As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
His neighbours and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” Some claimed that he was.
Others said, “No, he only looks like him.”
But he himself insisted, “I am the man.”
“How then were your eyes opened?” they asked.
He replied, “The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.”
“Where is this man?” they asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
John 9 v 1-12 (NIV)
A Story
The dust of Jerusalem swirled around Elazar’s ankles, a familiar sensation he’d once known only as a grit against his skin, a soundless torment. Before Jesus, it had been the only world he knew – a world of touch and sound, of shadows and the weight of pity.
He remembered the day Jesus came. The questions, the mud, the sudden, searing light that flooded his newly opened eyes. The world exploded in colour, in detail, in the very faces of those who had passed him by for years. He saw the kindness in Jesus’s eyes, the gentle strength that had banished his darkness.
He became a witness, a testament to Jesus’s power. He spoke of his healing, of the miracle that had transformed his life. He walked the streets, no longer a blind beggar, but a man who had seen the face of God’s love.
Some time later. The whispers turned to shouts, the murmurs to angry roars. Elazar felt a tremor in the city, a darkness that was not his own. He followed the crowd, drawn by a terrible, gnawing unease.
And then he saw him.
Jesus, his healer, his saviour, hung upon a cross. The sky was a bruised and angry purple, the air thick with grief. Elazar’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the silence of his horror.
He saw the crown of thorns, the blood trickling down Jesus’s face, the agony etched into every line. He saw the jeering faces, the cruel laughter, the spears that pierced his side.
He saw the man who had given him sight, the man who had shown him the beauty of the world, now being broken, betrayed, and killed.
A wave of despair crashed over him, a tidal wave of sorrow so profound it threatened to drown him. He closed his eyes, his newly gifted sight a curse. He wished for the darkness again, for the merciful oblivion of blindness.
“Oh, God,” he whispered, his voice choked with tears. “Why? Why must I see this? Why must I witness this injustice?”
He remembered the light, the warmth of Jesus’s touch, the joy of seeing his own hands for the first time. But now, that light was extinguished, replaced by the crushing darkness of grief. He stood there, a man who had been given sight, now wishing for the darkness to return, for the unbearable sight of his saviour’s suffering was too much to bear.
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