"Having Our Eyesight Restored" - Thoughts on Mark 8:1-26 (especially 22-26)

PART A

The healing of the blind man covered in verses 22 to 26 is very interesting, because it takes two actions of Jesus for this man to fully regain his sight. Normally it only takes one touch of Jesus (whoever initiates it) to bring complete healing. There might have been more complex issues in this blind man’s case, we just don’t know … but is there greater significance behind Mark’s inclusion of this healing story (when no other gospel writer includes it)?

Not only does no other gospel writer include this story, but this text in Mark is rarely preached on. Did Jesus have an ‘off-day’, or was something quite significant being modelled here? One positive of preaching through a whole book (like Mark) is that you can’t avoid the difficult bits. What is the significance of the healing [of the blind man] in two stages? Will you start thinking about this while I fill in some context!

Chapter 8 begins with another miraculous feeding of a large crowd … this time in Gentile territory. What disturbing feature do we read here? Have a look at verses 4-5! The disciples still didn’t understand about the loaves from the ‘feeding of the five thousand’; and here they even had greater resources {seven loaves}, and had them closer to hand. The good news was that the whole crowd had their fill (out of the hospitality of God) and there were more basketfuls left over. [If the “seven” loaves and the “seven” basketfuls left over in this latter feeding miracle represent anything, they would represent the completeness of the gospel message when it reaches to ends of the earth through the Gentile mission.]

Then at verse 11, Jesus encountered the Pharisees, who obviously were following Jesus around to collect some more damning evidence against him. They were baiting Jesus seeking a sign that he was truly from God. Well, Jesus was not going to fall into such a satanic and cynical test … if anybody, especially those brought up in the Hebrew Scriptures, could not recognise God in Jesus already (with all the signs previously offered), then they were not going to get any special favours now. Those with minds set on unbelief, despite evidence to the contrary, will always find grounds for their unbelief, especially where belief would actually mean abandoning the familiar and the comfortable. Jesus knew that these religious leaders’ had absolutely rejected him and his teaching, and their minds were already fixed on Jesus’ destruction.

Then, back in the boat with Jesus (at verse 14), the disciples realised that they had forgotten to bring any bread with them … not enough anyway they thought, they had just one loaf! But … what were they thinking!?! Whenever had they been ultimately short of bread when Jesus was around!?! They had just seen 4000 people fed with seven loaves, and they were still worried about one loaf stretching to feed thirteen people! Jesus knew that, despite two miraculous feeding miracles, the disciples still didn’t get it! But note carefully, this was different from those who had set themselves against Jesus, but then … how different?

So Jesus preached a little sermon to them right there and then. He began with, ‘Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and also of Herod’ (v.15). “Yeast” or “leaven” is used to raise bread, and so can be seen as a positive ingredient. Yet here “yeast” is seen as a negative … a contaminant to be avoided. The “yeast” here represents the negativity of faithlessness – the failure to recognise who Jesus is. In other words Jesus was saying, ‘Don’t get trapped into the faithless patterns of the Pharisees and Herod’. The Pharisees for their own reasons have ignored and sought to destroy the movement of God. And Herod because of his weakness and indecisiveness had killed John the Baptist, and would never step in to save Jesus.

The disciples are on a knife edge here! Which way will they go … toward true discipleship or back into unbelief? Jesus asks them, “Are your hearts hardened” (v.17)? As we have seen before, this means that Jesus is asking whether they are his friends or his opponents. Then, “Do you have eyes and fail to see” (v.18)?

So what do you reckon is trying to be communicated through the healing of the blind man that follows??? Jesus put his healing saliva on the man’s eyes and laid his hands on him, but this man could only see partially through a blur … such that people looked liked trees.

· That we can experience something of Jesus, even salvation, but not yet truly understand all Jesus has for us to know.
· That we can become a sort of follower of Jesus, yet be blinded (or maybe short-sighted) about what is most important in life.
· That we can have our eyes partially opened to the light, but still not see the forest for the trees.

Subsequently of course, Jesus touched the man’s eyes again, and then he saw everything clearly. Therefore ultimately, we CAN see fully! Our understanding CAN be fully enlightened!

But so often, we just don’t see things the way God sees them, and so we are actually blind! {Quote the story of the ‘blindness’ of the Cambodian refugees; from W J Bausch, “A World of Stories”, 1999, 315.} Because we are part of a culture that is largely blind to God, our own eyes can be blinkered by uncritically accepting cultural norms as being okay, whether that is in the area of economics, morality or ethics. Our thinking can be engulfed by the same attitudes that have blinded so many in the world. Also, because we live busy lives, we can have blurred vision about what are the most important things. {I have in the past so often given the greatest priority to my ‘set-in-concrete’ diary agenda, that I’ve missed moments of important (social) interaction.}

Okay, so we are not really totally blind, for we open the scriptures quite a few times each week and focus on what God was doing in these pages. But can our vision still be blurry … just like human beings looking like moving trees? Even when we understand the passage before us perfectly well, the application into our everyday life experience can be allusive!

PART B

Let’s see how this text applies to three groups of people. Firstly, the original disciples; secondly, the original readers of the Gospel of Mark; and thirdly, us!

(i) The disciples who currently did not understand, and bordered on faithlessness, would come to see fully. They would not become opponents of Jesus (with the exception of Judas), quite the opposite, they would change the world in Jesus’ name. This full understanding and realisation of Jesus’ full identity would not come until after the resurrection, but it would come. New disciples would not have to be chosen (other than a replacement for Judas). The first touch of Jesus on their lives (with the healing gift of saliva) represented the disciples’ opportunity to experience Jesus, and to travel and minister with him around Palestine. The second (and ultimately effective) touch would come with their encounter with the resurrected Jesus. These disciples would come to be fully enlightened about who Jesus was and is, and the implications of this for their future lives of mission to the Jews and the Gentiles.

(ii) The community that Mark wrote his Gospel for could have faith in the original disciples and their message (despite their obvious failings). In fact, their own humanity and frailty and vulnerability could truly connect with these fallible disciples; and they could also be encouraged that Jesus would bring light to their dim eyes as well, as well as use them mightily in the spreading of the Kingdom in the late first century. Also, the choice was very clear for them (as it is for us), whether to number themselves with the obviously unbelieving or with the ones on the journey of new discovery.

(iii) What about us? We, in the post-resurrection era, with the gospel in front of us, with the freedom to discuss and debate and learn, should desire to see clearly, and follow Jesus more nearly … “day by day by day”! [How did that song from ‘Godspell’ go? – “to see thee more clearly, to love thee more dearly, to follow thee more nearly”] Discipleship – that is, a growing ability to follow in the Jesus way, is a calling; but it is also a gift (of God) to be able to fulfil this calling. We have to be ready to move beyond our blindness (or our short-sightedness), and have our eyes opened, our full sight restored, our hearts illuminated; and then Jesus will continue to touch our eyes so that we can truly see! This could happen very gradually, but it needs to be happening progressively; we should more and more be able to truly see how God is moving around us.

[The rest of Mark’s gospel concerns the way of discipleship … what it means to follow Jesus (in every age) no matter the cost.]

Open the eyes of my heart Lord, open the eyes of my heart;
I want to see you, I want to see you.
Open my eyes Lord, I want to see Jesus;
to reach out and touch him, and say that I love him.
Light of the World you came down into darkness,
opened my eyes, let me see.
Lord let me see, see more and more;
See the face of our Lord in the pain, Lord let me see.

New Testament scholar, the late Athol Gill wrote: “Thanks be to God for his grace and power in the call of Jesus which perseveres until we are able to see clearly and follow him”.

In Philippians 1:6, Paul writes: “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ”.