John 9:1-7: a reflection

1As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3Jesus answered, “This man didn’t sin, nor did his parents, but that the works of God might be revealed in him. 4I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work. 5While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6When he had said this, he spat on the ground, made mud with the saliva, anointed the blind man’s eyes with the mud, 7and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So he went away, washed, and came back seeing.

Seeing a man blind from birth, the disciples ask the question people have always asked about suffering: Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? They assume the affliction must be someone's fault, a punishment traced back to sin. Jesus rejects the premise entirely: neither this man nor his parents sinned; but this happened that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Notice what Jesus does. He refuses to play the blame game, refuses to treat the man's blindness as a verdict on someone's guilt. He redirects the whole question from backward-looking blame, whose fault is this? to forward-looking purpose, what will God do here? The affliction is not first a punishment to be explained; it is an arena in which God's works will be shown.

That is a freeing reframe for how we meet suffering, our own and others'. We so easily get stuck on the blame-question, hunting for the fault, the sin, the reason someone deserved this, and it rarely heals anything. Jesus turns us from that dead-end toward hope: not every affliction is a punishment, and God is able to work even here, to display his goodness in the very place of the trouble. When you are tempted to ask only whose fault is this, hear Jesus reframe it: what might God do in this? Turn from blame toward the works of God.

Lord Jesus, when I face suffering I so easily hunt for blame, asking whose fault it is, as the disciples did. Free me from that dead-end. Help me turn, as you did, from backward-looking blame to forward-looking hope: not every affliction is punishment, and you can display your works even here. Show me what you might do in this.