Verses 6 through 12 of John chapter 9 describe Jesus performing a breathtaking miracle of healing. He gave sight to a beggar who’d been blind his entire life. The Lord didn’t just restore something the man had lost. He gave him something he’d never had.
But he accomplished it in a very odd way. He started by spitting on the ground. Yep, you heard that right. Read it for yourself. He made some mud using the saliva, smeared it over the man’s eyelids, and told him to go wash it off at a nearby pool. Then we’re told the blind man groped his way to the Pool of Siloam, washed, opened his eyes, and saw the world for the first time in his life.
I can’t begin to imagine the joy he must have been experiencing and expressing as he returned from the scene of his miracle. His excited outbursts clearly caught the attention of the people in the area, and they began debating whether he was the same guy they knew as the local, blind beggar. But once he’d convinced them he was and could now see, they wanted to know how it happened.
So, he recounted the story. But before he told them how he told them who. He began with these words: “A man called Jesus.” And we can’t allow ourselves to ever forget that he is the fountainhead of everything that flows to us from the goodness of God. Without the who, the how is meaningless.
I’m sure the people in the crowd were anxious to know if it was the spittle, the mud, the water from Siloam, or some combination of all three that produced the healing so they could know how to replicate the result. We usually focus on the recipe – the steps we need to take to secure God’s attention and action: read this scripture, pray this prayer, stop this behavior, start that one, get this person to lay hands on us, be anointed with oil, etc. But Jesus never follows a predictable script. He addresses each individual and their needs uniquely.
As the agent of creation (John 1:3) who spoke the universe into existence (Genesis 1:1-31), he could’ve simply pronounced the man healed and moved on. Instead, he purposefully employed this series of surprising steps. And although no one can say why, maybe he did what he did in order to emphasize the fact that he wasn’t establishing a procedure. His care for us is never the product of a formula. It’s always personal.
So, if you’re in need today, stop trying to discover the how. Turn to the who, “A man called Jesus.”