“Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” In its essence, it’s a perennial question. Wrapped in different words and phrases, it has been asked in various forms since humanity developed the ability to reason. The existence of suffering has always been seen as something irrational, illogical and undeserved, so people have always tried to make sense of it. One of the most common beliefs was that suffering was the result of a curse by the gods for some offence. In the biblical narrative of the Old Testament, the traumas of the Assyrian and then the Babylonian conquests of Israel – the defining moments in the nation’s ancient history – were entirely attributed to the collective and individual unfaithfulness to the covenant with God, punished by their dispersal and exile. It was the rationalisation of suffering on a nationwide scale. It was successful in the sense that it solidified Jewish national identity and helped them survive and even thrive, but it also deeply ingrained the idea that suffering is caused by sin. Such a presumption was at the heart of the question raised by Jesus’ disciples in today’s gospel opening scene. Upon closer examination, it seems rather ridiculous. Since the man was born blind, what sin could he possibly have committed before his birth?
In this instance, Jesus dismissed the assumption that sin was the cause of the man’s blindness: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents.” However, a bit earlier in John’s gospel, after healing a man who had been crippled for thirty-eight years, Jesus admonished him by saying: “See, you are well now. But stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you!” (see John 5:1-15) So, Jesus acknowledged that sin could lead to suffering either for the individual who committed it, their victims, or both, as exemplified by too many real-life examples of domestic abuse or other forms of crime. In today’s gospel, Jesus confronted his disciples’ misguided and judgmental assumptions in the same way he repeatedly warned throughout the gospels. He went further by offering an astonishing explanation of the man’s unenviable fate, “that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Typically, when we hear similar words from priests, they can make us feel perturbed, uncomfortable, apprehensive, or irritated, and understandably so, because it seems too easy to offer such an explanation by someone who isn’t experiencing our suffering. However, in Jesus’ case, he ultimately made those words ring true by willingly offering his life on the cross for the salvation of the world. As we know, it took his disciples quite a while, well beyond Jesus’ resurrection, to understand this. But when they eventually got it, it became one of the central and powerful messages Christianity has offered since then, offering hope and transforming people’s lives over the generations and across the world.
An interesting detail in today’s gospel was that it never reported the man ever complaining about his blindness. It’s not really that surprising if you think about it. Blindness was his “natural” state since his birth, the same way none of us ever complains about having no tails, unlike most mammals on earth; we live our lives perfectly well without an appendage behind. So, when the man gained his sight (not recovered, as he had never lost it), it must have been an astonishing new reality for him. His perception was fundamentally and irreversibly changed, as were his ways of dealing with the world around him. We can see that over the course of the story, as he was asked many times to explain how he had been healed. There is a massive difference between his first simple, even dry description: “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight,” and the combative one that earned him derision, insults and exclusion by the Jewish religious authorities that eventually led him to professing his faith in Jesus.
The man’s journey of faith took some time. Although the story may seem to have unfolded in a single day, there are clear signs that it did not. Strict observance of the Sabbath would not permit such extensive walking by various people as described in the story or the gathering of Jewish religious authorities to examine the case. We can safely assume that Jesus performed the miracle on the Sabbath, as reported in the story, perhaps while on his way to or from the Temple or a synagogue. Only later did the man’s neighbours realise the miracle was performed on a holy day of rest and reported the matter to the Jewish religious authorities. That initiated the investigation we heard about in the gospel. It appeared to be a rather unpleasant experience, so I suppose the man, who was questioned and confronted so many times, was himself reflecting on the whole situation and gaining an ever-deeper understanding. Our faith is no different. It is confronted, challenged, and questioned by life’s events. Whether they benefit us or hinder us largely depends on how we respond to them. This was beautifully summed up by Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist, a Holocaust survivor. “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms: to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
