Dramatic Identity Shift

[Jesus] said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which is translated, Sent [Apostle]). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing. Therefore the neighbors, and those who previously saw him as a beggar, were saying, "Is not this the one who used to sit and beg?" (John 9:7-8)

My perception and heart-level belief about my real identity is maybe the thing that I struggle with the most in life. As I read this story about a man born blind that is suddenly and radically transformed in a few minutes in the presence of Jesus and then thrust into the position of dueling with not only his family and acquaintances but with the highest authorities of the country almost immediately, I can't help but wonder in amazement at what God might do next. And the more that I meditate on this story the more convinced I am that I too am born blind and am in desperate need of healing and a new sense of identity as well.

These two verses jump out at me as being all about perception of identity and the value associated with that identity. This man had spent his whole life being labeled and classified by his handicap and disability. And this particular classification of blindness seems to have carried with it an even greater stigma and cultural shame as is discussed later in the story than just incidental blindness. A person who was born blind was considered to be under a specific curse of God because of some great sin, even if it was not openly apparent what that sin may have been. The spiritual dishonor associated with blindness from this cause was very intense for such a person and consequently their concept of God would have been strongly influenced by such a belief accepted by nearly everyone around them all of their life.

This man therefore, was not just physically blind but was very likely spiritually affected because of the way he was viewed by his society. But in a strange sort of way his spiritual blindness was much easier to heal by Jesus than the self-induced and reinforced blindness of the leaders who seemed to have a vested interest in keeping society locked firmly under the influence of the distortions of God that the leaders perpetuated. They had so shaped religion to serve their own interests at the expense of others that they believed they were serving God while all the time they were terribly misrepresenting Him, even suppressing and opposing the very Son of God who had come to correct people's dark views of God.

As Jesus had evidently just been run out of the temple area for irritating these Jews too much, He came across this man who was living under the dark influence of these very leaders and who's sense of identity had been almost entirely shaped by their mistaken views of how God feels about people. His sense of value and identity as referenced in the following verses was strongly influenced by those who all his life had viewed him as a beggar, one who was generally worthless, one who could not do anything useful but could only sit and beg hoping to gain sustenance from the occasional mercies of passersby. It says here that they previously saw him as a beggar, the one who used to sit and beg.

But when Jesus came by, He did not look at this man as someone hopeless, someone cursed by God as even His own disciples had assumed. Imagine what must have gone on in this man's mind as he overheard the conversation between Jesus and His disciples standing there discussing him and the surprise and hope that must have sprung up in his heart as he heard comments about himself that Jesus made. This was likely the first time in his life he had ever heard such affirming words, words that refuted unequivocally the shameful assumptions about his identity that he had lived under all of his life. For the first time he heard someone challenge his demeaned status in society and his heart must have leapt with hope as he wondered what this unusual person might say next.

Jesus not only challenges the status of this man in the eyes of society but refutes the assumptions about him and about how God viewed his situation. In a few short words Jesus undoes all that society and his parents had done to suppress his heart and stifle his spirit. Jesus brings freedom, hope and love into a heart that had known precious little of any of these things most of his life. Then Jesus demonstrates how God felt about him by going through a most unusual routine by which he solicits the man's assistance in his own healing. John, the apostle who is writing this story, carefully makes sure the reader does not miss the point that Jesus in essence commissioned this man as another apostle, implied in the meaning of the name of the pool where Jesus sent him to wash his eyes.

The method that Jesus used to heal this man's blindness was a very unusual and unique way that never was used on anyone else. Jesus reaches back to the very dawn of creation when He himself had knelt down and done something similar in the forming of Adam from the clay of the earth. Only this time instead of forming the whole man He only addresses the malfunctioning part and re-forms this man's eyes bringing life out of the clay by mixing into the dirt the very saliva of the great Creator. Then the stirring sentence emerges that summarizes the dramatic change in this man's sense of value and identity and that transforms his life forever. So he went away and washed, and came back seeing. This is in stark contrast to the identity those around him still tried to label him with in the face of clear evidence of his new condition.