A man who had been blind since birth was begging for money when Jesus and His disciples saw him. They were possibly just outside the temple. The students asked him whose sin, his or his parents’, made him blind. Jews thought that a baby could sin while still in the womb, before it was born. Jesus said it wasn’t either. He said it happened so that God’s works could be shown in him. In this case, Jesus was showing that He is the light of the world (John 8:12), which He had just said.
A man was given mud to put on his eyes by Jesus. He then told him to wash it off in the pool of Siloam. Recently, in Jerusalem, workers were digging for a sewer line and found that same pool. They also found a wide set of stairs with a ditch below them that led to the temple’s Water Gate. That’s exactly where the blind man would have gone. The blind man could see again after washing off the mud. Light stimulating the cells in his eyes, the optic nerve sending the picture to the brain, and even his ability to understand what the pictures meant were all made whole right away by Jesus. This showed what Jesus does for people who come to Him to improve their mental sight.
This was seen as another sign by the people (John 9:16). They thought that the Messiah was the only one who could heal someone who was born blind. They had to find something wrong with Jesus because they didn’t want to believe that He was the Messiah. Even though the fact that the man who had been blind could now see was clear proof, they chose not to believe and said that Jesus had healed the man on the Sabbath as an excuse.
If someone doesn’t want to accept something, they will find a reason not to, even if the proof is clear. Can you see?
John 9:6-7
6 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
