Jesus here responds to the disciples’ question about the reason for suffering in a man they encounter who was blind from birth. This is an age-old question – “why do people suffer?” – and can frequently bring with it the temptation towards discouragement, doubt, disbelief, and despair. Jesus responds to their question first in the negative – that it was not as a punishment for sin, neither his own nor his parents – and then in the positive – that the result of this man’s suffering was so that the works of God might be displayed in his life. This tragic, fallen, broken world is now the stage for God’s glorious works of redemption and restoration. Like the beauty of a rainbow after the terror of a storm, the gospel gives us the hope that suffering – while still in itself an evil – is something that God uses to bring about his beautiful redemptive work in our lives.