Loogies and Healin's

John 9 Loogies and healin’s
Read John 9:1-7
John is very purposeful in showing Jesus’ strategy. In John Jesus’ teachings, specifically the I Am statements, and miracles are intertwined. “I Am the living water” spoken to the woman at the well, followed by healing the handicapable man at pool of Bethesda. Jesus feeds 5,000 then says “I Am the bread of Heaven”. In chapter 8 Jesus said “I Am the Light…” and now He heals a blind man.
We’ll come back to the phrase “as he passed by” at the end.
-Jesus takes note of a blind man. His disciples automatically assume this calamity is punishment for some great wickedness, either his or his parents. This was a common believe of the time also reflected in the rabbinic saying from around 300AD, “there is no death without sin, and there is no suffering without iniquity” (b. Shabbat 55a). Instead of asking “can we help this” they treated this man’s misfortune as a theological puzzle. There is nothing wrong with theological discussions. But this was not the time for such a discussion; this was the time to do something to relieve this man’s suffering.

-Jesus says the man’s blindness is nobody’s fault. Some suffering is due to sin, some due to bad choices, but other is due simply to the fact that we live in a broken world. Some things just suck. This man’s blindness can’t be tracked to something he or his parents did wrong. It just is, and God allowed it to be so that on this day God could show His power and love. God allowed him to be blind for many years just for this one day. How difficult is it to keep trusting when the answer of solution doesn’t come immediately, or when the situation is something that has “just always been this way”?

-Jesus says He (some mss say we) must work while it is day for night is coming. This is a reference to the fact that Jesus had limited time on earth and therefore had no time to waste. He could not afford to overlook one opportunity to do the work of the Father because the night, death and 3 days in the tomb (see 12:35, 13:30), was getting closer.

-Jesus spits, makes mud and smears it on the guy’s face. Gross. Why such an odd means? Jesus could have, and did in other cases, simply say “boom, healed.” There are 2 possibilities, one is more probable than the other.
1. Both spit and clay were common to pagan healing myths of the time. Remember Asclepius from the study in John 5? Asclepius, the god of healing, had a temple in Jerusalem. This temple, or Asclepeion, was near built in the first century BC near the Pool of Bethesda. Worshipers and believers of Asclepius thought there was special healing power in saliva. The symbol of Asclepius is a rod with a snake. Being bitten by certain snakes was thought to have power. In some temples they would bring in dogs to lick wounds. Certain clay utensils were also very important. By using spit, to make muddy clay, Jesus is again setting Himself up as superior to Asclepius as the true Physician.
2. It’s likely that the focus on Jesus’ action here shouldn’t be on the spit, but on the mud. These people would have been intimately familiar with the creation account in Genesis. We know from that account that God formed man from the dirt. Irenaeus (130-200AD) said “the work of God is the fashioning of man...that which the artificer, the Word, had omitted to form in the womb, [namely the blind man’s eyes], He then supplied in public, that the works of God might be manifested in him” (Against Heresies 5.15.2). Jesus is still revealing His divine nature, but in a very creative way. Just as an artist or a craftsman fixes a damaged product with original materials, Jesus reveals His deity by using mud to fix the man.

-But the actual healing doesn’t take place until the man goes to wash in the Pool of Siloam. Obviously Jesus could have healed him on the spot. The washing wasn’t to finish or help Jesus’ power. It’s simply an issue of obedience. If you notice, most of the people whom Jesus heals on the spot seek Him out showing they already have a level faith. This man did not seek Jesus out, Jesus noticed him. The instruction to go and wash and be made whole is simply allowing the man to show faith and God and obedience to Jesus.

-John 8 ends with the Jews picking up stones to kill Jesus. In the Greek John 8:59 and 9:1 are joined by the word “and”. Look at Young’s Literal Translation: “58Jesus said to them, `Verily, verily, I say to you, Before Abraham's coming -- I am;' 59they took up, therefore, stones that they may cast at him, but Jesus hid himself, and went forth out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. 1And passing by, he saw a man blind from birth,”
I saved this for the end even though it is the first part of the verse because I think it may be the most powerful thing about what’s happening here. Jesus is literally escaping from being stoned to death when He notices this man. Jesus is in the process of slipping out of a crowd trying to kill Him when He sees this man and stops everything to notice this person in need.

This is a crazy event. The majestic Son of God puts a lung butter mud pie on a guy’s face to heal him, while escaping from a crowd, and in doing so shows Himself to be not only the messiah, but YHWH in the flesh. The question now is, “How do we apply this to our lives?” Several ways.
1. Is your life too busy to help or minister to others? If you think it is, you are wrong. Never be so busy with your own life that you can’t see the needs in other’s lives.
2. Don’t get so fixated on discussing a problem that you don’t solve the problem. The disciples had no need to know why the man was blind, all that should have mattered to them was that he was blind. There are times to address causes and making better decisions. Then there are times to act.
3. Never presume to know how God will answer a prayer of move in a situation. Really, who saw the spit thing coming?
4. Don’t be surprised if God’s answer to your prayers or solution to your problems involves you doing something. Too many Christians think God only answers prayers in mystical ex nihilo ways. Many times God’s answer sounds more like, “Ok, here’s what you need to do…”