Again and again, Jesus enters the messy places of human life—the places of suffering, confusion, and unanswered questions—and he begins the slow work of restoration… How different might this man’s experience have been if the people around him had listened with curiosity instead of suspicion? What if they gave him the opportunity to be someone other than just a man born blind?
John 9:1–41 (Lent 4A; Faith Lutheran Church, Winnipeg)
Our story today begins with a question that I think many of us are familiar with: Whose fault is it?
Maybe you’re a parent who has walked into a room, seen something broken or out of place, and immediately asked, “Who did this? What happened?” Or maybe you’ve read a headline about another tragedy and found yourself asking, “Who is responsible for this?”
When something isn’t the way we think it should be, our instinct is often to look for an explanation—or someone to blame.
That instinct shows up right away in today’s gospel reading. The disciples see a man who has been blind since birth and they ask Jesus a question that reflects the thinking of their time: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
In other words: whose fault is it?
But Jesus immediately challenges that framework. The disciples assume that suffering must be the result of spiritual failure—that someone must have sinned badly enough to cause this man’s condition. And Jesus rejects that assumption.
“This man’s blindness,” Jesus says, “is not the result of his sin or his parents’ sin.” In this story, suffering is not a scoreboard that measures God’s approval or disapproval.
Instead, Jesus reframes the moment entirely. Rather than assigning blame, he sees an opportunity for God’s work to be revealed—for healing, restoration, and new life.
What’s interesting is that the man himself never asks to be healed. He doesn’t cry out to Jesus the way some people do in the gospels. He doesn’t approach Jesus asking for help. The story simply says that Jesus sees him.
And then, in a moment that echoes the story of creation, Jesus bends down, makes mud with the dust of the earth, and places it on the man’s eyes. It’s hard not to hear the echo of Genesis: “The Lord God formed the human from the dust of the ground.”
It’s almost as if Jesus is inviting the disciples to see this man differently. Not as “the man whose parents must have sinned,” but as someone whom God has created. Jesus tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. And the man goes, washes, and comes back able to see.
It’s a remarkable moment of healing and restoration. But then something surprising happens. Jesus disappears from the story for a while—and the neighbourhood grapevine takes over.
People begin to hear that the man who used to sit and beg can now see. And instead of simply celebrating with him, they start questioning him.
First they argue about whether he is even the same person. Then they start asking for explanations.
“How did this happen?”
“Who did this to you?”
And eventually they bring him to the religious leaders so that they can question him too. They need an explanation. What happened here? Whose fault is it?
The man ends up telling his story not once, but twice. He patiently explains what happened. He tells them about Jesus. He tells them how he washed and now he can see. And eventually he becomes a little exasperated.
“Why do you want to hear it again?” he asks them. “Do you also want to become his disciples?”
It’s almost humorous. But it also reveals something deeper about human nature. We might understand why the disciples wanted an explanation for the man’s suffering. But why do people feel the need to explain his healing?
Why does this man’s experience of restoration get put on trial?
Instead of listening to his story, people seem determined to fit his experience into a framework that makes sense to them.
And here’s where this story starts to speak into our own lives.
Because even though we know better, I wonder if we still sometimes fall into the same pattern the disciples did. Do we still subtly assume that suffering must mean something about a person’s relationship with God. If things are going well for us, is there a part of us that assumes God is blessing us. If things are going poorly, do we wonder why God is disappointed in us?
And sometimes—without even realizing it—do we project those assumptions onto others?
But Jesus challenges that way of thinking.
In this story, suffering is not a sign of God’s punishment. And physical well-being is not proof of spiritual righteousness. In fact, by the end of the story, Jesus turns the conversation about blindness in a surprising direction. The man who was physically blind is the one who ends up seeing clearly.
And the religious leaders—who are confident that they understand God perfectly—are the ones Jesus says may actually be blind.
Their certainty prevents them from recognizing what God is doing right in front of them. Their assumption about what they see is actually their blindness.
Friends, there is plenty of suffering in the world around us. And people often search for spiritual explanations when suffering appears—either in their own lives or in the lives of others.
But this story invites us to be very careful about drawing quick conclusions. Instead of explaining someone’s suffering, Jesus models something different.
He sees the man.
He restores him.
And then—after all the questioning and controversy—Jesus seeks him out again. Did you catch that? Near the end of the story, after the man has been interrogated and eventually thrown out by the religious leaders, Jesus finds him.
Jesus doesn’t just heal him and move on. He finds him again and speaks with him. He gives the man language to understand what has happened to him. He helps him connect his personal experience of healing with a larger story of what God is doing in the world.
And the man responds with one of a simple yet powerful testimony:
“I was blind, and now I see.”
He doesn’t have a complicated theological explanation. He simply tells the truth about what has happened to him. And maybe that’s part of the invitation in this story for us.
Instead of rushing to explain suffering—or putting people’s experiences on trial—what if we simply listened?
What if we made space for people to tell their stories?
How different might this man’s experience have been if the people around him had listened with curiosity instead of suspicion? What if they gave him the opportunity to be someone other than just a man born blind?
This Lent I’ve been reflecting on the way Jesus meets people in in-between spaces. Moments that are uncertain. Moments that are uncomfortable. Moments when people don’t yet have clear answers. I think our instinct in those moments is usually to resolve the tension quickly—to explain what’s happening or find someone to blame. We want to move past it.
But Jesus models something different. Again and again, he enters the messy places of human life—the places of suffering, confusion, and unanswered questions—and he begins the slow work of restoration.
In this story, that restoration begins with mud and water. It begins with Jesus seeing someone others have overlooked. And it continues with Jesus returning to that same person later, helping him make sense of what God has done.
There’s a lot happening in this passage. We could talk about blindness and sight, about religious authority and healing on the sabbath, about generational sin, or about the nature of belief.
But at the center of the story is something profound: Jesus reaches out and touches a man whom others have reduced to a problem to be explained.
He invites him to see.
And in doing so, Jesus reveals something about the heart of God.
God is still doing the work of creation and restoration.
God is still drawing people toward life and wholeness.
And often that work begins in the very places where we are most tempted to assign blame or look away.
As we continue our journey through Lent toward the cross, and maybe as we think about the future of the church or the state of the world around us, the story will get messier before it gets clearer.
There will be confusion. There will be questions without easy answers.
But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus meets us right there—in the messiness, in the uncertainty, and in the places where we are still learning to see.
And in those places, God continues the work God has always been doing: creation, restoration, and wholeness.
Historically, Christians have sometimes been quick with answers—quick to explain suffering, quick to decide who is at fault and who is to blame. But this story invites us into something different.
Instead of rushing to point fingers, it invites us to pay attention to what God might be doing in and around us. It invites us to create space for the stories people carry—their stories of suffering, their stories of healing, their stories of transformation.
And maybe it also invites us to tell our own stories. Stories that may not come with perfect explanations, but that echo the simple testimony of the man in this story:
One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.