Background: ‘In ancient theatre no more than two active characters should appear on stage at any one time, and scenes were often divided by this rule’. On this basis there are eight scenes in today’s gospel drama:

i) Jesus and the disciples; ii) Jesus and the man born blind; iii) The blind man and his neighbours; iv) The blind man and the Pharisees; v) The Pharisees and the blind man’s parents; vi) The Pharisees and the blind man; vii) Jesus and the blind man again; viii) Jesus and the Pharisees. The description of the opponents of Jesus as ‘Jews’ and ‘Pharisees’ reminds us that the author was reading back into the story of Jesus the experience of early Christians brought before the bet din (religious courts) in Jamnia and the animosity generated by the decision to expel them from the synagogue. Only a tiny fraction of ‘the Jews’ could have been involved in arguing about the blind man, obviously.

JESUS rejects the age-old Jewish belief that illness or handicap was punishment for sin. In giving us the meaning of ‘Siloam’ as ‘sent’, John hints at the questions: ‘Has Jesus been sent? By the Father? These are the questions the people and the authorities are asking about him. It is Sabbath, when no one can work, when Jesus makes paste and puts it on the man’s eyes. Is this work? His gesture reminds us of God making man from the dust of the earth. The blind man washes at the pool, reminding us of Baptism.

In Scene vii) (above) Jesus opens the blind man to another light, that of faith. God also had performed two actions at creation: he had modelled the creatures and then breathed into man the breath of life. God creates, and then shares his life. But that can only come about in and through Jesus Christ. When Moses was being sent back to persuade his people out of Egypt he refused to go, saying: “I have never been eloquent. . . I am slow of speech and slow of tongue”, God told him: “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” [Exodus 4:10-11] Jesus has proved he has the power of God; he is the light that ‘illumines everyone coming into the world’. ‘The works of God are displayed in this man’.

The ‘Jews’, as followers of Moses, will not be moved. They know that God had spoken through Moses, but they do not know ‘where Jesus comes from’. The blind man points out that there must be some connection between Jesus’ origin and the healing he has just accomplished, but the ‘Jews’ can only see what Moses brought. Sadly, they suffer from a sort of ‘tunnel vision’.