"As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing."
John 9:1-7
It has been pointed out that at no time did the blind man ask help of Jesus, and John means by this to emphasise the sovereign aspect of God's grace. Jesus took the initiative, not the man. In 2, 3, the question posed by the disciples raises real problems. It is a fact that the rabbinic schools used to speculate about the possibility of prnatal sin, and it would seem that it is something of this nature that the disciples gave expression to in what they asked Jesus here. The relation of sickness and disability to sin is, of course, a real one, and our Lord Himself makes it plain in Mark 2 that sin sometimes does cause affliction and disease in the physical realm, as He does also in the story of the healing at Bethesda in John 5. But it is one thing to recognise the organic connection between the two, and quite another to assume as a matter of course that any particular disease is caused by specific sin in the individual who suffers it. That is a conclusion that we must be very careful about making. But, even more important than that debate, is the fact that in discussing the matter in this way, the disciples were regarding the blind man as simply a theological problem. To them he was a case, but to Jesus he was a person, a soul in need. There is a lesson for us here: we must beware lest our preoccupation with theological issues robs us of the milk of human kindness and compassion for people. Perhaps this is the point that Jesus makes in 4, which the RSV translates 'We must work...'. It is as if He were saying, 'Let us have done with armchair theorising and theologising; we must become involved with this man in his need'. A true theology never confines itself to the armchair, but moves men to compassionate action.