Spittle and Growth

John Chapter 9 tells the story of Christ healing a man who was blind since birth. In the New Testament we are always reading about the blind receiving their sight from the Savior. However, this encounter with this certain man is a little different than the others. When entering the temple Jesus and the disciples notice the man. The common belief during this time is if someone was born with an infirmity, such as being blind, it was because they sinned or their parents sinned. So the first thing that the disciples as Christ is "Who sinned, the man or his parents?" (9:2) Christ informs the disciples that the man wasn't cursed by sin but instead was made blind to manifest the works of the Lord (9:4) After this, Christ approaches the man. This is something that I found very interesting pointed out by my teacher. The man didn't ask Christ to heal him, Christ goes to the man. Christ approaches the man and He doesn't say anything. Now, if I were blind and heard someone approaching me I would really want someone to announce themselves. However, Christ doesn't. Instead, he spits on the ground (9:6) At this point if I heard someone approaching me and then heard them spit I would tense up. After this Christ makes clay with the dirt and spit and anoints the mans eyes! This, for me, would be something I wouldn't appreciate. Especially if I was blind. In my perspective I would feel like the person was insulting my condition. After this Christ just tells the man to go wash in the pool of Siloam. Which the man does and is healed.

While reading this, and having the connection of emotions brought to mind, If someone spits and then puts a spit mixture on my face i would lash out. However, my professor reminded us that maybe the man realized the person approaching him, that being Christ, had a difference about Him. Maybe this man was able to feel Christs power in the form of the spirit and allowed the Savior to do what he needed to him.

This story can be just viewed as "the Savior being kind by healing someone in need." This is a nice idea, not something to dismiss. However, we were asked to apply this story to ourselves. Sometimes Christ allows odd things to happen in our lives, things we don't expect, maybe even things that make us uncomfortable. This is paralleled to the spit-clay being applied as something unexpected and a bit uncomfortable. This was applied to the blind man and despite the uncomfortable and, possibly not understandable, thing the Savior did to Him he allowed it to happen and was blessed for it.

 We may not understand why Christ does things we don't understand. However, we need to not thrash out, or question Him. Instead we should allow these things to happen. If we do so in faith and take the necessary steps to do what He has asked us to do we will find that He can bless us more than we can imagine.