LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
The Consequences of Seeing
The healing of the blind man in John chapter 9 brings to the table the issue of spiritual blindness and the consequences of the healing of that blindness. For it is clear that it is not just a matter of physical healing, but of spiritual seeing and its effects. The Lord clearly suggests this even before healing the man, when He says: "While I am in the world, I am the light of the world".
In reality, physical healing is a metaphor for spiritual seeing. This is also clearly understood by the Pharisees at the end of the episode. Curiously, the physical vision (like the spiritual vision), being good in itself, for the healed man is not only a cause of joy, but also of sadness. It seems that his life would have gone on more smoothly and comfortably if he had been blind. Sight brings problems, because it implies a revolution in one's whole life.
However, the metaphor and its meaning have a slight difference. Physical healing is immediate, while spiritual vision is gradual. And the spiritual Object seen after healing is, above all -though not exclusively- the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Not exclusively, because now he also sees the blindness of those around him.
Let us note some milestones in the gradual recovery of spiritual sight as far as Jesus is concerned. In a first instance, the healed blind man sees Jesus simply as "that man whose name is Jesus"; in a second instance he sees him as "prophet", and in the third and final instance he sees him as "the Son of God". At first, he does not know much about Jesus, then he dares to say that "he has come from God", and finally he prostrates himself at his feet, and worships him. This last stage is that of certain and sure spiritual vision, for he sees Jesus as he is.
Yet-and here is a paradox-he sees Jesus as the Son of God only after he has been expelled from the synagogue. The synagogue, being, in general, a good thing, is not compatible with the true knowledge of Jesus.
The first consequence of seeing something about Jesus is to be thrown out of the synagogue, and the consequence of leaving the synagogue is to be sought out by Jesus for a revelation of Himself. (If one is faithful in the little, one receives more). The former blind man is now a stateless person, a nobody in the social order; so Jesus seeks him out and comforts him with superior and perfect knowledge about Himself. To see Jesus without veils is the greatest glory of man.
So, to come out of the synagogue means, first of all, to have the glory of seeing Jesus as the Son of God. But it also means having a sword piercing the soul. There is an exile, a marginalization. There is the sadness of estrangement (sometimes even from one's own family), the loss of social acceptance (whether good or bad, it is still acceptance), and of the benefits of the religious system.
There is also life and death, light and darkness, peace and violence, faith and doubt, in a permanent struggle. They are the anxieties of a spiritual life in a body of flesh and in a world of darkness. They are the consequences of seeing.