As Jesus continued His ministry, He and His disciples passed by a man who was blind from birth.
His twelve disciples who were with Him asked,
“Teacher, whose sin caused this man to be born blind — his own or his parents?”
Jesus answered,
“Neither. He was born blind so that the works of God could be displayed in him. We must do the work of him who sent me while it is daytime.
The night is coming when no man can work. When I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
After Jesus had said these things, He approached the blind man and kneeled down in front of him and spat on the ground and made clay and anointed the man’s eyes with it. He told the man to go to the pool of Siloam and wash his eyes.
The man did as Jesus said and came away seeing.
The neighbors of the blind man who had known him for a long time and had seen him often begging for a living said,
“Isn’t this the blind man who sat and begged?”
Others said,
“It is.”
Others disagreed.
But the man himself declared,
“I am the man.”
They asked him,
“How is it that you can now see?”
He said,
“The man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and told me to go wash at the pool of Siloam. I did what Jesus said and now I can see.”
The people asked,
“Where is Jesus?”
The man answered,
“I do not know.”
The people brought the blind man to the Pharisees to see what they had to say about the man who had been born blind but could now see.
Jesus did this miracle on the Sabbath day.
The Pharisees asked the man how he had received his sight. He told them the same story he had told his neighbors.
When they heard this, some of the Pharisees said,
“This man Jesus is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath day.”
Other Pharisees said,
“How is it that a man who is a sinner can do such miracles?”
So they questioned the blind man again and asked him who he thought Jesus was?
The man who had been blind said,
“He is a prophet.”
The Jews became skeptical and did not believe that the man had actually received his sight. They summoned the parents of the blind man and asked them how he had received his sight.
His parent answered,
“Yes, this is our son, and he was born blind. But we don’t know how he has received his sight. He is old enough, ask him yourself.”
The parents feared the Jews because they knew that they had already agreed among themselves that anyone who confessed that Jesus was Christ the Messiah would be thrown out of the synagogue.
That is why they told the Pharisees to ask their son how he had received his sight.
The Pharisees were becoming agitated as they summoned the man born blind to inquire of him once more how he received his sight.
