Five Words
A reflection for the Fourth Sunday in Lent | John 9:1–41
The religious establishment of first-century Jerusalem was not threatened by a blind man sitting by the road. They were fine with him there. Blind, begging, in his place — that they could work with.
What they could not work with was a formerly blind man who wouldn't shut up about it.
This Sunday we're in John 9, and it is one of my favorite texts in the entire gospel — not because of the miracle, but because of what happens after the miracle. Jesus heals a man born blind and then essentially walks off stage, and for the rest of the chapter, this unnamed beggar gets hauled before the religious authorities and interrogated. Over and over. How did this happen? Who did this? Are you sure this is even you? Give glory to God — which is first-century for: give us a version of your story we can manage.
And every time, this man — no credentials, no connections, no theological training — looks them dead in the eye and says the same five words: (six if you count the I twice!)
I was blind. Now I see.
That's it. That's all he's got. And it is, apparently, enough to bring the whole institution to a boil.
Here's what gets me about this story. The Pharisees aren't threatened by his blindness. They're threatened by his sight. They needed him to stay where he was — suffering quietly, not making claims, not insisting on the reality of his own experience. His healing didn't just restore his vision. It made him impossible to manage.
And we are still doing this to people.
We are still building careful, sophisticated systems for helping certain people doubt themselves. Doubt their experience of discrimination. Doubt their identity. Doubt whether the place they've called home really belongs to them. Doubt whether what happened to them actually happened.
The man in John 9 is having none of it. And honestly? Good for him.
Come on Sunday. There's more to this story — including what happens when the institution finally loses patience with him entirely. It gets worse before it gets better. And then it gets really, really good.
