Continued commentary on John chapter 9…

Jesus said, “I [translations based upon the Nestle-Aland and United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testaments read “We”] must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” What Christ meant exactly, I can’t say authoritatively; but it is clear form His statement that there was - or is - a limited time for the work of God on Earth. Certainly, He had a relatively short window of opportunity before His crucifixion and subsequent resurrection and ascension; The night of His betrayal was also a night of spiritual darkness (see Luke 22:53). Whether the night in which “no one can work” is a collective or individual experience, we must make the most of our days, for the days in which we live are evil (Eph. 5:15,16).

When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And He said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.

Although many were healed through the touch of Jesus, I don’t think that there were any special powers of healing in His saliva, nor the dirt from which He made the clay to put on the man’s eyes. Many people sought Christ for healing, but there is no record of anyone asking Him to spit in a vial, that they may take it home for future maladies. What I think is going on here is a method of taking the emphasis off of the method itself. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus employed different “methods” of healing. He gave sight to the blind through spit (here, and Mark 8:22-25), through simple touch (Matt. 9:27-30), and by the power of His word alone (Mark 10:51,52). Lest we put God “in a box” and derive formulas or a rituals for His work among us, Jesus employed various methods to keep us in wonder of Him. The marvelous thing is that the blind man obeyed the word of the Lord (”Go, wash…”), and returned seeing.

It humors me that when Jesus’ taught His disciples to pray, He began with a series of cautions - including an admonition that we ought not to “use vain repetitions as the heathen.” Following the instruction on how NOT to pray, He offered a sample prayer (Matt. 6:1-13). What do we do today? On many occasions we recite this prayer word-for-word, as if the prayer itself is somehow holy. It is essential that our focus be on the One to Whom we lift our voices - and not so much on the words. In fact, probably the best prayers are expressed without words at all (Rom. 8:26).

Next time we’ll look at the excitement stirred up by this healing.