Thursday 20th June
Read John 9:4-7
“As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’
6 After saying this, he spat on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 ‘Go,’ he told him, ‘wash in the Pool of Siloam’ (this word means ‘Sent’). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.” (NIVUK)
The making of a mud-salve from the dust of the ground (and water from Jesus?) may point to the creative power and life found in Him. The instruction to wash in the Pool of Siloam remains slightly strange. Other than the obvious reason that the man now has mud on his face, why is he instructed to go wash in pool? It could be that in doing so John, and Jesus, make the link to the Feast of Tabernacles and the waters of life clearer and more memorable.
But the narrative seems to emphasise the importance of the obedience of the blind man, ‘Go, so he went and washed, and came home seeing’. It may be that simple – obedience is the first step to life and faith. The blind man is responsible to follow Jesus’ instruction, or he will remain simply a blind man who is now disturbingly dirty, covered in someone else’s spittle. Whilst the commentators often focus on the place the blind man is sent to, I feel the instruction, the sending, may be more important. It reminds me of Naaman.
Naaman was a Syrian general who came to Elisha to seek healing for leprosy on the advice of, what I can only think of as the most gracious girl in Scripture, his wife’s captured Israelite slave (2 Kings 5). The instructions he received were simple. He was to go and wash seven times in the Jordan and he would be restored. Yet Naaman was outraged and scornful and refused. His own servants pleaded with him to obey this simple task and he relented. He washed and was healed. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is also the simplest. The first step the most humbling.
