For years I considered the sentence a “throw-a-way” line with very little meaning or purpose. When Jesus heals the man born blind, he did so by spitting on the ground, fashioning some mud and rubbing it on the blind man’s eyes. He then instructed the man to go wash himself in the Pool of Siloam. It’s here where John inserts himself into the text with his own commentary, “Siloam means Sent” (Jn. 9:7).
For years I’ve read that line and thought nothing of the comment. To be honest, I couldn’t quite figure out why John needed to break the story to pass on that information. Was he kind of a trivia geek? Did he think Alex Trebek and Jeopardy might use it as an answer? With tongue-n-cheek humor, It makes me wonder . . .
“The Apostle John tells us this body of water means ‘Sent.’”
“What is the Pool of Siloam?”
The first thing that should have tipped me off was that my bible capitalizes “Sent,” and after a quick pursuing of various bibles, and you find that almost every translation follows suite. Capitalizing a word in mid-sentence brings significance to the word. At least the translators are telling us this word is important.
Then in a prior study, I realized that the word “sent” is used at least a dozen times in John’s gospel. For instance, only six verses into his gospel, the apostle tells us that the Baptist was “sent” by God, whose purpose was to testify about the Christ. And a significant key verse, and popular one at that, is followed by the clarification of Jesus’ mission.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (Jn. 3:17).
The purpose for Jesus’ arrival on earth was to save the world. Condemning the world was never in his mandate. Actually, humanity had accomplished great feats in terms of condemning ourselves. We’ve never needed help from God in the “condemning” arena. We’re selfish, prideful, sharp-tongued, immoral, unrepentant, hard hearted, judgmental, and the list goes on and on. At the center of our core we have very little redeeming qualities and are in great need of redemption. Where we needed help was in the salvation arena. That help came from God who sent his Son on a redemptive mission to seek and to save. None of us were good enough, that was already proven. All of us were in dire straits. So God sent his Son to seek and to save the lost, which was his mission’s mandate.
So while John tells us that the Pool of Siloam means “Sent,” he actually does not explain its significance. Maybe because most of his readers knew that this pool was built during the time of Hezekiah and the water was “sent” to the pool by a channel from the Gihon spring. The water was used for the Feast of Lights and rumor was that it contained healing properties.
That’s why we read that verse as some throw-away-comment that means nothing to us. But when we consider the larger picture, the moment become a window into the larger picture of Jesus’ ministry and mission. He is “sent” to save. While in the process of saving and healing, he “sends” a blind man to a pool to wash. Upon cleansing the mud from his eyes, he’s healed and able to see.
All this because Jesus was sent on a mission that was far more than just a simple errand.
Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e. only God is glorified!)