Preliminary Reflections on John, Chapters 9 and 10 (Unfinished)

It's abundantly clear what I shouldn't be doing, but what is it that I should be doing? Looking back, I see that I was only ever motivated by passion. In high school, my devotion was to obtaining conventional success. College burned away the scholar-student in me. Rejecting old paradigms, I see clearly. But sometimes I wonder about this correction of vision. In the last year, it has seemed to me like those paradigms are what allow people to see what's not there, make something of nothing, create meaning in absurdity. All I saw was darkness.

But the saying goes that it gets worse before it gets better, doesn't it? It's like Jesus spitting and rubbing dirt in the eyes of the blind man. The guy has been blind since birth. It's just ridiculous that the person he wants to fix his defining problem spits in his eye. He has the biggest "WTF!?" moment of his life. And then he sees, upon obeying orders to wash, because he continues to go with it, despite whatever misgivings he may have.

John 9-10 is so good. I feel like it speaks to me. John 9:30-33, the response of the formerly blind man to the religious leaders:

The man answered, "Now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."

John 9:34, the repose of the religious leaders:

To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out.

And then John 9:38, the response of the formerly blind man to Jesus, the giver of his sight:

Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him.

It's a two-fold response. Worship and witness. Upon receiving knowledge of the identity of the Son of Man, he doesn't hesitate to worship, openly proclaiming his loyalty. Before he was healed, he was already lowly in Jewish society, being essentially useless as a blind man. He is rejected by the religious leaders, that society's elite, for disrupting the status quo, proclaiming merely that a miracle has been performed on him and that it could only have come from God. He seals his own fate by embracing his renewed pariah status, and enacts through his swearing of allegiance to Jesus. The now-sighted man sees clearly, accepts what he sees, and proclaims what he sees. The leaders see the same thing, but refuse to accept it, and loudly repudiate it. Sheep to the right, goats to the left.

We also see how Jesus must have foresaw all of this. That his one act of healing would have forced the man to choose between him and society. His acts in our lives don't just exist in and of themselves; each demands our response. Does any formerly blind person wish to become blind again? Does he reject the reality before his eyes because it will cost him his comfort? How much do we love Jesus, really?