<p>9:3 <i>Jesus answered: Neither did this man sin, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be revealed in him</i>- The Lord isn't saying that they were not sinners, but that the issue of how a person got in the situation they were in wasn't the essential issue. We can learn a lesson from that, for so often, we like to focus on past behaviour as being so significant in present suffering. But the Lord urges us not to have that perspective, but rather to see the present suffering as an opportunity for God's works to be revealed within a person. &quot;The works of God&quot; is a phrase previously used in John's Gospel for miracles. The Lord is saying that the unleashing of power within the man was as great as the performance of any miracle, including healing from literal blindness. &ldquo;<i>In</i> him&rdquo;, rather than on or through him, suggests that the manifestation of God was to begin <i>within </i>the man, and the essential miracle was to be on his internal spiritual vision, through the work of the Spirit within him.</p><p>The Lord refused to get caught up in the philosophical questions about &lsquo;Why suffering?&rsquo;. Instead He saw the simple reality of human suffering as a call to do God&rsquo;s work; the disciples like so many were caught up on the &lsquo;fairness of suffering&rsquo; question to the extent that they didn&rsquo;t perceive the extent of human need and try to do something about it.<br />&ldquo;But that the works of God should be manifest in him, I must work...&rdquo; (Gk.) would suggest that God has prepared potential &lsquo;works&rsquo; but we must do them; if we don&rsquo;t, they will not be done. This is perhaps the sense of 9:4- we only have limited opportunity to do this, life is brief, the night comes when no man can work. If we don&rsquo;t use those opportunities, they are gone forever, and the works God potentially enabled will not be performed. Yet time can be frittered away today as never before.</p><p>'Revealed or &quot;manifested&quot; within him' may mean that the whole drama of blindness and healing happened so that God's work could be revealed within the man's heart. In this sense the Lord manifested God's Name to His disciples (17:6), His life, <i>the </i>life, was manifested in the hearts of His followers (1 Jn. 1:2). All that happens physically, externally in our lives is so that internally we might perceive spiritual things.</p>