UNBLOCKING THE WELL OF THE LIVING WORD

John 9:1–41 

Focus verse: ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind’ (John 9:39) 

Old Testament lens: ‘Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn and be healed.’ (Isaiah 6:10) 

Imagine watching a slideshow where every image is blurry, until suddenly, one comes into sharp focus. Tom Wright describes John 9 in this way: bringing God’s reality into focus. 

John 9 opens with a question from Jesus’ disciples: ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ (v2) This was a common assumption in that culture: suffering must be a direct result of sin. But Jesus rejects that simplistic view. Instead, He declares, ‘As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world’ (v5), echoing the very beginning of the Bible: ‘God said, “Let there be light.”’ (Genesis 1:3). Jesus is shining light into the darkness, just as God did at the dawn of time. Jesus heals the man in a surprising, even messy way, spitting on the ground, making mud, and rubbing it on his eyes. He then tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. The man obeys, and comes back seeing. For the first time in his life, his world comes into focus. 

But not everyone celebrates. The Pharisees begin an investigation. Why? Because Jesus performed the healing on the Sabbath. For them, that violated God’s law. The irony is striking: the blind man now sees, both physically and spiritually, while the religious leaders, who should have been most in tune with God’s work, are blind to what God is doing. Jesus puts it plainly: ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind’ (John 9:39). 

The Pharisees’ problem wasn’t just ignorance, it was pride. They claimed to see clearly, to know truth, but their hearts were closed. And that kind of blindness is the most dangerous kind. John ties this moment directly to Israel’s history. Isaiah saw God’s glory and spoke of Him, but the people were resistant, their hearts hard. This is repeated now in the rejection of Jesus, the true Light of the world. This chapter flips everything, beginning with a blind beggar assumed to be a sinner, and ending with religious leaders revealed as truly blind. The real sin isn’t blindness, it’s claiming to see clearly when you’re refusing to see God’s truth. 

So, who decides when the picture is in focus? Who has the authority to say what is real and true? Only Jesus does. In the history of the Church, the debate as to whether to emphasise a historical or figurative interpretation or to prioritise reason or revelation has affected the ability to see Jesus as King. 

The Early Church Fathers who inspired the Celtic Church 

Tertullian (c160–225), North African Latin theologian 

‘The Scriptures are the property of the Church; her rule of faith is the rule of their interpretation.’(2) 

Tertullian was a lawyer by background — analytical, textual, and precise. He saw Scripture as authoritative, sufficient, and divinely inspired, to be interpreted within the rule of faith (regula fidei). He was deeply opposed to speculative or uncontrolled allegory, especially of the kind practised by Alexandrian theologians such as Philo or later Origen. Tertullian’s legacy lived on in the Latin theological structure and penitential rigour of the Celtic Church. Even if his name was rarely cited, his spirit (through Augustine and Cyprian) coloured the moral and ecclesial tone of Western Christianity. Tertullian argued for the plain, historical sense of Scripture. 

While Tertullian emphasised the literal sense,he did not reject figurative meaning outright. He frequently used typology and symbolic interpretation, especially in moral or Christological contexts, eg first the typology of Adam and Christ, second the Serpent and the Cross, and third the two Testaments. He read the relationship between the Old and New Testaments figuratively, as shadow and fulfilment, a standard typological approach.

John 9 is a story of Jesus healing a man born physically blind. Several Celtic saints are associated with healing miracles. One prominent example is St Brigid of Kildare (451–525), who was often credited with healings, including the restoring of sight to the blind. The Celtic Church and Celtic monasticism gave much space for spiritual sight or revelation.

Since then Western Christianity has been strongly influenced by the Enlightenment, and the negative effects of this should not be minimised. Ray Simpson (3) argues that certain forms of Enlightenment-style thinking hinder rather than help spiritual life: he says that an overemphasis on rational knowledge can lead to spirituality that is abstract, disconnected, or irrelevant to experience. If one believes that understanding doctrines, theology, or spiritual concepts is sufficient, one may neglect practices that engage the heart, the body, the community. There can be a neglect of embodied and relational practices: spiritual disciplines, pilgrimage, ‘soul friendships’ etc, involve vulnerability, relationality and embodied experience. Enlightenment thinking that privileges detached, objective knowledge may devalue or underplay those, and could be a big stumbling block rooted in pride, hindering Europe from stepping into revival.

Theologian Craig Carter (4) says the Enlightenment has ‘cast a dark shadow over the Scriptures and their Christological meaning, in other words Jesus Christ has been hidden and obscured.’ He says, ‘if you are trying to read the Bible like any other book, trying to understand what the original author meant to communicate to the original audience in the original situation (rationalist method), then your interpretation is wrong or at the very least highly misleading.’

REVIVAL

Tom Wright says that the fundamental problem at the heart of Christianity today in the West, is that we have forgotten what the four gospels are all about. The truth is that Jesus is King,(5) a truth that we have forgotten. Could it be that we have forgotten that Jesus is King and Jesus has been obscured, because we have rejected both allegorical (used by Origen) and figurative (used by Tertullian), treating the Bible like any other book rather than as a sacred text? Are you and I guilty of religious blindness like the Pharisees, through over-emphasising reason over revelation, the analytical over the figurative, and individual over community? 

PRAYER

Thomas à Kempis said, ‘he who follows me, can never walk in darkness says the Lord. By these words, Christ urges us to mould our lives and characters in the image of His, if we wish to be truly enlightened and freed from all blindness of heart. Let us therefore see that we endeavour beyond all else to meditate on the life of Jesus Christ.’ (6) I was blind now I see, his mercy came and rescued me. Lord, may Your light shine into my darkness. Only through You can we truly see.

I was blind but now I see (CLICK ON PICTURE BELOW TO LISTEN TO THE SONG)

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(1) Wright, N.T John for Everyone, Part 1 SPCK (2002), 143, 144.

(2) Tertullian’s De Prescription Haereticum, Chapter 19 in the AntiNicene Fathers ( Vol 3) Cosimo (2007)

(3) Simpson,R. Exploring Celtic Spirituality, Hodder and Stoughton (1995)

(4) Carter, C.A.Interpreting Scripture. and the Great Tradition, Baker Academic, (2018)

(5) Wright,N.T How God became King, SPCK (2012)

(6) A Kempis, T. The Imitation of Christ GLH (2016).