In John 9 Jesus heals a blind man and creates a stir among the Pharisees. While the Synoptic Gospels report a number of instances where Jesus healed a blind person, this instance appears only in John. This account has a couple of distinctives: nobody asked Jesus to heal the man (even the man), the healing took place away from Jesus’ person and there was an instrumentality involved.
Jesus and his Disciples came upon a man who had been blind since birth and, it seems, began an oddly rude conversation right in front of him. The disciples were sure that the blind man’s condition was the result of sin (a common notion among 1st Century Jews) and asked Jesus if it was the man’s sins or his parents which made him blind. It was an extremely odd question because, since he was blind from birth, he would have had to sin before he was born or the blindness would have to have been a preemptive punishment for sin he would commit after birth.