He didn’t say anything to get his attention. He wasn’t like some of the others Jesus encountered who cried out for attention or healing. As Jesus is walking along the road, he sees this blind man. The disciples see him too and look at him as an opportunity to discuss a theological topic: the perceived relationship between sin and physical impairment. Jesus doesn’t see it this way. For Jesus, sin and physical impairment are not related but this man’s physical impairment is an opportunity for Christ to show compassion and do God’s work.

So without a word being spoken from the blind man, Jesus goes through the process of healing him. He spits on the ground and mixes his saliva with the dirt to make mud. He then places the mud on the blind man’s eyes and tells him to wash in a pool whose name means Sent. The blind man follows the instructions given without question or comment and the man receives his sight.

That would be story enough for most any day: a man who had never been able to see gains his sight at the hand of Jesus. But that isn’t the end of the story. In fact, the reactions that people around the formerly blind man have to his healing show much more about how people react to Christ.

The reactions begin with the neighbors who notice that the man they had seen all his life as a blind beggar can see. At first they react in disbelief. "There’s no way this can be the same person." "How could this have happened?" The man tells his neighbors the story about how he regained his sight and that he is indeed the one they knew who had been blind.

The reactions continue with the man being brought to the Pharisees who question him again about how he received his sight. Oh, and by the way, this is where the narrator mentions that all this took place on the Sabbath. So the man tells his story again to the Pharisees telling them how the man named Jesus put mud in his eyes and told him to wash in the pool called Sent.

After hearing the man’s story, the Pharisees are split between those who believe that Jesus is a sinner and those who believe he can’t be a sinner because of what he was able to do. The Pharisees don’t seem to be too impressed that this man who has been blind his entire life is suddenly able to see. That isn’t the part of the story that catches their attention. The part of the story that the Pharisees are concerned with is Jesus making mud on the Sabbath. You see, when Jesus spat on the ground and mixed his saliva with the dirt to make mud, he was doing work that was specifically forbidden on the Sabbath. So since Jesus worked on the Sabbath, does that make him a sinner?

One thing that is unique about this passage of scripture is that Jesus doesn’t defend himself. The Pharisees don’t call Jesus in front of them and question him about what he has done. There is no great speech that Jesus gives to the Pharisees to show them who he is. In fact, Jesus only shows up at the beginning and ending of this narrative. The middle part is completely taken up by conversations and reactions to what Jesus has done.

Divided over who they think Jesus is, the Pharisees ask the man who gained his sight what he thinks about the one who healed him. "He is a prophet," the man replies. This is the first statement the formerly blind man makes about what he thinks about Jesus.

Frustrated by the man’s reply, the Pharisees call in the man’s parents. They admit that they are the man’s parents and that he was indeed born blind, but they are scared to talk about how he might have regained his sight. Apparently, word had gotten around that anyone who said that they believed Jesus was the Messiah would be thrown out of the synagogue. That would have meant being completely ostracized from all that they had known, so the man’s parents stay silent about Jesus and about how their son has gained his sight.

The saga continues with the man who has been healed being brought in again to the Pharisees who demand that he tell the truth this time about how he regained his sight. The man, frustrated with the reception his sight has met him with, tells the Pharisees that he has already told them his story and does not intend to repeat himself. "I was blind but now I see. The man who healed me is from God. Do you want to become disciples of the one who healed me too?" Frustrated, the Pharisees drive the man out.

Jesus then reappears onto the scene because he has heard about the reception the man received. Then comes the big reveal. Just as Jesus revealed his identity to the Samaritan woman at the well by saying, "I am," Jesus reveals his identity to the man who had been blind by telling him that he has been speaking with the Son of Man. The formerly blind man then confesses, "Lord, I believe."

This narrative allows us the opportunity to trace the movement of the formerly blind man’s belief. After regaining his sight the man confess that he believes Jesus to be a prophet. Later, he confesses that he believes Jesus is from God. Finally, the man confesses that he believes Jesus is the Son of Man.

With the advent of modern technology, scientists and doctors have the ability to give sight to some who have not had that ability before. However, one of the things that they have noted is the reaction that comes with gaining the ability to see.

If someone has learned to live their life without the use of the sense of sight, they experience the world differently. A telephone is known by the way it feels to the touch and not by the way it looks. Even people who they have known all of their life are not recognizable by sight but are known by the sound of their voice or the meter of their walking. When someone who has been blind receives sight, there is a time of adjustment while that person’s brain learns to interpret all of the new signals it is receiving.

But in the narrative that we have before us today, it doesn’t seem as though the man who regained his sight is the one having to adjust to being able to see. The ones around him are the ones who seem to be going through the time of adjustment as they not only have their eyes opened to this man being able to see but have their eyes opened to the one who caused all of this to occur.

In the last section of the passage from today, some of the Pharisees hear Jesus say that he has come into the world "so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind." The man who had been born blind has been able to move from not seeing Jesus at all to seeing Jesus as a prophet, one sent from God, and finally as the Son of Man, the Messiah. Those who had their physical sight all along in this passage can only see Jesus as a sinner and a lawbreaker. Surely there is more to seeing than being able to distinguish between different objects.

The thing that strikes me about this passage is how no one celebrates with the man who gained his sight. His neighbors are too worried about how it happened, the Pharisees are too worried about what laws have been broken, and his parents are too worried about what might happen to them if they talk about what has happened to their son. Who is left to celebrate with the man who regained his sight?

What about us? Are there times when we are too caught up in propriety to celebrate with the one who deserves celebrating? Are we ever worried about what the neighbors will think? Or what the faith community will say? Are we ever worried about what will happen to us if we celebrate?

This healing is one of Jesus’ messier healings. Jesus didn’t just speak a word or touch the man and give him his sight. No, Jesus spat and made mud with his own saliva and then used his own fingers to smear the mud over the man’s eyes. It must have been a sight to see this man with mud all over his face walking to the pool to which he had been sent. Then, emerging from the water, dripping wet, perhaps with a little mud still remaining around his newly-opened eyes.

Our lives are messy, too. It is out of the mud and water that surrounds our everyday lives that we can work to open our eyes to all the celebrations that surround us and especially to the One whose life and death were not wrapped up in neat packages done exactly as expected but who came to us in mud and water, bread and wine. This One whose resurrection is cause for the greatest celebration we have.

May our eyes be opened to the celebrations around us. May we, in the mud and water around us, have our eyes opened and be able to say, "Lord, I believe."