“Let me get this straight,” said the man with the bushy beard. ”You’re saying that even though you’ve been blind since birth, suddenly you can see? Do you really expect me to believe that whopper? Look me in the eye when I’m talking to you!”

“Which one—left or right?”

“Face it, Shekelman,” another man cut in, “his eyeballs are working, like it or not.”

“You keep out of this, Levi ben Jeans!” the first man shot back.

The healed guy’s eyes bugged out. “Hey, this is kinda cool. I wonder if I can cross them too?”

As he practiced his newfound skill, Shekelman grabbed him by the robe collar.

“Tell me one more time how you got your sight,” he demanded.

“A man spit on the ground.”

“Ri-i-ight. A man spit on the ground and you suddenly become Eagle Eyes ben Feinstein.”

“Of course not! He mixed some dirt in with the spit, put it on my eyes, and then told me to go wash in the Pool of Siloam.”

“And just like that you had 20/20 vision.”

“Kind of a now-you-don’t-see-it,-now you-do-approach. Ha!”

The bushy-bearded man stood unblinking.

“I guess my timing needs work,” the healed guy said. “Or maybe I should try a different punch line.”

“I know where there’s a punch line just waiting to get its hands on you,” the man said with a wicked grin. He picked the guy up and tossed him into the street.

It turned out that Jesus had done the healing. That was good news for the healed guy, but some folks just didn’t see it that way.

See John 9:1-41 for a more responsible treatment of this incident.