Not Death but Transformation of Life Gospel: John 11:1-45
Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF Claretian Missionaries
The resuscitation of Lazarus, is not his resurrection because going back to this material world is to resuscitate but to go beyond this material world, into the world of God, is to resurrect. The family of Bethany, consisting only of a brother and sisters represents the Christian community where there are no superiors and inferiors but only brothers and sisters. This community is faced with an insoluble enigma: the death of a brother. Why doesn’t Jesus prevent death? The death of a loved one, our death, puts faith to a test. It gives rise to the suspicion that he is “not here,” that he does not accompany us with his love.
By allowing Lazarus to die, Jesus responds to this dilemma: it is not his intention to prevent biological death. He has not come to make this form of life eternal but to introduce us to that which has no end. When spirituality is reduced to the pressing demands of miracles, it inevitably results in a crisis of faith and the doubt that “he is not here” where we would expect him to be, when we need him most, in sickness, sorrow, and misfortune.
Martha believes in the resurrection of the dead. She is convinced that, at the end of the world, her brother Lazarus will return to life together with all the righteous and will take part in the kingdom of God.
This is her way of understanding the resurrection (perhaps similar to that of many Christians today) that does not console anyone. Why would God let one die only to bring him back to life?
The Christian does not believe in a death and a resurrection that will take place at the end of the world. He believes that the person redeemed by Christ ‘does not die.’
For an example, let us suppose that in the womb of a mother there are twins. They can see, understand, speak to each other during the nine months of gestation. They only know their own little world and cannot imagine what life is like outside. They have no idea that there are animals, plants, flowers, beaches. After nine months, the twins are born by turn. And the one who was born a few seconds later and remained, even for a short time, in the womb of the mother, would certainly think: “My brother is dead. He’s not here anymore. He disappeared and left me….” and he cries. But the brother is not dead. He only left a restricted, short, limited life and went into another form of life.
In the Christian perspective, therefore, life in this world is a gestation and death is verified by one who remains, not by one who dies. The judgment of Lao-Tze is known: “That which for the caterpillar is the end of the world, for the rest of the world is a butterfly.”
We often romanticize miracles. We imagine them as neat, tidy endings, the closing credits rolling over a scene of unblemished joy. But the gospel of John, in its profound depth, refuses us such comfort. The healing of the man born blind is not the end of his story; it is the beginning of a far more tumultuous journey. The true miracle is not merely the acquisition of sight, but the painful, costly, and ultimately glorious passage of a soul from physical darkness into the blinding light of faith.
Consider the immediate aftermath. This man, for his entire life, has known the world through touch, sound, and smell. His identity was forged in the crucible of dependence and darkness. He was “the blind beggar,” a role as fixed and familiar to him as his own skin. Then, with a touch of mud and a command to wash, that world dissolves. He opens his eyes and is flooded with a chaos of light, color, and form he has no framework to process. This is his first, unspoken upheaval: the crisis of a deconstructed self. Who is he, if he is no longer the one who cannot see? The man who returns from Siloam is a stranger to himself, and the world’s reaction confirms this terrifying new reality.
His neighbors and those who knew him as a beggar ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Their confusion is our own when faced with genuine transformation. They cannot reconcile the old label with the new reality. “It looks like him,” they say, “but no, it must be someone else.” In their eyes, he undergoes a second kind of blindness—he becomes invisible as his true self, erased by their inability to process the grace before them. He is forced to assert his identity, insisting, “I am the man.” This is the first step of his new journey: learning to define himself not by his past affliction, but by the grace he has received.
Then comes the trial. Dragged before the Pharisees, the man faces the full weight of institutional suspicion and hardened theology. They are not interested in his transformation; they are interested in the protocol of its execution. This is the next assault: the external attack on his experience. He, who has just been gifted with the most extraordinary physical event, is met not with wonder, but with hostile interrogation. “How did he open your eyes?” they demand, again and again. They try to confuse him with semantics, to trap him with their laws about the Sabbath.
It is here that the man’s inner journey takes a stunning leap. He moves from passive recipient to active theologian. When the Pharisees, desperate to discredit Jesus, pronounce, “This man is not from God,” the healed man does not retreat. He does not have the answers from the scriptures, but he has something the scholars lack: an unassailable, lived experience. His retort is a masterpiece of grounded conviction and spiritual audacity: “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” In that moment, he anchors his growing faith not in abstract doctrine, but in the concrete reality of his own life. He refuses to let their dark theology snuff out the light he has literally just seen. With breathtaking irony, he becomes their teacher, exposing their ignorance: “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”
Their response is swift and cutting: they cast him out. This is the third and deepest wound: social and religious excommunication. He is now an outcast, thrown from the only religious community he has ever known. His parents have already distanced themselves, paralyzed by fear. He stands utterly alone, his new sight now showing him a world that has rejected him. The gift of healing has cost him everything: his identity, his community, his place in the world. This is the dark night that follows a profound grace. One can imagine him, sitting alone, his newly opened eyes filling with the bitter tears of abandonment, wondering if the physical sight was worth the spiritual and social blindness it has revealed in everyone around him.
And it is precisely at this moment of deepest desolation, when he is “cast out,” that the most important healing occurs. Jesus hears of his plight and seeks him out. The Healer returns for the final consultation. He finds the man in his loneliness and poses the ultimate question: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
The man’s physical sight has already been given. Now, the purpose of that physical gift is revealed: it was always meant to lead him to this encounter. He had called Jesus “a man,” then “a prophet,” then “a man from God.” But now, face to face with the One who found him in his rejection, his inner vision clears for the first time. When Jesus reveals Himself, the man does not just see; he perceives. He utters the confession of full faith: “Lord, I believe,” and he worships Him.
This is the journey from physical sight to salvific vision. The man born blind teaches us that healing is not an event, but a process. It is a path that leads through confusion, interrogation, isolation, and loss, only to arrive at the feet of the One who is the Light of the World. He received his sight, but the true gift was the vision to recognize the Face that had been mercifully smearing mud on his eyes all along. His physical eyes were opened at Siloam, but the eyes of his soul were finally opened in the presence of Jesus. He was cast out from the synagogue, only to be brought into the very presence of God. In the end, it is the one who was blind who truly sees, while those who claim to see stand in the dark.
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