in the world, and man is sinful as well as unfortunate. Wickedness works wretchedness, and penalty follows iniquity as echo follows voice, or pain the incision of the knife. But not all pains are punishments. Let despairing as well as cynical doubt be silent. Great as sin is, God is greater. Where sin abounds, grace superabounds. This is not the devil’s world, but God’s.

2. Let us learn that the supreme business of life is unselfish service, and that the time for service is now.

3. Let us learn the wisdom and power of Jesus’ method in reaching men. He authenticates Himself to men by His works as well as by His word--not merely by miraculous works, but by works that are Divine in their goodness. The Healer and Helper of men thus convincingly justifies His claim of Divine kinship. Bring men face to face with Jesus; then they too, like the blind man who was healed, will at last say, “Lord, I believe,” and their faith will express itself in homage and service.

4. Finally, let us learn the true nature of faith. Faith is not mere credulity, it is an attitude and an act of the soul. Its object is not a proposition, but a person. It reposes not on greatness or power alone, but on goodness. (History, Prophecy, and Gospel.)

The blind man’s eyes opened; or, practical Christianity

Observe how little disconcerted our Lord was by the most violent enmity. Almost the moment after He had escaped stoning, He paused before and healed the blind man. One of His most noticeable characteristics was His marvellous calmness in the presence of His foes. The reasons were

1. He was never elated by the praise of men.

2. His unbroken communion with the Father.

3. His heart was so set upon His work that He would not be turned from it. Note

I. THE WORKER--a well-earned title.

1. There are many who ignore sorrow. The easiest thing to do with wicked London is not to know much about it. There are sights which might melt a heart of steel and make a nabob generous. But it is an easy way of escaping from the exercise of benevolence to shut your eyes. It is not so with Jesus. He has a quick eye to see the blind beggar if He sees nothing else.

2. There are others who see misery but instead of diminishing it, increase it by cold logical conclusions. Poverty they say is brought on by drunkenness, laziness, etc. Sickness is caused by wicked habits and neglect of sanitary laws. This may be true, but don’t teach it till you are ill yourself. The disciples held this view and Job’s comforters. Cheap moral observations steeped in vinegar make a poor dish for an invalid. But Christ “Upbraided not.”

2. Others, who if not indifferent or cruel to sorrow, speculate where speculation is worthless. There is the question of the origin of evil. Such was the subject here proposed--foreseen guilt or hereditary taint? The master breaks up the fine speculation by practical service. “Father,” said a boy, “the cows are in the corn. How ever did they get in?” “Boy,” said the father, “never mind how they got in, let us hurry to get them out.” Postpone the inquiries till after the day of judgment, just now our business is to get evil out of the world. A man saw a boy drowning and lectured him on the imprudence of bathing out of his depth. Let us rescue him and tell him not to go there again.

3. In this nonspeculating, kind, helpful spirit, let us imitate the Master. What have we done to bless our fellow men? But if Jesus be such a worker what hope there is for us who need His services!

II. THE WORKROOM. Every worker needs a place to work in. Christ selected the fittest place.

1. One of the works of God is creation, and if Jesus is to perform it He must find out where something is missing which He can supply. The blind man gave occasion for Christ to give sight. If there is anything wanting in you there is room for Christ to work; if you are perfect there is no room.

2. This man’s ignorance required almighty aid. God can not only create, He can illuminate. This man was as dark in mind as in body. He did not know the Son of God. Is that your case? Are you converted? Then there is space in you for Christ to work by converting grace. If you were not lost, you could not be saved.

3. All affliction may be regarded as affording opportunity for the mercy work of God. Whenever you see a man in trouble, do not blame him and ask how he came there, but say “He is an opening for God’s almighty love.” And do not kick at or be east down by your own afflictions, regard them as openings for mercy, and the valley of Achor shall be a door of hope. Sin itself makes room for God’s mercy. How could the unspeakable gift have been bestowed if there had been no sinners.

III. THE WORK BELL. You hear in early morning a bell which arouses the workers from their beds. Christ’s work bell was the sight of the blind man. Then he said “I must work.” The man had not said anything, but his sightless eyeballs spoke eloquently to the heart of Jesus.

1. Why must He work? Because

(1) He had come all the way from heaven on purpose.

(2) He had inward impulses which forced Him to work.

2. Let us learn this lesson. Wherever we see suffering, feel “I must work.”

3. What a blessing if you want to be saved to know that there is an impulse on Jesus to save!

IV. THE WORK DAY.

1. This is meant of our Lord’s earthly life. There was a certain day on which He could bless men, and that over He would be gone. He occupied thirty years in getting ready for it, and then in three years it was done. And how much He crowded into them! Some of us have had thirty years of work and have done very little; what if we have only three more. It we omit any part of our life work we can never make up the omission. No appendix is possible to the book of life.

2. If our Lord was so diligent to bless men while here, He is not less diligent now. (C. H. Spurgeon.)