Blindness and Sight – Part 1

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MW Editor’s Note: Mentoring Warriors welcomes back Wayne Spencer. His insights, gained through research on both the Bible and science, help us gain a better understanding of what God is doing in our spiritual formation. Be sure to check out this post and the one next week.

Jesus performed multiple healings of blind men, which are recorded in the Gospels.  It is interesting to consider how Jesus acted in different cases.  Jesus’ healings did not follow a formula.  He dealt with each person in an individual, personal way.  But his actions also depended on his purpose in his ministry.  This is similar to how he works in our lives.    

In Luke 18:35 (NIV), it describes Jesus and the disciples walking near Jericho on their way to Jerusalem when they encountered a blind beggar.  The beggar asked people there what was happening as Jesus walked by.  They told him it was Jesus of Nazareth.  So, the blind man started crying out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Jesus called for the man to be brought to him, and he healed him, telling him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.”  Then it says the man regained his sight and began following Jesus.  This was a simple case.  There were no special things Jesus did with this man, and the beggar followed Jesus.  It seems this beggar knew about Jesus before meeting him.  He was ready to encounter Jesus.     

Spit in the Eyes

Another blind man case is in Mark 8:22-26, in the city of Bethsaida (North of the Sea of Galilee).  This time it says, “Some people brought a blind man and begged him to touch him.”  It doesn’t say who the people were who brought the man.  Also, in this case, the man was not crying out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”  So, we don’t know if he knew anything about Jesus or not.  Sometimes Jesus seems to honor the faith of the ones who bring someone to him.  But ultimately, Jesus knows every heart.  Then, in this situation, Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village.  Jesus didn’t seem to want the people in the village to see the man healed.  Then it says Jesus spat on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him.  Then he asked the man, “Do you see anything?”  One might ask the question, Why did Jesus have to ask this?  I think the answer is He didn’t.  But it was for the blind man’s benefit somehow.  The blind man hadn’t even spoken until Jesus spoke to him. 

So, answering Jesus, the man said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”  This statement brings up other questions.  It seems that after Jesus’ first touch, his sight was better than before, but perhaps not completely restored.  Many have asked, Why was this healing not done in one step, all at once, as it had been for other people healed by Jesus?  I think it helps to consider this from the blind man’s point of view.  The man’s description sounds like what you would see in a camera that is out of focus.  For someone who is blind, their eyes could be used to being out of focus.  If the eyes can’t focus, they don’t try to focus very much.  I learned this as a boy when I found out I had “lazy eye.”  My left eye never completely focuses because it can’t.  If my left eye tried to focus all the time, that would cause me constant pain.  But because it’s God’s design that the brain controls the eye, I don’t experience that.  But when Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes the second time, then the man could see everything clearly.  So, I think it is possible that Jesus’ healing was actually complete in the “first step.”  But the man’s eyes may have just needed a little stimulation to cause them to “wake up” and focus.  Jesus sent him home but told him, “Don’t go into the village.”  Jesus was apparently trying to reduce the publicity and wrong over-reactions of the crowds.  Also, I wonder if Jesus taking him outside the city was to prevent the man from being confused or misled by other people in the city.  Jesus knew what was best for the man.  Bible commentaries always treat this as healing the man in two stages.  Of course, Jesus can heal in two stages if he wants to!  But I think that is not the only possibility. 

Mud in the Eyes

In another case, Jesus heals a man who was born blind (John 9:1-41). This was late in Jesus’ ministry in Jerusalem at a time when Jesus was doing a number of things to confront the Jewish religious leaders.  It is worth noting that this man was not asking for Jesus to heal him.  Rather, it was Jesus’ disciples who saw the man and asked Jesus about him. An interesting thing about this case is that Jesus put mud in the blind man’s eyes and then told him to go wash. This seems like an odd thing to do.  We don’t read in the gospels of Jesus doing this in any of his other healings of blind people.

The account in John addresses a misconception the Jews seemed to have about someone born with a birth defect. As the disciples went along and encountered this man born blind, they asked Jesus (John 9:1), “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus said, “Neither…” Jesus said it was so the work of God could be displayed in his life.  Any of us may have things in our life we wish could have been different, but God has a purpose and uses things we can’t control for good. Jesus went on to say (John 9:5), “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Then Jesus spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. Then he told the man to go, “wash in the Pool of Siloam.” So, the man went (presumably people led him there). The man washed, and it says he came home seeing (John 9:7). An important thing to notice is that even after the man went to the Pool of Siloam, he had not yet seen Jesus. In this case, I suspect that Jesus wanted to delay the man’s initial reaction to seeing for the first time in his life.  The mud in the man’s eyes may have been deliberately made to create some “public exposure” of the man being healed. The man’s first experience seeing in his entire life happened in a very public place where people gathered, at the Pool of Siloam.  After the man was washed and healed, other people who had seen him begging argued regarding whether he was the same man.  But people who had seen him healed decided to take him to the Pharisees.

This story will continue in the next article for more on what happened to the man born blind.  In the meantime, consider ways that Jesus deals with you on an individual basis. Perhaps it is a physical or emotional healing or the timing of something you long for, but for now, Jesus says “Wait”.

Warrior On!