After learning from the healing of the paralytic that God allows us to suffer affliction because of our sins, naturally, the apostles wondered if someone's sin was responsible for this man being born blind. It is not impossible that it could have been a punishment on the parents because many times God allows children to be afflicted with physical ailments to help teach an important truth that deals with our soul but is demonstrated in the flesh. But in this case of the man born blind, we are told by the Lord that it was not because of the sins of his parents that had brought it about, but rather so that the works of God should be made manifest. The Lord and Creator of man, Jesus Christ purposely withheld the creation of the eyes of the man at birth to later create them as indicated in the Gospel reading to help us to identify Who it was that came to us for our salvation; the Creator Himself.
But some might say that it was unjust to deprive this man of his sight so that the works of God should be made manifest in him and that He could have used some other method, but the man was not treated unjustly. For although he was deprived of material light for a time, he was given the enlightenment of the eyes of his soul along with his physical sight. The man's physical blindness was of benefit to the man because by his healing he came to know the True Sun of Righteousness, while many others born with their physical sight proved to be blind in spirit to the Truth and suffered greatly for their material vision. This event benefits all of mankind because by it we are confident that it was God Himself that came down from Heaven and became man. He comes to the man in this account without the man seeking Him or requiring any faith in Him as He did in other instances to further prove His divinity.
The Lord spoke many spiritual truths in the presence of the blind man before He healed him so that the blind man could hear His words and be healed of his spiritual blindness first, as his spiritual sight was of far more value than his physical sight. To heal man's spiritual blindness is far more difficult than to heal man's physical blindness, and far more important. To demonstrate the ease of healing physical blindness and to show that physical sight is nothing in comparison to spiritual sight, the Lord spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle and smeared it on the blind man's eyes, showing that physical sight could be given by scorned spittle and dust. The man’s spiritual sight however would take more effort to restore, and would need to be tested by trial, just like gold being refined in the furnace. He would have to pass the test of obedience and show himself to be meek when the Lord sent him with clay-smeared eyes to wash in the pool of Siloam. He then would have to pass the test of perseverance under persecution and temptation when the Pharisees tried to make him deny Christ even though they had the power to put him to death. To show God's great love for us, we see our Lord coming to the blind man immediately after he passed these tests to console him and to grant him a crown of victory. The Lord confronted him with a third and final test, the greatest test, that of true faith. He asks him, "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" The Lord bestowed upon him knowledge and a more exact faith, and the healed man fell prostrate and worshiped Christ, Who appeared as lowly man but is also the Son of God.
St. Theophylact also reminds us of the universal message of the story; "Understand also the spiritual meaning of this miracle. Every man is blind from birth, as a result of being brought into existence by coition, and being yoked thereby to corruption. From the moment we were punished with mortality and our race was condemned to increase by a passionate means of conception, a thick cloud covered our noetic eyes, like a cloak of flesh, as the Scriptures say." We are all in a way born incomplete because of our connection to our first parents that lost their spiritual vision. We are all one organism, fellow members of each other, not separate entities, completely cut off from one another. In God's Providence, He makes our physical weakness a means to help us to see spiritually. We are able to grow in humility, seeing the death and darkness that accompany withdrawal from God, the source of Light and Life. May we learn the valuable lessons from this miracle and receive spiritual sight from our loving God lowered Himself and came down to us in our blindness to raise us up to His Heavenly Kingdom, where he gives beggars the power to confess Christ boldly and to rebuke the high and mighty of the Earth. Amen.
