The Man Born Blind.

II: The Man Born Blind.

John ix. 1-41; x. 1-21.

Once without the Temple walls Jesus regained a quarter of the town where all was quiet, calm, and untroubled; walking unmolested along the city streets He saw a man blind from his birth who was begging, and He stopped near him.  The disciples, now reassured by the tranquillity of the Lord, gathered around the disabled man.

"Master," they asked, "who has sinned; was it he or his parents, that he should be born blind?"

The belief that God avenged the wickedness of the fathers upon the children led the Jews to look upon every misfortune as a chastisement for some misdeed, and to ask themselves always who was to blame.  Charity forbids all such conjectures; it was neither the sins of the blind man nor those of his family which had brought down upon him this affliction, which we must simply regard as one of those trials to which all men are subject.  This particular case was the will of God, and intended to be an instrument whereby He chose to manifest His glory.

The night of death was drawing fast upon the Christ; but some few hours of daylight were still left to Him, and these He declared He would use "in doing the Works of Him who sent Him;" and wishing likewise to refresh the drooping courage of His Apostles by a new project, "As long as I am in the world," he said, "I am the light of the world."

"Go," he said to him, "wash in pool of Siloë." J-J Tissot.

After having spoken thus He spat on the earth, made clay of the spittle, and therewith anointed the eyes of the blind man.

"Go," he said to him, "wash in pool of Siloë."

This spring bore one of the many names foreshadowing the Messiah,"The One Sent, the Silöah,"— and hence it carried with it a promise of sweet light and refreshing health to the weak and suffering.  The man went down thither, washed, with perfect trust fullness in the Master's words, and returned cured.

His eyes for the first time in his life sparkled the light, brightening up his whole countenance.  The folk who lived in the neighbourhood, as well as those who had seen him just now asking an alms, were loath to believe him the same person.

"Is not this the man who sat yonder and begged?" they explained.

"Yes, it is he," some responded.

"No," others insisted, "it is someone who resembles him."

But he told them, "I am he."

"How is it your eyes are opened?" they demanded.

"That man," he replied, "whom they call Jesus made clay, anointed my eyes with it, and told me: Go to the pool of Siloë and wash.  So I went, I washed, and I see!"

"Where is he?" they asked.

"I do not know," was his reply.

The blind man tells his story. J-J Tissot.

"Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made this clay, and opened the eyes of the blind man." He had therefore disregarded the dictates of the Rabbis, which forbade the application of any remedyies upon the sacred day, even the rubbing of an aching eye with saliva; moreover, it was just at the moment when the Pharisees were quite prepared to stone Him that the Christ chose to publicly infringe their Rules.  The witnesses of the marvel hurried away to inform the Sanhedrin of what had just happened.  The Great Council held no regular session upon Sabbath days, but the incidents which had been exciting the town since early morning were enough to keep a majority of its members gathered together in the porches.  The blind man, whose sight had been restored, was brought before them; but once they proceeded to investigate his case, and questioned him as to how the thing was done.  The man merely repeated,—

"He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see."

This story disconcerted and puzzled them.  There were some among them who said: "This man does not come of God, because he does not observe the Sabbath." Others there were, however, who were more honest and direct; these are objected, "How can a sinner do these wonders?" And so there arose a dissension among them.  They began a new to cross-question the man who had been blind.

"What do you say?" they asked; "who do you say this man is who opened your eyes?"

"He is a Prophet," quickly came the answer.

Noting the firmness of this avowal the Sanhedrin-Councillors foresaw that there was only one resort left them; they must immediately convict this man of being an impostor; so then they refused to believe that he had ever been blind and had recovered his sight until they summoned his parents before them.

This poor couple, of as humble station as their son, appeared before the supreme tribunal in much terror; but despite their distress they preserved that shrewdness which is a characteristic of their race.

"Is this your son?" they were interrogated.  "You say that he was born blind; how is it then that he can see now?"

"We know that he is our son," they retorted, "and that he was born blind.  But how he sees now we do not know.  Question him; he is of age; let him speak for himself."

In this way they hoped to shield themselves, frightened as they were; for the Sanhedrin had before this publicly decreed that if anyone confessed Jesus to be the Messiah he should be excommunicated and driven out of the synagogue.

The Sanhedrin had no alternative now but to recall the man born blind, and to adjure him to contradict his first statement.

"Give Glory to God," they urged; "we know that this man is a sinner."

"If he is a sinner," he returned, "I know nothing about it; all I know is this, that I was blind and now I see."

This response showed them that they had to do with a man who was not only upright, but steadfast and of a generous soul, and that they would not be able to browbeat him as they had just done his parents.  Not knowing how to proceed, or perhaps seeking to pick some flaw in his evidence, they recommenced the cross examination.

"What was it he did to you?" they asked; "how did he open your eyes?" But their man was tired with these useless repetitions.

"I have explained it to you, and you have heard it.  Why do you want to hear it again?  Do you to wish to become his disciples?"

Smarting under this irony they lost self control, and loaded him with taunts.

"You yourself may be his disciple," they exclaimed; "but for us, we are the disciples of Moses.  We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this fellow we do not know where he may come from."

The man born blind, far from being terrified, only began to banter them more boldly.

"It is really astonishing," he said, "that you should not know where he comes from, and, nevertheless, he has opened my eyes.  Now we know that God does not hearken to sinners, but if any one honours Him and does His will He hears him.  It was never yet heard tell that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.  So if this man were not from God he could do nothing."

At these words the Sanhedrin rose in mighty indignation; a beggar to dare hold up his head before the Masters of Israel!

"You are nothing but a mass of sins," they cried, "and do you propose to teach us!" Then they caught hold of him, and had him driven forth from the Synagogue.

This outrage put him in the same category with his Benefactor, for if Jesus preached in the synagogues no longer it was probably because he was excluded therefrom by an excommunication emanating from the Sanhedrin.  The divine Master could not forget this the first Confessor persecuted for His holy cause.  He sought him out, and having found him,—

"Do you believe in the Son of God?" He said to him.

"Who is He, Lord," answered the man born blind, "so that I may believe in Him?"

"You have seen Him," Jesus said to him, "and it is He Who is speaking to you."

" I believe, Lord!" said the beggar, and falling down he adored Him.

Jesus hastened to exalt this strong living faith as the triumph of that light which He had brought into the world, manifesting itself as mighty to enlighten the lonely as it was to dazzle and blind the proud; this the Master proclaimed so powerfully that some Pharisees who had mixed with the crowd felt themselves moved by these tokens of authority.

"Are we blind also?" they said.

Jesus answered them that no one is held responsible for being born in darkness; the wrong consists in obstinately persisting therein.

"If you were blind," He told them, "you would have no sin, but you say, ‘We see!’  Therefore your sin remaineth."

But these haughty sectaries did not deserve to engage the Lord's attention longer; turning from them toward the beggar He began by means of a Parable to comfort him for having been put outside the synagogue.

In this new similitude the Master pictured a scene familiar to every Jew's memory, reminding them of one of those sheep-folds which to this day people the lonely wilds of Juda.  Indeed, they still preserve the same general features.  A massive wall of stone encircles them, and this is crowned with clumps of thorn bushes; herein the shepherd shuts himself up with his flock at nightfall, for in the shadows lurk many and varied years foes.  The wolf prowls round about, sometimes a panther at a bound overleaps the enclosure, or some robber of the night, finding the narrow gate fast barred, climbs up and creeps along the wall.  But the shepherd is watching; he wards off all danger; and with the dawning light, taking up his crooked staff he is the first to leave their little fortress; one by one he counts is fleecy charge, then leads the way towards the fresh pastures, his gentle company gambling around him as he walks.  Every now and again he utters a shrill call, and then the scattered sheep huddle panting about his feet; but let a stranger's voice break the stillness, at once all stop short, afrighted, with heads uplifted, then scamper away, "for they know not the voice of the stranger."

"I am the Good Shepherd." J-J Tissot.

After this fashion Jesus traced the likeness of the Church, that fold whose Door is the Christ, whereof no one deserves to be called a pastor if he enters not in the name of Jesus, and does not hold commission from Him.  Many false shepherds had come before Him, who had misled the flock of God's people, yet whatever semblance of truth they might assume they were all, whether priests or Scribes or Pharisees, creeping in to pillage and to destroy; or at the best, wretched hirelings, who had little pains for the safety of the sheep, but took to flight at sight of the wolf, leaving the flock to be scattered and killed.  Then said Jesus, "I am the Good Shepherd; I know My sheep and My sheep know me....  I have come that they may have life more abundantly."

Such was the Stronghold which Jesus flung open wide to receive this sturdy, humble fellow who had just been hunted out of the synagogue.

But now his glance swept a wider prospect, and straightway there are those that ever present thought of the Gentiles, cut off from any community with the Jewish race, and he added: "Other sheep I have which are not of this false; these too I must bring; they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one only Fold and one only Shepherd."

"I am the Good Shepherd," said He again; "the good shepherd gives his life for his sheep;" and the Bloody Sacrifice which was ever uppermost in his thoughts forthwith engrossed His attention.  He spoke of it to the crowds, openly announcing "that no one would rob Him of His life, but that He gave it up of Himself, and would take it up again by His own inherent power." So then He was to die in the fullness of sacrifice, "that He might obey His Father, and it is for this that His Father loveth Him" with an almighty, infinite love.

These last words left the people divided in feeling.  Thus on the evening of the day when so much of malice had worked its will against Him, and so many hands had been up lifted to stone Him, all throughout Jerusalem one heard nothing but whispered slanders mingling with the more favourable voices.

"He is possessed," said some, "he is a madman, why listen to him any longer?"

"These are not the words of one possessed," others replied, "and besides, does the Devil restore sight to men born blind?"

Availing Himself of this division in public opinion, Jesus departed from Jerusalem immediately, for the hatred of three Sanhedrin had waxed too violent four Him to withstand it any longer.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam