Sunday of the Blind Man #
On the final Sunday of the Paschal feast, the Church commemorates the healing of the man born blind by the Lord. As the Synaxarion for this day recounts, as Christ was leaving the temple, He once saw “a blind man who was stumbling, and who had been born that way, having only the outlines of eyes and hollows in their place.” Upon seeing this unfortunate man, the disciples asked the Lord: “Rabbi, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). Not yet strengthened by the wisdom from on high given by the Holy Ghost, they reasoned like Job’s friends, who, seeing the righteous man’s immense suffering, reproached him instead of offering comfort, imagining that such affliction could only be the result of secret sin. They could not conceive that a person might suffer innocently.
The Lord answered: “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:3–5). In these words, Christ both foretold His coming Passion and refuted their unjust assumption. In truth, His words are a comfort to all who suffer in this world. Every person bearing some great affliction—even if their conscience accuses them of serious guilt—may apply these words to themselves. For even if one considers their suffering to be deserved, they can yet hope that “the works of God might be made manifest” in them. Not only the healing of the body, but also the healing of the soul through repentance and inner transformation is a work of God and a cause of great rejoicing—according to the Lord Himself: “There shall be more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). Thus, bodily illness and other forms of suffering may become a path to God and to salvation.
Then Christ spat on the ground, and mixing the saliva with dust, anointed the blind man’s eyes with the clay, and “said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing” (John 9:7). The Evangelist John, recounting this, deliberately interprets the name of the pool. “Sent,” “the One who is sent of God”—this is Christ Himself. Before His Passion, Christ prayed to the Father for His disciples: “That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me” (John 17:21). In this way, through the very method of healing, Christ demonstrates His divine mission and reveals Himself to the world as the Son of God.
We know that in other cases He healed with a mere word. Why, then, was saliva and earthly clay required here?
As noted above, the man was born without eyes; Christ was not simply healing but creating eyes anew. As one of the most ancient theologians of the Church, the holy martyr Irenaeus of Lyons, writes, Christ in this moment “desired to show forth the hand of God—the same hand that in the beginning formed man. […] For it was He who performed this action, as Scripture says: ‘He took clay from the earth and formed man’ (Genesis 2:7). […] That which the Creator-Word did not form for the blind man in his mother’s womb is now created openly, that the works of God might be manifest in him, and so that we would not seek another hand […] nor another Father, knowing that the very hand of God which originally created us and forms each one in the womb, has now, in this new time, chosen us who were perishing, finding us and laying us upon His shoulders like a shepherd with a lost sheep, and with joy returning us to the pasture of eternal life” (Against Heresies, Book V).
The washing in the pool named for the Sent One is likewise a clear symbol. Since fallen humanity required renewal through the holy font of baptism, the Lord sends the man to wash in the waters of Siloam. And the man returns not only with bodily sight restored, but with spiritual sight as well. So even now, when one approaches baptism, the priest prays to God: “Open unto him the eyes of understanding, that the illumination of Thy Gospel may shine in him.”
That the man formerly blind received the gift of spiritual illumination is confirmed by what follows. The scribes and Pharisees, who hated Christ, tried to persuade the healed man that Jesus, who had given him sight, was a sinner and not pleasing to God, since He healed on the Sabbath, the day of rest prescribed by Moses. “We know that God spake unto Moses; as for this fellow”—that is, Jesus—“we know not from whence He is,” they said (John 9:29). The man who had received his sight boldly answered them: “Why, herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence He is, and yet He hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth His will, him He heareth. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, He could do nothing” (John 9:30–33). Then the Pharisees, filled with hatred and pride, instead of glorifying God for the miracle, cast him out with insults. When Jesus heard this, He found the man and said to him: “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”—“Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him?” asked the man. Jesus said unto him: “Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee.” The man replied, “Lord, I believe!”—and he worshipped Him (John 9:35–38).
This miracle of faith and renewal of the mind in the Holy Ghost is no less wondrous than the healing of physical sight. And there is no doubt that it was followed by a renewal of the healed man’s entire life: from that moment on, his whole life became a hymn of praise to God and to His Only-Begotten Son. Thus, the healing of the blind man becomes an example for each of us who believe. The Apostle Paul writes: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? […] That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:3–5). So in these forty days of the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ, and in all the days of our life, let us by deed, word, and thought conduct ourselves as those who await the universal resurrection and the unending day of His Kingdom.
At Great Vespers, at the Stichera on “Lord, I have cried,” Glory…, Tone 8
O Christ our God, noetic Sun of Righteousness, who didst enlighten with Thy most pure touch both the eyes of him who from the womb was deprived of light, and who also didst illumine the eyes of our souls: show us to be sons of the day, that with faith we may cry unto Thee: Great and ineffable is Thy mercy upon us, O Thou who lovest mankind, glory be to Thee.
At Matins, at the Praises, Glory…, Tone 8
Who shall declare Thy mighty works, O Christ? Or who shall number the multitude of Thy wonders? For Thou didst appear on earth with double compassion, granting double healing to those in need: for not only didst Thou open the physical eyes of the man born blind, but also his spiritual eyes. Wherefore he confessed Thee as God, though hidden, who grantest great mercy to all.