Opened Eyes

Question 1

What is this prayer's central petition, and what does it lead you to expect from today's readings? Consider especially the phrase "though we deserve only punishment, You receive us as Your children." What kind of transformation does this prayer ask God to accomplish, and how might the readings that follow illustrate it?

Question 2

In verses 1–2, the disciples assume that the man's blindness is a direct punishment for someone's sin. How does Jesus' answer in verse 3 overturn that assumption? What does the phrase "that the works of God might be displayed in him" (ta erga tou theou) tell you about the relationship between human suffering and divine purpose?

Question 3

In verse 6, Jesus spits on the ground, makes mud (pēlon), and anoints the man's eyes. Read Genesis 2:7. The early Church Fathers, including Irenaeus, saw in this action a deliberate parallel to God forming man from the dust of the ground. What does Jesus' use of clay reveal about His identity as Creator? Why would the Word through whom all things were made (John 1:3) choose to perform this healing by working with earth?

Question 4

Jesus performs this act of making clay on the Sabbath, deliberately violating rabbinic rules about forbidden work on the day of rest. Read John 5:17, where Jesus says, "My Father is working until now, and I am working." How does this earlier statement illuminate His Sabbath action in John 9? What claim about His own authority is Jesus making?

Question 5

Jesus commands the man to "wash in the pool of Siloam," and the Evangelist explicitly notes that the name means "Sent" (apestalmenos) (v. 7). Throughout John's Gospel, Jesus is supremely the "Sent One" of the Father. What is the Evangelist telling us by translating this name? If the man is essentially commanded to "wash himself in the One Who Is Sent," what connection do you see to Holy Baptism, in which believers are washed in Christ and receive spiritual sight and new birth?

Question 6

Trace the healed man's growing understanding of Jesus through the interrogations. He calls Jesus "the man called Jesus" (v. 11), then "a prophet" (v. 17), then one who is "from God" (v. 33). What do you notice about the direction of his confession? What is drawing him deeper?

Question 7

Now trace the Pharisees' movement in the opposite direction. They repeatedly claim "we know" (oidamen): "We know that this man is a sinner" (v. 24); "We know that God has spoken to Moses" (v. 29). How does their claim to knowledge function as a form of blindness? Why is certainty about what one already "knows" sometimes an obstacle to receiving what God is actually doing?

Question 8

After the man receives his sight, his neighbors debate his identity. He settles the matter by declaring "I am he" (egō eimi) (v. 9). In John's Gospel, Jesus repeatedly uses the absolute egō eimi to declare His divine identity (see 8:24, 58). Though the man's statement is grammatically simple, why might the Evangelist be inviting us to hear a deeper echo? What has happened to this man's identity now that he has been "enlightened" by the Light of the World?

Question 9

In verse 22, the Evangelist notes that the Jews had already agreed to put anyone who confessed Jesus as the Christ out of the synagogue. The Greek word for this expulsion is aposynagōgos. In verse 34, the Pharisees cast the healed man out. What does it cost this man to confess what he knows about Jesus? What does this tell us about the nature of faith under pressure?

Question 10

After the man is cast out, verse 35 says that Jesus "found" him (heuriskō). This verb is used elsewhere in the Gospels for the finding of that which is lost (see Luke 15:4–9). What is the significance of Jesus actively seeking out the man after his excommunication? How does this scene set up the Good Shepherd discourse that immediately follows in John 10?

Question 11

Jesus asks the man, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" (v. 35). The man responds, "Lord, I believe," and he worships Jesus (prosekynēsen) (v. 38). This is the only occasion in the entire Gospel of John in which a person offers direct worship to Jesus. Why is it significant that the one who receives this supreme spiritual sight is a blind beggar, not a learned theologian?

Question 12

In verses 39–41, Jesus pronounces a verdict: "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." The Pharisees ask, "Are we also blind?" and Jesus replies, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains." What is the relationship between claiming to see and remaining in guilt? How does this warning apply to the Church in every age?

Question 13

In verse 14, Yahweh describes His long silence during the exile using the imagery of a woman in labor: "I have kept silent" (hecheshêti) for a long time, yet now He cries out like a woman giving birth. What does this imagery reveal about God's apparent inactivity during seasons of suffering? How does a mother's hidden labor culminating in sudden delivery reframe the way we understand God's patience?

Question 14

In verse 15, God promises to dry up rivers and turn them into dry land. This language recalls the first Exodus, when God dried up the Red Sea. What "New Exodus" is God promising for the exiles in Babylon? How does this same pattern of divine deliverance find its ultimate fulfillment in the Gospel reading, where Christ leads a blind man out of darkness into sight?

Question 15

Verse 16 is the key connection to John 9: "I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know; in paths they do not know I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light." Notice that salvation here is entirely God's work; the blind cannot find their own way. How does the blind man's experience in John 9 illustrate this promise? At what point in the narrative does the man contribute anything to his own healing?

Question 16

In verses 18–20, Yahweh addresses the tragic irony of Israel's blindness. The nation that was called to be God's servant and messenger (mal'akh, v. 19) to the world turned out to be blind and deaf itself. How does this failure of "Servant Israel" point forward to the need for a Second Servant, the Suffering Servant, who would perfectly obey the Father? Read Isaiah 53:4–6. How does the Suffering Servant succeed where Israel failed?

Question 17

Verse 21 states that Yahweh desired to exalt His Torah and make it glorious, yet Israel was blind and deaf to it. How does Jesus' confrontation with the Pharisees in John 9 demonstrate this same dynamic: people who possess the Scriptures yet are blind to the One whom the Scriptures reveal?

Question 18

In verse 8, Paul does not merely say the Ephesians are in the light; he declares that they "are light in the Lord." He commands them to "walk as children of light" (hōs tekna phōtos peripateite). This is an identity statement, not merely a moral instruction. How does the healed man in John 9 illustrate this transformation from darkness to "being light"? At what point in his story does his identity change?

Question 19

In verses 9–11, Paul contrasts the "fruit of the light" (goodness, righteousness, truth) with the "fruitless works of darkness" (akarpos, "fruitless"). Notice the difference: light produces fruit organically; darkness manufactures dead works that yield nothing. How does the Pharisees' exhausting effort to suppress the truth in John 9 illustrate the "fruitless works of darkness"?

Question 20

Verse 14 reads: "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Scholars widely recognize this as a quotation from an early Christian baptismal hymn. The imperative "arise" (egeire) is the vocabulary of resurrection; it is the same word used when Jesus raises the dead (see Mark 5:41). Read Ephesians 2:1, 5. Paul has already told the Ephesians that apart from Christ they were "dead in trespasses." How, then, is this hymn not a moralistic call to "try harder," but rather the triumphant declaration of what God accomplishes in Baptism?

Question 21

How does the blind man's experience in John 9 mirror the pattern of Ephesians 5:14? He was in darkness (born blind), he was washed (Siloam), and Christ shone upon him (the worship scene in vv. 35–38). In what sense does every Baptism recapitulate this same pattern?

Question 22

All three readings today circle around the theme of God giving sight to the blind as an act of pure grace. Consider the Second Article of the Apostles' Creed and Luther's explanation in the Small Catechism: Christ has "redeemed me, a lost and condemned person" so that I might "live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him." How does the blind man's journey from darkness to worship illustrate this movement from being "lost and condemned" to living under Christ's gracious rule?

Question 23

Our congregation never hears any of these three readings on a Sunday morning in the One-Year lectionary. John 9 (the man born blind), Isaiah 42:14–21 (God leading the blind into light), and Ephesians 5:8–14 ("Awake, O sleeper") are all absent. Having studied them together, what has been missing from our congregation's understanding of the connection between spiritual blindness, Baptism, and the light of Christ?

Question 24

In the early Church, the Fourth Sunday in Lent was one of the "scrutiny" Sundays on which baptismal candidates were catechized with this very text. The man born blind served as a picture of every catechumen: born in darkness, washed in the waters of Christ, and brought to confess, "Lord, I believe." How does recovering this ancient connection between John 9 and Baptism deepen your understanding of what happens at the font? How does it shape the way you remember your own Baptism?