Clay: Dad's Medium
If we are having trouble with his words, Jesus wants us to at least look closer at his works.
John contains one story of the healing of a blind man by Jesus. The section including the miracle and the teaching associated with it is found in 9:1-10:21. No other gospel author includes this particular healing story. Of course, that is not unusual since each gospel contains at least one miracle story not found in any other.
In the performing of this miracle the uniqueness of Jesus’ method is again on display. No where else is Jesus said to make clay and use it as part of a miracle process. Yet here, the text reads as follows:
After he said these things he spit on the ground, made some mud from the saliva, and spread the mud on his eyes. (John 9:6)
Jesus mixes some of his spit with the dirt of the ground. He then uses the mud he has made as part of the sign-giving process.
This may seem odd to readers. After all, what does making mud and applying it to someone’s eyes have to do with anything?
The New Testament is engorged, you might say, with Old Testament references. Even when your Bible doesn’t show it, the Old Testament is standing just behind the very thin veil of the New, peeking its head around, and making eye contact. In its subtlety, it stands as the curious child, hopeful that it eyes might convey its desire to emerge from obscurity and be fully included in the events of which it has only heard in muffled tones or caught fleeting glimpses.
This is one of those moments.
When reading the text one should ask, “Is there anything like this I have seen somewhere in the Old Testament? Something that might give more insight about all that is transpiring here?” The answer is yes. When considering anyone using mud or clay to do anything in the Old Testament, a couple of passages may come to mind.
One would likely be the passage in Jeremiah where the prophet is instructed by God to go to the potter’s house. Upon arrival, he sees the potter as he makes a pot. But in the making, the pot becomes disfigured. The potter, undeterred, starts over, this time making it functional (Jer. 18:1-6). The entire lesson given to Jeremiah is a lesson about God who has the authority to take spiritually marred Israel and remake it into something useful. Ultimately then, the “potter-and-clay” analogy spotlights the Father.
Another Old Testament passage that might come to mind regarding the use of mud or clay is found all the way back in Genesis 2:7:
Then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
God is using the loose earth (i.e., dust) as the medium to form the first man. And, like mixing spit with dirt, He then breaths His breath (the part of Himself that gives life) into the dust which is the man. And, Voila! Man is created!
In both above passages, the central subject is actually Yahweh God. He is the One of which the potter is only an analogy. It is He that can fashion the first lump of clay into Israel. Now that it is marred, He can re-fashion the same clay into a better vessel.
Also, God uses the dust of the ground to make the first man. From his head to his feet, his hands, his cheeks, his knees, and even his eyes, all parts are made from the dust of the ground.
Along comes Jesus. He, too, uses the loose earth of the ground as his medium of choice in the present situation. Just as God breathed His breath into the unmoving clay man, so Jesus uses part of himself—his spit—to give a dimension to the earth that it could never have on its own. Just as living tissue was created by God from dirt, so the dirt of the ground is used to make dead tissue alive (or, for all we know, create eyeballs for the first time) behind the closed lids of the blind man!
As John 10 (the next chapter) unfolds, near its conclusion, Jesus says something apropos:
If I am not doing my Father's works, don't believe me. But if I am doing them and you don't believe me, believe the works. This way you will know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father. (John 10:37-38)
Is he doing what his Father does? Then at least believe that.