From: Pastor Bill Mugnolo HARP Pastoral Advisor
“A Word for this Week”: “Let’s Make Mud Pies!” … John 9:1-7
Our Lord’s acts of healing are certainly extraordinary in and of themselves. But His healing, in John, Chapter Nine, of a man who had been born blind is also noteworthy because of the unusual way in which He brought sight to this man. Jesus, first, spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva (Let’s make mud pies!). Then, having molded the mud, He placed it over the man’s eyes and told him to wash in the Pool of Siloam—a major source of water for Jerusalem.
So why did Jesus choose to heal this man through this primitive form of Play-doh? This unusual act points us back to creation itself. John, at the beginning of his Gospel tells us that, “All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3-4). When God made man, He did so by molding the dust of the ground and then breathing into him the breath of life (Genesis 2:7).
While Jesus’ act of molding “mud pies” and then placing them upon the blind man’s eyes appeared, at first, to be disgusting, it points us back to the way that He, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, first made us. The mud pies point to how He is very God of very God Himself! The blind man didn’t realize the significance of this, but he took that “leap of faith” and went and washed in the pool. As “foolish” as the means of healing might have seemed, the man came back seeing.
In this healing and in the manner in which it occurred, we are reminded of the Lord’s words in Isaiah 55:8, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways …”. As it was with the blind man, Jesus may well choose ways in which to deal with us that may be different, unusual, and even “foolish”. Like that sightless man, we too may have to take “a leap of faith” in obeying Jesus. But we will always come back seeing—that is, seeing more and more of the works of God being done in our lives. There are times when these works might bring to us an act of physical healing. But Jesus always looks to bring to us an even greater healing as He also gave the blind man: the recovery of spiritual sight (John 9:38).
