This is the oldest of the stories in this collection, begun in a flurry of inspiration more than forty years ago and revised many times over the years. I always loved this spunky young man who stood up to the ruling council and called them on their refusal to accept the Messiah they had always claimed to believe in. Although paintings often show him as gray and bearded, his parents pointing out that he was of age to speak for himself suggests that he may not have been much beyond legal age.
Seen
One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!
John 9:25b
i
I felt for the worn step and settled against the cool stone wall near the Temple. Someone tossed a coin into my lap. A bronze lepton by the feel of it, the smallest coin made.
“Peace be upon you,” I muttered. Work was forbidden by law on the Sabbath, but sitting with my face upturned so passers-by could see my sightless eyes could hardly be called work.
I’d work if they’d let me. I polished the pottery my mother made to sell in the market until it was smooth as silk. I could count the coins she earned from feel and always knew when someone had slipped her a counterfeit or one that had been shaved for the metal.
But my father laughed when I suggested hiring myself out. “No one will hire a boy born blind, Shmuel.”
“I’m not a boy,” I insisted. “I’m a man.” Two years ago I’d been proclaimed a “son of the law” in the synagogue, reciting long passages of Scripture from memory since I couldn’t read them from the scrolls like the other boys. I went with the men now every morning to hear the Scriptures read…although I wasn’t allowed to participate in temple worship.
Because I was blind.
Imperfect.
Impure.
Footsteps sounded in the street. Not just one person, but a whole crowd of people. Probably stragglers from the Feast of Tabernacles. They’d be generous.
Maybe.
I tilted my head back so they could see my eyes.
See—that meant knowing a thing without having to touch it.
No one ever touched my eyes. Few touched me. Occasionally one pressed something into my hand and spoke kindly instead of just tossing the coin in my lap. But most hurried past. My father said they weren’t blind, but still they couldn’t see me.
I raised my hands, palms flat so any coins would not roll off into the street. “Alms! Alms for the blind!” I tried not to let my voice go up at the end in a pitiful question. I hated begging.
Begging to be seen.
Begging to be known.
The footsteps stopped in front of me. I waited. (No one likes a pushy beggar.)
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Oh.
Scholars.
So much for expecting generosity. I lowered my hands. And my head. My teeth clenched to keep angry words from spewing like vomit all over these men who were more interested in theological discussion than in me or my family’s needs.
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” came a voice, surprisingly gentle.
Their rabbi? Rabbis argued points of law in the temple colonnades, but sometimes they liked to show off their generosity—to enhance their reputations. And there was a whole crowd with this one to speak well of his generosity.
The rabbi continued. “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
In me? Imperfect, impure, worthless beggar?
The rabbi’s knees creaked. His garments rustled. He was squatting in front of me. He spat. I recognized that sound. I’d heard it often enough, and often enough the spittle landed on me.
A woman gasped. “What’s he doing?”
“Making mud?” The voice sounded surprised, even disgusted.
A warm hand took my chin with its scant beard. Instinctively I lowered my sightless eyes and drew back, but coolness passed over my lids.
“Go,” the rabbi said. “Wash in the Pool of Siloam.”
A little of the wetness from the mud ran down my cheek. Or was that a tear? He’d touched me. He’d seen me.
I hardly breathed as the crowd passed, murmuring.
“What did Jesus do?” a woman whispered. I didn’t hear her companion’s explanation.
Jesus?
There were rumors in the city about this man—a learned rabbi who’d never studied, a teacher who didn’t quote the authorities, a miracle worker who did amazing things. Some even claimed he was the Anointed One of God we’d awaited for so many generations.
Our leaders called him a troublemaker.
“Wash,” he’d said. I drew a deep breath. I would wash.
The crowd had moved on when I got to my feet and felt my way with my stick down the long stone staircase to the pool deep in the valley. As I descended, I ran my fingers lightly along the wall King Herod had commissioned when he rebuilt the ancient pool so the thousands of visitors who came to our feasts from all over the country—the world!—could purify themselves before they entered the holy temple. Pilgrims passed me, climbing and chanting one of the ancient psalms of ascents our father David taught us.
“Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the LORD.”
Last week during the feast these stairs would have been packed with pilgrims.
The wall ended. The sound my stick made on the pavement changed. Ahead of me was a large open space. The pool.
I crossed the plaza and felt my way down the steps to the water’s edge. Kneeling, I set my stick on the step above me so I could find it easily. An old habit.
My heart beat against my ribs. I plunged both hands into the water and splashed it over my face. Again. And again. Until I no longer felt grit under my fingertips. I wiped the water from my eyes with my sleeve and opened them.
Brightness made me turn my face away and squeeze them shut. Slowly, I opened them again and blinked. The water sparkled with… Was that light?—the thing that warmed my skin when I sat in the sun? It rose and fell as the water shifted in a breeze, and my head seemed to sway until I feared I’d tip into the pool.
I pulled back against the upper step and raised my eyes. I could see! Across the pool…to the trees that leaned over the wall…to the valley beyond…and up to the endless sky. All without touching them! That must be the color blue my mother had often tried to describe.
Someone purifying himself in the pool rose out of the water. As he shook his head, drops scattered, each catching the sun in tiny flickering lights. I stared.
The man began reciting the prayers. “Blessed is the Eternal, the God of all creation…”
“Who has blessed me with life,” I murmured along with him, “sustained me, and enabled me to reach this moment.
“This moment,” I repeated, marveling at how everything had changed in this moment.
I stood and started back up the steps, leaving my unneeded stick behind. A beggar sat along the wall, his twisted leg thrust in front of him. He gazed at me across the pavement, and I gazed right back. I could see his eyes looking at me, his hair straggling over his shoulders, his tunic streaked with the dirt of the streets. I was breathing hard as I felt for the purse at my belt and fished out the coins I’d been given that morning.
“Aren’t you the blind beggar who sits by the temple?” he asked.
“I was,” I said breathlessly. “But now I can see.”
The man scowled. “How’s that?”
So I explained. And not for the last time. As I made my way through the streets I’d known by the tapping of my stick, marveling at the colors of the stone, the play of light and shadow, the expressions on the faces of the people, I was stopped again and again.
“Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?”
“No, he only looks like him.”
“I’m the man,” I insisted.
“How then were your eyes opened?” Some frowned at my explanation. Some smiled. I didn’t have to touch their faces or hear their voices to know their reaction. “So I washed and now I can see.”
My questioners invariably wanted to know where Jesus was, but I didn’t know.
Jesus. If only I could see the one who had seen me.
I made my way toward our small house in the lower city. Once I got confused and had to close my eyes and listen, feel, and smell to orient myself. The stench of the tanners’ pits where they made vellum from the endless supply of lamb skins told me when I was near.
“Shmuel?” my father asked when I arrived. (I knew him by his voice.) “Is that you?”
I grinned. “It is, Abba. And I can see.” I repeated my story over and over as neighbors crowded into our tiny courtyard and left to bring other neighbors. My mother glowed with happiness as she served cups of watered wine and little honey cakes the neighbor women had hastily made to celebrate.
“Jesus,” my father mused. “There’ll be trouble. Today is the Sabbath.”
Sabbath.
Begging wasn’t work, but healing was. At least, in the minds of the Pharisees.
ii
The summons came next morning. I was escorted to the Council by some of the temple guard, hurried through a back gate with no time to admire what I was seeing for the first time. Both my parents followed, my mother wringing her hands. I recognized the voices of some of the members who had regularly passed my corner near the temple, some pausing to speak with me and leave a gift, others passing me by, blinder than I was.
Now I could see their faces, their fine clothing and jewelry. My best tunic felt shabby next to them. Some had long beards and wore the fringed garment supposed to remind us of God’s law. They looked much wiser and holier than me. But others had clean-shaven faces and cropped heads like the Romans who occupied our land.
“Sadducees,” my father explained when I questioned him. “The ones who support the family of old King Herod and think they’re better than us because they speak Greek.” He turned and spat through the doorway behind us.
“Shmuel, the beggar,” a bailiff announced.
Beggar indeed! Whatever the future held, I wouldn’t be a beggar any longer!
I stepped forward and made my way through the clusters of disciples sitting at their rabbis’ feet until I stood before the semi-circle of counsellors. All eyes were turned on me. I shuffled nervously.
“Nicodemus, you begin the questioning,” said their leader.
An old man in a tall head dress leaned forward. “You claimed to be blind, how is it that you now see?”
I recognized his voice. He’d been kind to me. All those eyes made me want to run away, but I had nothing to hide. I straightened my shoulders and looked straight at him. “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see.”
“Who?” Nicodemus asked.
“Jesus.”
A younger man in a tasseled prayer shawl snorted and threw back his head. “This man is not from God, for he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.”
An older man on the opposite side of the circle leaned forward and gestured intently. “How can a sinner perform such signs?” For several minutes they argued among themselves.
At last the head of the council turned to me. “What have you to say about him? It was your eyes he opened.”
I looked from one to another. Wasn’t it obvious? “He…he’s a prophet,” I stammered.
Suddenly everyone was talking.
At last a Sadducee whose hairless cheeks gave him the look of a spoiled child leaned back in his cushioned chair. “How do we know that this man really was blind? This could have all been a hoax from the beginning.”
Again everyone began talking. My mouth fell open. As if I would fake blindness my whole life! As if anyone would want to live in the indignity of depending on others!
“Hear, hear!” The chairman of the council called the room to order. “Send for his parents. Are they present?”
The bailiff motioned me to the edge of the crowd. My father got slowly to his feet. Someone pulled my mother through the doorway where she’d been trying to hear what went on inside. She came trembling to stand by my father. Her eyes were wide with fear.
“Is this your son?” the chairman asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”
My father glanced over my mother’s head to where I stood and then quickly away. But he didn’t look at the Council. He stared at the floor. “W…we…”
“Speak up,” Nicodemus said kindly. “No one is going to hurt you.”
My father looked at him and took several short breaths, but his knees were shaking. “We know he’s our son,” he began slowly and deliberately, “and we know he was born blind.” He glanced again at me. Suddenly it seemed like he couldn’t speak quickly enough. “But how he can see now, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know.”
But… I told them what happened! How could he not know? My father stared straight ahead at the Council. Not at me.
“Ask him,” he said. “He’s of age; he’ll speak for himself.”
Several on the council groaned and threw back their heads. “Call the beggar again,” the head of the council said with an impatient gesture.
I didn’t wait for the bailiff to push me forward. My heart had settled into my belly. My father had betrayed me.
“Give glory to God by telling the truth,” the head of the Council said. “We know this man is a sinner.”
I stared at him. He made no sign of backing down. My eyes flitted from one member of the Council to the next. Their faces all frowned. Even the old man Nicodemus only glanced quickly at me and then back at his hands.
“Whether he’s a sinner or not,” I began as slowly and deliberately as my father, “I don’t know. One thing I do know.” I let my eyes again move from one man to the next. “I was blind. But now I see!”
The silence in the room was complete. Several moments passed before feet began to shuffle and voices murmur.
The head of the Council took a deep breath and slapped the council table. “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”
My breath escaped in a harsh laugh. “I’ve told you already and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples too?”
The room gasped.
Several of the Council members’ disciples leapt to their feet, shouting. One screamed in my face, “You’re this fellow’s disciple! We’re disciples of Moses!” He looked around at the others for support. “We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow—” He tossed his head back. “We don’t even know where he comes from.”
I was angry. All the years I’d spent cowering in a corner of the street, submitting to insults, being grateful for leftovers, boiled over.
“Now that’s remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from—” I emphasized every syllable. “—yet he opened my eyes!” How could they not see?
The disciple backed away from me, his anger clearly turning to fear.
I took a deep breath and went on more calmly. “We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will.” I shook my head at the Council members, disciples, the handful of witnesses. “Nobody’s ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
For a moment the silence held. Then the hall erupted again. The disciple came at me, shaking with anger. His friends gathered behind him, their faces full of hate. “You were steeped in sin at birth,” he spat. “How dare you lecture us!”
I blushed at the insinuation on my mother’s honor and clenched my teeth. There was nothing more I could say. I was the one who’d been born blind; they couldn’t see because they didn’t want to see.
The head of the synagogue stood. He pulled his richly woven robes about him as if gathering his dignity and pointed a long, menacing finger at me. “May you be uprooted from Israel, a Gentile.” His voice dripped contempt. “Broken, destroyed and without hope.”
“No,” I breathed.
“May your evil be cut down in an instant before it can corrupt God’s chosen.”
Through the unruly spectators, I glimpsed my father leading my mother away. This was what he’d feared. The Council had threatened to throw followers of Jesus out of the synagogue, to cut them off from the people of God, to consider them as foreigners and pagans.
I hadn’t thought that would be the price of telling the truth.
My mother looked over her shoulder as if she feared she’d never see me again. I couldn’t enter their house without making them and everything in it unclean. My blindness would no longer keep me from the temple, but this disgrace would. I’d still be forbidden the inner courts, the sacrifices and ritual worship that united my people. Left outside.
Unclean.
The synagogue ruler’s eyes bored into me. “Blessed are you, O Lord God, who humbles the arrogant.”
The arrogant. Me. An outsider.
Again.
iii
Shouting disciples shoved me from the hall. I found myself in the outer court of the temple—the only court I’d ever be allowed into. I wandered from the shadows of the north side around to the east front and stared up, up, at the gleaming marble building forbidden me. The gold decorations glittered, but its beauty blurred through my tears.
Men stood in clusters in the colonnade or outside the gate to the Court of Israel. I couldn’t read the plaque on the wall there in Greek and Latin. I’d never learned to read since I couldn’t see the letters. But I knew, like every Jew, that it warned foreigners not to enter on pain of death.
Foreigners.
Like me.
I turned away.
A man approached—an ordinary man, like any other in this outer court. His eyes were kind. At least, he wasn’t scowling at me like the Council members. Or screaming. Or pointing his finger.
“Do you believe in the Son of Man?” he asked.
That voice… Had I heard it before?
“Who is he, sir?” I asked. “Tell me so that I may believe in him.” The Son of Man—Messiah. He would set all things right.
Even my messy life.
The man’s bronzed face broke into a smile that said maybe my life wasn’t a hopeless mess after all. “You’ve now seen him; in fact, he’s the one speaking with you.”
“Jesus?” How could I not have known? I fell to my knees and worshiped. “Lord, I believe!”
We soon drew a crowd. Pharisees pressed in. Argument ensued, but I could think only of this rabbi who’d changed my life.
“For judgment I’ve come into this world,” he said, “so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
I was not blind. Not any longer. I could see that this man was all I’d ever longed for. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t go home. I would follow Jesus. I would become his disciple as the Council had accused me of being. I was no longer a worthless beggar, imperfect or impure. He had seen me.
And now, I could see only him.
“If you were blind,
you would not be guilty of sin;
but now that you claim you can see,
your guilt remains.
John 9:41
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