Who Is to Blame for Tragedy? A Look at Jesus’ Answer in Luke 13:1-5 and John 9:1-3

Ruins of the Pool and Tower of Siloam

Almost every culture–whether ancient or modern–seems to possess a superstitious belief that whenever anything bad happens to someone, it must be because the person has done something which brought the tragic event about. People seem wired to ask themselves, or inquire of others, what the victim did which brought calamity down upon their heads. What did they do to provoke God to anger? The underlying assumption is correct–bad things happen to bad people. We do live in a fallen world after all, so we expect tragedy and disaster. But the conclusion often reached when we seek an answer as to “why?” these things happen is incorrect–that there is an immutable cause and effect relationship between specific sins and immediate bad consequences. What is often overlooked is that the one questioning why something bad happened to someone else is as guilty before God as is the person they are speculating about.

In Luke 13:1-5, Jesus speaks about two tragic events which occurred in first century Israel which produced just this sort of speculation. The first of these is mentioned in verse 1, when we read of those “who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” We do not know exactly to what historical event this was referring (we have no known record of it), but the implication seems to be that Pilate ordered certain Galilean Jews to be killed at the time of the Passover sacrifices, in effect “mixing blood.”

The question is an important one because based upon Old Testament texts such as Job 4:7 (“Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off?) the Pharisees commonly taught that bad things happened to people as a consequence of personal sin. But the assumption that the Galilean’s blood was mixed with their sacrifices because of a particular sin is addressed directly by Jesus in the form of a rhetorical question. In verse 2, Jesus asks those asking about this, “do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?” In a second example, Jesus mentions another disaster apparently well-known to his audience. “Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?” (v. 4).

Although acknowledging the connection made by his hearers between the calamity and divine punishment, Jesus corrects the erroneous assumption that these people (the Galileans and those killed in Siloam) had committed some specific sin which brought about the event which killed them. Two times Jesus cautions against drawing a connection between the calamity and the victims’ personal sins. But our Lord does speak of the need for repentance, telling those present, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (v. 5). Jesus’ point is that sinners who tragically die yet have not committed a discernible sin which brought the event about, were no more guilty than any other members of Adam’s fallen race. Instead of speculating about what others may have done in secret which brought about their demise, those listening to Jesus need to carefully consider the guilt of their own sins before God, and then repent before facing God in the judgment.

In his gospel, John describes an encounter between Jesus and a blind man and his parents (John 9:1-3). In verse 1, we are told that “as [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.” This man was well-known in Jerusalem, and regularly begged for alms from passers-by. Since the man’s infirmity was obvious, the disciples asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v. 2). The disciples’ question reflects a view held widely throughout Israel that if someone suffered from such an infirmity there must be a direct cause. Since it was believed that God did not inflict people with such maladies, then the cause must be human sin. The only possibilities were that the man himself had sinned, or else one or both of his parents had done something which led to the birth of a blind child.

The disciples may not have known that the man had been blind from birth. It is not until later in the chapter, after Jesus heals the blind man, that his parents disclose that their son was indeed born without sight. If the blind man had done nothing personally to bring this about, then the disciples deduce that perhaps his parents must have committed some grievous sin, or as many Jews at the time believed, the man’s mother may have sinned while pregnant, resulting in her child’s blindness. In either case, the failure to consider the man’s blindness through the lens of God’s providential purposes (however mysterious these purposes may be) inevitably leads to the default answer of the self-righteous; someone must have done something to cause this, a conclusion apparent in the disciples’ question to Jesus. Since the man is blind, someone sinned or did something terribly wrong which caused his affliction.

Jesus’ answer to their question, followed by the Pharisees’ anger at the man and his parents after Jesus heals him, reveals the futility of the efforts of sinful men and women to attempt to establish a cause and effect relationship between a particular sin and the man’s blindness. Jesus informs his disciples of a bigger purpose in view in matters such as these. “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (v. 3). The answer to this dilemma is ultimately found in the fact that God has his own purposes in these situations—purposes we may never truly know or understand. His purposes often remain hidden and mysterious. We know from many other biblical texts that when Adam sinned, the entire human race was subject to all the consequences and maladies of a fallen race, including the acts of tyrannical leaders such as Pilate, the sudden collapse of buildings as at Siloam, and congenital afflictions such as blindness. But to attempt to establish a cause and effect relationship between some specific sin and an illness overlooks the fact that all people are born in sin and therefore equally guilty before God. The very attempt to assign blame exposes how quick we are to find sin in others, all the while ignoring the fact that we deserve the same fate or worse because of our own sinfulness.

In the case of this particular blind man, Jesus tells us that his infirmity will lead to a display of the works of God. Unknown to the disciples, Jesus is about to heal the man–the sixth of his miraculous signs recorded in John’s Gospel–as a demonstration that he is both Israel’s Messiah and the Son of God. No doubt, Jesus’ miraculous healing of this man born blind (vv. 6-7) is intended to point ahead to his death upon the cross (when our Lord pays for the guilt of human sin) and in his resurrection (when he conquers death and grave, ensuring the total healing of all the maladies of our fallen race). When Jesus heals this man, he is revealing his messianic identity and pointing his disciples ahead to the first Easter when he will be raised from the dead, which is the guarantee that all the consequences of human sin, including blindness, will be forever removed from those who trust in him.

In these examples, we see the futility in attempting to connect a specific sin to a tragedy or malady. Yes, certain actions may have immediate consequences (a drunk driver may kill someone, etc), but in those cases where an immediate cause is not apparent, to seek an answer in that person’s hidden sins or bad behavior says more about us (and our own self righteousness) then it does about the sufferer. May we learn to seek answers to such mysteries in the cross of Christ and his empty tomb where human guilt and all the calamities of life in a fallen world are ultimately resolved.