Saved by the Well – Jesus at the Pool of Siloam

Saved by the Well – Jesus at the Pool of Siloam.

“As long as I am in the world, I AM the light of the world.’ When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the mud. And He said to him, ‘Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam.’ (which is translated, ‘Sent’). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.” 

SAVED: The Hebrew word for save is “Yasha,” which means to be set free into the wide open; to be delivered in a time of desperate need; to be saved from destruction and certain death. “Salvation” literally means to become spacious, and refers to “the sense of deliverance from an existence that had become confined, compressed, or cramped.” (Eugene Peterson). When Jesus delivers us from our inner spiritual confinement, we are liberated into a wide open, broad, expansive place. The word for “wide open space” is the opposite of a straitjacket. Without Jesus, our soul will never be freed from our spiritual straitjacket. There are three passages in Psalms that describe this freedom deliverance beautifully:

1. “From my distress, I called upon the Lord. He answered me and set me on a large place. After being in a tight spot, the Lord placed me into a broad space. Because I was hemmed in, I called on Lord Yahweh. He answered me and gave me room.” (Ps. 118:5);
2. “Lord, you have not given me over into the hands of the Enemy; You have liberated me and set my feet in a wide expanse, a good and spacious land. You have given me the freedom to roam at large, where I can freely move. You have given me room to breathe.” (Ps. 31:8);
3. “The Lord rescued me because He delighted in me. He brought me out to freedom into a wide-open space. My soul has been delivered because of God’s love for me, and my soul finally has some elbow room!” (Ps. 18:19).

THE WELL: There are four Hebrew words used in the Jewish Bible to describe the different kinds of ancient wells. There was the traditional well that was a deep hole dug in the ground to tap into an underground source of water. Another type of well was a fountain spring that had naturally broken through the earth’s surface on its own without man’s help. The wellspring is another version of well in Scripture in which fresh water flowed out of the ground in any number of ways to become available for cleansing, nourishment, refreshment, for survival itself. Life-giving wells of water have always been a powerful picture of our dependence upon God for spiritual survival. Just as Creator God has designed the human body to completely depend on water to live, our spiritual life totally relies on His presence in us to not just survive but to flourish. God is our spiritual well of fresh water, the only stable source of nourishment and purity. He is our fountain of life that gushes forth to replenish and cleanse us. God is our eternal wellspring of living water that will never run dry. Each of us is born spiritually dehydrated, and God alone is the constant, reliable water source to bring us back to life. As the silly joke goes, wells are a deep subject, and the biblical wells involve such stalwarts as Hagar and Abraham; Isaac and Moses; Samson and Solomon; the psalmists and the prophets. And of course, the glorious fulfillment of all these ancient stories of wells… Messiah Jesus and the woman at the well.

“Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I AM the light of the world.’ When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the mud. And He said to him, ‘Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam.’ (which is translated, the one who is sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.” (John 9:1-7).

The Pool of Siloam. This pool of water is no simple little reservoir in Jerusalem. It’s got quite a biblical history… In the 8th century BC, Hebrew king Hezekiah knew that the fierce and apparently unbeatable Assyrian army was soon going to lay siege to Jerusalem and tear the city asunder. Hezekiah knew that there was no fresh water source inside the city walls, and so the Assyrian could easily cut off all water to Jerusalem. Hezekiah ordered what seemed somewhat impossible at the time: Build an underground tunnel from outside the city at Gihon Springs and direct its flow of water under the city walls, where it can then be retained in a huge reservoir of water so the entire city could have drinking and bathing water without interference from enemies like the Assyrians. So, one group of diggers with pickaxes started underground at one end of the proposed tunnel, and another group started at the end of the tunnel inside the city. Both groups proceeded to dig by hand through sheer mountain rock in torch-lit darkness, hoping to meet in the middle to complete the tunnel. Miraculously, the workmen successfully met in the middle of their 1,750-foot-long underground tunnel, producing an engineering feat for the ages (2 Kings 20:20)!

The Pool’s History Continues. But that’s not the end of the story. This original Pool of Siloam was estimated to be about 53 feet long, 18 feet wide, and 19 feet deep. But about 600 BC the Babylonians destroyed that original pool, only to have Nehemiah restore it about 70 years later. And then along comes Herod the Great (at some point between 30-20 BC) who decided to improve what Nehemiah had done by considerably enlarging it and constructing a huge portico of arches and thousands of steps around the entire pool. In this new configuration during Jesus’ time, the Pool of Siloam was used as the ancient world’s largest ritual bathing area (a mikvah), to be used by all Jewish pilgrims to purify themselves before entering the Temple about 600 years away. Not only that, but this Pool’s water was also considered holy water and thus used in the famous water ceremonies during the Feast of the Tabernacles. This Pool was also popular with the poor, the sick and the disabled as their preferred site for washing and bathing themselves.

The Water of the Mikvah Bath. By the time of John the Baptist, baptism was nothing new to the faithful Jews. Ritual immersion was an important means of purification according to Biblical law, especially before special events like Temple worship, a wedding, a conversion, during a mother’s pregnancy, and whenever entering a sacred space. According to historical records, the believers undergoing the ritual bath were self-immersed, and had to be completely naked, must fully soak every inch of the body by immersing him/herself under water, and the pool of water was required to be “living” water from a stream, river, or rainwater, or in this case a reservoir of water from a gushing stream. Obviously, there were separate areas for ritual bathing for men and women.  Yahweh left an indelible impression on his chosen people that they needed to be officially set apart in dedication to their holy God by submitting to an outer cleansing that represented an intentional inner purification.

John the Baptist’s Version of the Mikveh. Those numerous scriptures about cleansing and being made clean were taken seriously and literally by faithful Jews, hence the Pool of Siloam’s popularity with thousands of pilgrims, and the myriads of ritual baths outside the Temple. The “proselyte baptism” was also very common, experienced by all those who converted to Judaism. So, it was not a novel idea for John to come baptizing and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Mark 1:4). Each person John baptized in the Jordan most probably followed Jewish tradition by undergoing a self-immersion. John was there to manage things. It’s interesting that Jesus most likely baptized Himself, with John there as a witness. John’s baptisms were distinctive, though, because he was full of the Holy Spirit, he was not associated with the Temple system and all its regulations, and he preached the idea that his baptism is merely a pledge, a promise that the baptized person will perform a radical change to his life. Repent, change your mind, turn around, John repeated. John’s baptism was more like an initiation rite into a brotherhood, a fellowship of penitents awaiting the coming of God in a new, special way. So John insisted that those baptized would “bear fruit that befit repentance,” a changed moral and spiritual life. John continued to preach that the mere washing with water was not enough. The baptized had to prepare the way for the Messiah by making an about-face in their lives.

Setting the Scene. Jesus was simply walking down the road in Jerusalem, and He spotted the blind beggar. Unlike the blind man, Jesus saw everything. Nothing escaped His notice. His eyes were open 24/7 to see those in need, and He didn’t miss a thing. The rest of humanity has fallen eyes, half-closed to others who are unfortunate or who don’t scream for attention. Jesus had fully redeemed eyes with an eternal attention span, perfect eyesight, able to observe those whom others overlook. This story begins with the simple fact of the careful observation of the Lord. But that only makes sense, doesn’t it? “He who formed the eye, shall He not see?” (Ps. 94:9). Jesus here confirms one of the names of God in the Hebrew Bible. In Genesis 16, we see pregnant Hagar fleeing from a jealous and angry Sarai and a befuddled Abram. He conceived a child with Hagar, at Sarai’s request, and it brought nothing but trouble. So Hagar tried to escape this troublesome home and found herself in the wilderness at a spring of water. The Angel of the Lord appeared to her, comforted her, and directed her back to Sarai.  Hagar had no doubt that she was talking directly with the Lord, someone whom we know as the preincarnate Jesus, for v. 13 states, “Then she called the name of Yahweh who spoke to her, El-Roi, You-are-God-who-sees.” And she followed that up by exclaiming, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” That spring of water in the well was named, “Well of the Living One who sees me.” God saw the humble Hagar and intervened. The Living One was indeed Jesus, who comforted the desperate and distraught Hagar, and cared for her, and sent her back to Abram and Sarai for God’s will to be accomplished. God made a special appearance for someone who could easily have been overlooked. Yahweh had His eyes on the lowly, and Jesus brought His message. He continued His ministry of seeing in this powerful story of the man born blind.

Who Sinned? The disciples saw the man born blind, begging by the side of the road, and assumed that his blindness was a punishment from God for a sin committed by him or by his parents. It was common in that era for people to trace any disability or illness to a particular sin that was committed. Even worse, many thought blind people to be under a curse. Since the man was born blind, did the disciples actually think he was punished for something he did before he was born? Of course, the idea of prenatal sin is outrageous. So is the basic unfairness of punishing someone for being born with a sinful nature like the rest of us. And Jesus rejected the idea that this man’s blindness is the result of any sin. But Jesus did say this man’s blindness will be redeemed, that it will be used to glorify God and reveal His glory. So Jesus didn’t really give a straight answer to their question, He merely sidestepped it and replaced it with his own belief.

Light. This entire story reveals Jesus as the incarnation of God’s words at creation, “Let there be light!” (Gen. 1:3). He brings the light of eyesight to a blind man who has never seen light. And He brings the light of spiritual understanding to those who witnessed this miracle with eyes wide open, and to those who read about this miracle centuries later. Jesus confirmed this when He declared in this story, just before the miraculous healing, “As long as I am in the world, I AM the light of the world.” (John 9:5).

Creative Healing. Immediately after declaring Himself to the world’s light, Jesus proceeded to bring light to this man’s world. He used creation materials, water and dust, to bring a new creation to this man, the light of faith as well as light to the eyes. Jesus spit on the ground, mixed it together with the dust, and made an ointment of mud. He then rubbed the mud on the eyes of the man.  This wasn’t as distasteful as it might appear now, since saliva was commonly accepted in biblical times to have some medicinal value. This is the only recorded instance of Jesus using this particular method to cure blindness. In the healing of blind Bartimaeus, Jesus merely said the word. That was all that Jesus wanted to do to accomplish the miracle. (Mark 10:46-52). In the case of the two blind men in Matthew 9, Jesus simply touched their eyes, “and their eyes were opened.” (Matt. 9:30). While in Bethsaida, Jesus continues to be creative with His healing of blindness. In this case, Jesus spit directly onto the man’s eyes and laid His hands on the eyes as well. But the healing wasn’t accomplished fully yet, the man’s sight was only partially restored. So Jesus put His hands on the man’s eyes again, “and he was restored and saw everyone clearly.” (Mark 8:22-25). So in the gospels, we have four different healings of blindness, and each healing was done in a different way. These are pictures of the Co-creator being creative.

Unimaginable. The healing of blindness was considered the one impossible miracle, the most spectacular type of healing imaginable, up to actually raising a dead person to life. It was so unimaginable that people figured only God was capable of such a thing. The prophesied Messiah, too, could heal blindness, according to the prophet Isaiah, and so people automatically started thinking that perhaps this Jesus was the Messiah when He started healing the blind. For most Jews, curing blindness was a sign of the messianic age. “In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness.” (Is. 29:18). “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing.” (Is. 35:5-6). “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand; I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house. I am the Lord, that is my name.” (Is. 42:6-7). The unprecedented and spectacular nature of being healed of blindness was even mentioned by the blind man here after being healed… “Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind.” (John 9:32). Jesus broke the mold. He did something unprecedented, unheard of. This is evidence that Jesus is indeed the Messiah.

Skeptics. The people witnessing this healing were shocked and then very skeptical. They couldn’t believe what they just saw. Isn’t this the blind beggar we see every day? There was some controversy whether this man was actually the same beggar they had seen all these years. Finally, the healed man put an end to that controversy by saying, “Yes, it’s me!” There is a question as to why he had to beg in the first place. It shouldn’t be necessary to beg at all in a Jewish community. Jewish law declares that the people, the general populace, should take care of anyone who has a disability so that the unfortunate don’t have to endure the humiliation and poverty of begging. (Lev. 25:35). So what happened to that law? Why didn’t the Pharisees see fit to enforce that law?

Blindness. Jesus concludes the story by referring to the Jewish tradition of considering literal blindness as a symbol of spiritual ignorance. Those without spiritual understanding are like those without sight, walking in the darkness of ignorance. In His indirect way, Jesus accused the Pharisees of being spiritually blind. He seemed to be saying, you might have religious knowledge, expert knowledge of the Scripture even, but you don’t yet have true spiritual understanding. And because of your overconfident, inflated self-righteousness, you are blind to your blindness. Your eyes are closed to the truth. Open your spiritual eyes and seek me, says Jesus.