Let us follow the man born blind through this tightly knit narrative so that we can profit from his journey of faith more fully. He is given no name because he represents us, who are being enlightened and are coming to faith, ever deeper faith. His journey is ours as well.
Our Lord says to him as he anoints his eyes ‘Go and wash at Siloam’. What was left incomplete at the man’s birth is completed by the creator now. The man is ready to proclaim the miracle: It’s me. The words are words of power recalling God’s revelation of his name to Moses. The man perceives that he is himself a revelation of God’s power. He, too, is sent. The Father is working still. And Jesus is working. The Holy Spirit is working: to one who has will more be given. God’s grace was not given in vain.
There follow the two meetings with the Pharisees. The man relates patiently what happened, how he received his sight. The Pharisees are divided about whether a man who heals on the sabbath can be ‘of God’, so they are conciliatory and ask the man’s opinion. He is quite clear: Jesus is a prophet. It is then that the Pharisees send for his parents to get them to deny any miracle. In doing so they succeed only in establishing that the man really was born blind. The psalmist rightly foretold that the wicked do not regard the deeds of the Lord nor the work of his hands.
In the second meeting with man who had been blind the Pharisees attempt to intimidate him to accept their opinion that Jesus is a sinner, and not from God. Even without his experience of being granted his sight, he is not prepared to accept that. Though I was blind, I now see. When they again ask what happened he evidently becomes exasperated. ‘Do you want to become his disciples?’ Thus provoked they reveal their true position. Their acceptance of Moses closes them to the prophet like Moses who would come later. Had they believed in Moses they would have believed also in Jesus, of whom Moses wrote. So the man who had been blind is cast out of the synagogue to show that he is not worthy of attention.
All this prepares for Jesus’ second meeting with the man who can now see. He had washed. He had been enlightened. He had proclaimed God’s might works. He had refused to bear false witness against his neighbour. He corresponded with the grace and the enlightenment given him. Jesus went in search of him. The gift of physical vision had prepared him to see the Man, Jesus, and faith had prepared him to acknowledge Jesus to be the Son of God.
Let us sleepers awake and arise from the dead and Christ will shine upon us.