Friends, today in the Gospel passage, we see Jesus’ mercy toward the blind man as a hallmark of his ministry. Jesus comes as healer, savior, inaugurator of the kingdom. He is the embodiment of hope. Jesus wants to connect human suffering to the very source of life and health. The energy of God pours through him to the needy.
Now, I realize a question may be forming in your mind: “Well, why doesn’t he simply cure everyone then?” The answer is obviously wrapped up in the mystery of God’s will, but the important point is this: Jesus is healer in many senses, but ultimately in the sense that he heals us from sin and death, not only physical maladies. What appears historically in Jesus is an eschatological anticipation, a hint and foreshadowing of what is coming in God’s time and in his everlasting kingdom.