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"Just from left field here, but the use of mud and spit is an example or a foreshadow of the sacramental use of common materials.

Mud and spit are sacramental?"

Puhleeese chaps - I don't want to negate either of your points, but there is much to be extrapolated from the mud and spit!

John 9,4 "I must work the works of him that sent me, whilst it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
6 When he had said these things, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and spread the clay on his eyes,
7 And said to him: Go, wash in the pool of Siloe, which is interpreted, Sent. He went therefore, and washed, and he came seeing."

The verses in question are indeed sacramental for the following reasons:

1.) In doing the work of the One who sent Him, John is identifying Jesus as working the same type of work as the Father worked, i.e. CREATING. Jesus is also creator.

How did God create man?:

Gen 2,7 "And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul."

So as God created Adam from the slime of the earth, Jesus is now "re-creating" the blind man by using the same slime of the earth that He used in creating Adam at the beginning.

Jesus being the Light of the world also evokes the Genesis creation account.

2.) The One who is SENT by the Father now sends the blind man to the waters of the SENT ONE, i.e. BAPTISM.

The blind man is WASHED in the laver of regeneration, is made a NEW CREATION and receives the light again (in semitic understanding to be seeing is to have light in your eyes, whereas blindness is caused by losing the light from your eyes.)

He is thus ENLIGHTENED by the LIGHT OF THE WORLD through the sacrament of Baptism which has truly made him a NEW CREATION by the power of the CREATOR working through the sacrament.

This is why the patristic term for Baptism was often PHOTISMOS or enlightenment.

I don't feel negated at all... It's awe-inspiring what can be unfolded from an (apparently) simple passage.

But I still think it's going far to call mud and spit sacramental, and I still stand by my initial statement that Jesus was (yes, among other things, I concede) helping the man's faith by what he did...

I immediately thought of Genesis when considering the symbolism of the act, but I still am at a loss for saliva... except that's what folks did back then.