This story is a tale of paradigms – opposing and shifting understandings of how the world works.
It starts out immediately with the disciples assuming a paradigm and begging that question. “Who sinned?” The Old Testament tells us God punishes the wicked, which had turned into the idea that any negative situation was itself a punishment, maybe even for sins committed before birth!
But Jesus rejects that paradigm – no one sinned to make this man blind. Some English translations imply that God instead made the man blind in order to display the works of God, but the Greek does not necessarily suggest that level of cause and effect. The works of God, rather, are what Jesus is there to do regardless. Specifically, the bringing of light into darkness, both in the form of this man, and also in the broader spiritual sense.
Thus ends part one, but the story continues. The people around the blind man are confused, unclear even if it was the same person. In an effort to sort things out, they bring the man to the Pharisees, who have their own paradigm. It’s the Sabbath, and work, including healing, is forbidden on the Sabbath – therefore this healing is sinful and cannot be a miracle from God, which means it probably didn’t happen at all.
So the Pharisees push back and make the man tell his story again. He does, and every time he tells the story, his understanding of Jesus increases. He goes from being just a guy with some mud to being a prophet, which the Pharisees do not like.
So they bring in his parents, presumably with the goal of showing that he was never blind. But his parents are terrified of being ostracized from the community and so stay clammed up, pointing them back to their son.
So their son tells his story yet again, and zeros on on both what he knows and what he does not – “I was blind, but now I see.” This does not fit into the increasingly frustrated Pharisees paradigm, and so – after a bit of mutual rudeness – they toss him out.
Jesus then seeks him out, and the man’s understanding increases once again, accepting Jesus as Messiah and Lord. Jesus draws the line between the man’s former physical blindness and spiritual blindness, and the healing Jesus brought to both, and offers to the rest of the world. But on the flip side, he also points out that he will do the reverse, and those who think they see properly will be unable to see the work of God.
The Pharisees, correctly, guess he’s talking about them, and object. In their paradigm, they are chosen by God, so how can they possiblybe blind? But Jesus points out that their very paradigm condemns them, because their behavior does not match their teaching.
That’s where this story wraps up. What can we learn from it? We here have (or seek to have) a Christian paradigm, centered on the work of Christ. And like the formerly blind man, we will run into people who do not share our paradigm and who reject it outright. Like the blind man, we should stick to our story. This is uncomfortable in our post-postmodern environment, which dislikes the idea that spiritual things can be objectively true. But like the blind man, we should center our story on what Jesus has done for us. We know from our own various experiences that Jesus is loving and compassionate. This starts with His sacrifice on the cross and extends into our daily lives following him.
Jesus’ final words to his disciples on earth echo this – go and make disciples. Tell your story, just as the blind man did.
When do this, we can count on Jesus to encourage us and comfort us as we do this, and to use even the small things that we do in service of the Great Commission to further the work He is doing in people’s hearts over time.
— Sermon Notes, Robin Swearinga, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, March 15, 2026