John chapter 9

vs 11

The once-blind man does not hesitate to tell people who healed him. He is not like the man at the pool, who didn't know who it was - he knew it was Jesus, so that suggests that they did talk a bit.

This also brings up another idea about Jesus rubbing mud in the guy's eyes. If I was blind, and someone came up and said "I'm going to spit in the dirt, and rub the mud I make in your eyes, and then when you clean it off you will see again", I think his very next words would have to be something like "Trust me", because can you imagine having mud in your eyes? Even if you can't see, you would have itchy scratchy dirt in your eyes! So this guy obviously did have some faith, because I wouldn't allow someone to do that to me.

vs 12

Of course, by the time he had gone and washed his eyes, Jesus had probably moved on, so he didn't know where he was now.

vs 13

Here we se some of the normal people dobbing this guy into the Pharisees. So it shows you that there was a good amount of laymen Jews who were just as complicit in the Pharisees' crazy legalism.

vs 14

Oh no! God did something on the Sabbath! Does grain stop growing on the Sabbath? Does a cut on your finger stop healing if it's the Sabbath? Does the world stop spinning on the Sabbath?

Of course not. God isn't limited in when he can work, and so neither are his servants. We are limited in how we can work, because we aren't omnipotent.

vs 15

So now the Pharisees are weighing in on this poor man's happy occasion. He tells them the same story.

vs 16

And there is division between people with brains and people with none. And you know what? I think we'd have exactly the same stupid arguments about Jesus, and I know we do have the same stupid arguments about Christians. "Oh, wow, look at that excellent work that guy is doing in the name of Jesus, he must be a Christian" "But he's got long hair, he can't be a Christian".

vs 17

So they ask the primary witness, and he says the guy must be a prophet. He's been blind all his life, and someone healed him. What other reason can their be?

vs 18

These guys are hard hearted pricks. Why would someone lie about this? I wish I could say that the Pharisees were trying to establish that he hadn't been healed on the Sabbath, but you can tell from the tone that they're just bastards. Because he doesn't agree with them, because he thinks that Jesus is a prophet, they want to grill him some more.

vs 19

So they rope his parents in. Now in their defence, this does give them the testimony of 2-3 witnesses that he is their son and that he was born blind. It doesn't give them witnesses on how he got his sight back because, of course, they weren't there.

vs 20

They acknowledge their son, and probably are full of joy that he can see. They tell them so.