Transcript
The Man Born Blind
First Baptist Richmond, February 15, 2026
Transfiguration Sunday
John 9:1-41
As he walked 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?”
I used to live in Washington, DC, our nation’s capital. Often, as I walked those streets, I would see someone holding a cardboard sign explaining his situation. “Lost my job. Please help.” Or, “Trying to pay my rent.” What they were hoping is that I would feel sorry for them, and toss them some change. It’s not much of a way to make a living, but sometimes it’s all you have. In John, chapter 9, we find Jesus in Jerusalem, his nation’s capital. As he walks along he sees a man blind from birth, and it’s not in the text but I’m guessing he had some way of letting people know that, some kind of sign that read, “Born blind. Please help.” Because when the disciples see him, when they understand his situation, they ask Jesus: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
There’s so much I want to say about that.
First, I want us to pause for a moment and think about what it must have been like for his parents. His mother had given birth to what looked like a healthy boy. It was only later, when she was holding him in her arms, that she realized he wasn’t making eye contact with her, only then that she said to her husband, “I don’t think he can see.” And that must have broken their hearts, not because they would love him any less but because the life they had imagined for him would be so different as a result of his blindness, his future would be different. As they tried to imagine that future they may have imagined a moment like this, when he was sitting on the sidewalk holding a sign, depending on the kindness of strangers.
Secondly, I want to say that strangers can be very kind. They can feel sorry for someone who’s in a tough situation and reach for the change in their pockets or the bills in their purses. But they can also be judgmental. They can say, “I’m not going to give that guy money so he can go out and buy more booze!” Or, “Why doesn’t that lazy bum just get a job!” And that’s kind of how the disciples sound in this story: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Thirdly, I want to say that their question reflects a kind of Old Testament theology in which God was responsible for everything that happened, whether good or bad. If this man was born blind, there must be a reason. It must have been something his parents had done, or something God knew that he was going to do. In other words, his blindness was a result of God’s judgment on sin. And sometimes that’s the attitude we take. We believe that if someone has had to stoop to begging, there must be a reason.
But listen to what Jesus says: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” which supports my theory that not everything happens for a reason, that there are some things that happen simply because we live in a broken world. I’d love to say more about that but Jesus isn’t finished talking yet, and what he says next is the thing that has baffled scholars for years: he says, “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” And then Jesus stoops down, spits on the ground, and makes some mud. He takes the mud, smears it on the man’s eyes, and tells him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam, that is, “the pool of the Sent One.” The man does what Jesus asks, and comes back able to see.
What we don’t have in the Gospel is any description of what it was like for a man who had been blind from birth to suddenly be able to see. But you can imagine it, can’t you? He scoops up some water from the pool, washes the mud off his eyes, and then, when he opens them, sees his hands in front of his face. You see your hands every day, but try this: try holding them out in front of you and looking at them as if you were seeing them for the first time. Aren’t they amazing? But on that day everything would have been amazing. The blue of the sky, the way the sunlight fell on the buildings, the cracks in the pavement. This man would have taken his time coming back, gobbling up everything he saw like the hungriest guest at a visual feast.
But then his neighbors and those who had seen him before began to ask, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “Yes! Isn’t it incredible!” But others were saying, “It couldn’t be. Must be someone who looks like him.” And the man was like, “Hey, I’m right here! And yes, it’s me!” So they wanted to know, “What happened? How is it that you can see?” And he said, “Well, this guy Jesus made some mud, smeared it on my eyes, told me to go wash in the Pool of Siloam. I did, and when I did, I could see!” They said, “Well, where is he?” And he said, “I don’t know.”
So, they took him to the Pharisees, the most religious people they knew, because obviously this was an act of God. But the Pharisees didn’t see it that way, mostly because all this had happened on the Sabbath. They asked the man how he had received his sight and he told the same story, that the man named Jesus had made some mud, smeared it on his eyes, told him to go and wash, and now he was able to see. But some of the Pharisees began to say, “He made mud on the Sabbath day? He worked on the Sabbath? Then he’s not from God.” But others said, “How could a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided among themselves and eventually asked the man born blind, “What do you say about him? You’re the one whose eyes he opened.” And the man said, “He’s a prophet!”
But that didn’t satisfy them. They began to doubt that the man had ever actually been blind. They called his parents in and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How is it that he now sees?” But they said, “Yes, this is our son, and yes, he was born blind, but as for how he is able to see (he’s able to see?) or who opened his eyes we don’t know. Ask him. He’s old enough. He can speak for himself.” And then John explains that they said this because they were afraid of the authorities, who had already decided that anyone who said Jesus was the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. They didn’t want that so they said, “He’s old enough; ask him.”
So they did. They said, “Give glory to God. He’s the only one who can heal on the Sabbath day. As for this fellow Jesus we know he’s a sinner.” And the man said, “I don’t know if he’s a sinner, but I do know this: I was blind and now I can see.” They said, “Well, what did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” And the man said, “I told you already and you wouldn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?”
And that made them furious. They said, “You are this man’s disciple. We are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we don’t know where he comes from.” And the man born blind said, “Unbelievable! You don’t know where this man comes from, the man who opened my eyes? We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he does listen to anyone who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God he could do nothing.” And that really got to them. They said, “You’ve been a sinner since the day you were born, and now you’re trying to teach us?” And they threw him out.
I want you to notice that when his neighbors first started to ask him how his eyes were opened he said, “The man called Jesus made some mud and smeared it on my eyes.” And then later, when the Pharisees asked him what he thought of Jesus he said, “He’s a prophet.” When they kept on questioning him he wondered, “What, do you want to become his disciples too?” And then, when they begin to insist that this man cannot be from God the man born blind insists that he is. You can see his estimation of Jesus rising in this story, from a man, to a prophet, to a man you might follow, to a man sent from God. It’s not only his physical eyes that are being opened; it’s his spiritual eyes as well. He is beginning to see Jesus clearly for who he really is, and that’s why this is not just another healing story—it’s a sign—and also why it’s such a good story for Transfiguration Sunday, when the disciples see Jesus in all his glory.
When Jesus heard that the religious authorities had driven the man out of the synagogue he found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” And the man said, “Who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” And then Jesus said, “You have seen him (oh!), and the one speaking to you is he.” And that’s when the man bowed down before him and said, “Lord, I believe.” And Jesus looked up and said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who are actually blind may see, and the blindness of those who claim to see may be fully exposed.” Some of the Pharisees were standing nearby. They heard him and said, “Surely, you’re not talking about us.” But Jesus said, “If you were blind you wouldn’t be guilty of sin, but now that you say ‘we see’ your sin remains.”
And that’s the end of the story.
But I want to go back to something that happened earlier, to that moment when Jesus said about this man, “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” And then Jesus stoops down and makes some mud. It reminds me of that moment in Genesis when God scoops up some mud and begins to make a man. If you were counting you might say that it is the first work of God: the work of creation. In eyes that have never been able to see, Jesus creates sight. But Jesus said the man was born blind so that the works of God might be seen in him—plural—and that makes me wonder what the other works might be.
I was in a Bible study once where someone said, “Justice is when you get what you deserve; mercy is when you don’t get what you deserve; and grace is when you get what you don’t deserve.” I’ve been thinking about that this past week and wondering if those are the works of God. After God made that man out of mud he made a woman from one of his ribs, and he brought her to the man and told them both not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. But they did, and then God had to do the work of justice. He had to put them out of the Garden. His justice could not ignore their blatant disobedience.
But God also does the work of mercy. He had told them that on the day they ate the fruit of that tree they would surely die. But they don’t die. Instead of a death sentence, God gives them a life sentence. He puts them out of the Garden but allows them to make a life for themselves East of Eden. That’s mercy.
And then there’s the work of grace, which is so evident in this story. I was trying to describe grace to someone recently and I said, “It always seems to come as a surprise.” Justice doesn’t surprise us. If that man born blind had been paying for sins that he had committed we would have said, “Well, that’s justice. We get it.” And mercy doesn’t surprise us. If Jesus had said, “This poor fellow is paying for his sins, but it doesn’t mean we can’t help him out,” and dropped a coin in his cup, we would have said, “Well, that’s mercy. We get it.” What we don’t get is grace. That’s when you see a man born blind and start asking yourself whether or not he deserves it, or whether or not you should give him anything, and while you’re thinking about it Jesus stoops down and spits on the ground. Those disciples must have wondered, “What is he doing?” But then he did this surprising thing: he smeared the mud on the man’s eyes; he told him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam; he did it, and came back seeing. That night at dinner the disciples would have whispered to each other, “I did not see that coming.”
No! You don’t see grace coming! It surprises you! I think about that other great grace story in the Bible, the one from Luke 15 where a prodigal son comes limping home hoping that his father will take him on as one of his hired hands, so that he can at least have something to eat. But his father sees him coming from a long way off, and runs down the road to meet him, throws his arms around him, weeps on his neck, and then says to his servants, “Quick! Go get a robe—the very best one—and put it on him. And put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. And kill the fatted calf and prepare a feast, because this son of mine was as good as dead and now here he is—alive! He was lost, and I thought I’d never see him again, but now here he is—found!”
That story meant so much to John Newton that he wrote a song about it. Born in 1725 he spent a rebellious youth before becoming a slave trader, carrying ships full of human cargo from Africa to America. But in 1748 he was in a terrible storm at sea, where he thought he would surely die. He cried out to God to save him and when he was spared he was so grateful that he gave up the slave trade and became an Anglican priest. In 1772 he wrote a hymn that begins with these words:
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
Just like the Man Born Blind and the Prodigal Son, John Newton did not see the grace of God coming. It surprised him, but surprised him in such a powerful way that his life was never the same. What about you? Have you ever had an actual experience of God’s grace? And if you have, please stand as you are able and sing with all your heart the words of Hymn 587.
—Jim Somerville © 2026
