Day 22 – Made better than ever

John 9:1-23

As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, so that he was born blind?”

Jesus answered, “This man didn’t sin, nor did his parents; it’s so that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of the one who sent me while it is daytime. Night-time is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground, made mud with the saliva, anointed the blind man’s eyes with the mud, and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent with a mission”). Then the blind man went away, washed, and came back seeing.

So the neighbours and the people who knew him as a beggar before said, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is.” Others were saying, “No, it just looks like him.”

He answered them, saying, “I am.”

So they said to him, “How were your eyes opened?”

He answered, “A man called Jesus made mud, anointed my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So I went away and washed, and I received sight.”

Then they asked him, “Where is this man?”

He said, “I don’t know.”

They brought the man who had been blind to the Pharisees. It was a Sabbath when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. The Pharisees asked him again how he received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, I washed, and now I see.”

So some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.”

But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such miraculous signs?” So there was division among them, and they asked the blind man again, “What do you say about him, because he opened your eyes?”

The man answered, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews then didn’t believe that this man had been blind and had received his sight, until they called for his parents and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he see now?”

His parents answered them, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he sees now, we don’t know; or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. He is of age. Ask him. He will speak for himself.” His parents said these things because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders, who had already agreed that if anyone declares Jesus as the Christ, they would be expelled from the synagogue. That is why the parents said, “He is of age. Ask him.”

For reflection

How do you, or people you know well, struggle to believe in God sometimes? What questions would you ask someone who claims to have changed because of Jesus?