Healing the blind man - insight on the sacraments

The Lord alone has saved us by shedding his blood on the cross for all he has given the gift to believe. He has also appointed certain earthly “means of grace” or sacraments to deliver to us the healing that comes to those he has given eternal life. Biblically speaking, he shows us in John 9 that the physical signs that represent the chief sacraments (baptims - water and the bread and wine of holy communion) should not be viewed as either a novel or unusual way for him to work.

There (in John 9) his healing of a blind man includes the use of Jesus’ own spittle and the soil of the earth to make mud. Jesus then applies this mud to the eyes of the man. Jesus commands the man to go to a particular location and wash. The man goes and does as Christ commands and he is completely healed of the blindness he has known since his first breath.

Yes, Christ could have healed this man without all of this (we know, because we read in the Bible many accounts of his miracles without the use of anything of an earthly or physical nature), but instead Jesus chose to do this miracle differently. He utlized all of following: The making of the mud, the applying of mud, the command to go and wash, and the man's act of going and doing, to show us that he (Jesus) does not need to explain his “means of delivering his grace” or “means of healing” to anyone. He will do as he desires and we don't need to fully understand in order to exersize the gift of faith he has given us to simply obey him and reap the fruit of his grace.

When they asked why the man was blind in the first place—was it the man’s own sin or his parent’s sin that made him blind? Jesus answered, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

In other words, this man was born blind to give people a glimpse of the power of God’s healing works in our life. In this case, that healing work of God was delivered through physical elements and actions such as soil, Jesus' spit, Jesus' action in wiping that combination directly on the man's eyes, Jesus' command for the man to go and wash at a particular location and the man's obedient reaction to that command. Why did Jesus do and command all this? Obviously, it pleased him to do it.

So too, it should not be unusual to expect that the two chief sacraments Jesus himself specifically commanded (baptism and holy communion) are meant to deliver God's healing grace to us. Certainly, Jesus himself saved us without these sacraments by dying for us on a cross, and rising bodily from the dead to prove that he has won everlasting life to all who believe in him--as he told us.

But isn't he also telling us, much as he did the blind man, that he has special healing graces to bestow upon those who obey his command to be baptized and to participate regularly in his last supper or holy communion? Our baptism shows our burial and resurrection with him--the washing away of our sins. Our new birth may have happened at the very moment of our baptism, or it may have occured prior to it or sometime after it. That's up to the working of the Holy Spirit--not us. That's why we baptize children. We don't decide to be saved--He decides to save us.

Again, that's why it's not up to us to decide when to be baptized, but simply to be baptized because we know Christ has commanded it.

So too, we obey Jesus' command to take and eat the bread and drink from the cup that we may recieve his very body and blood during holy communion, knowing that while we are already saved, we will be graced to know all the more firmly that he dwells in us and we in him.

Like the blind man,it is for our sake, that Jesus commands us to be baptized and to receive his body and blood that his work in saving us from the cross is made manifest--made obvious--to all. Who is to say what healing he continues to work in us? It is enough to know that he can and does. This much we also know. We are all born blind in sin, and through him only, and the gift of faith that only he can give--now we see. --brother Jim.