Open
the Eyes of my Heart, Lord!
Mark 8:22-26
Introduction:
This short account of a miraculous healing of a blind man in Bethsaida is
unique to Mark’s gospel, and some see it as one of the more difficult passages
in the New Testament. We’ll mention some of the challenges it poses as we get
into the study. The setting is in Bethsaida, a town near the border of Galilee,
north of the lake, just on the east bank of the Jordan. This would be the last
miracle Jesus does in this region. It leads into a climactic and transitional scene
of the gospel, marking the shift from Mark’s focus on the question, “Who is Jesus?” in the first half
of Mark. The central questions in the second half of the gospel will be “Why did He come?” and “What does it mean to follow Him?” The
next two paragraphs in Mark 8 (Peter’s confession, and the call to
discipleship) will explicitly shift the
focus to those two questions. This
miracle, like the healing of the deaf man in Mark 7, is done in private. It is
done for the benefit of the person who is healed, and also as a revelation to
bolster the faith of the disciples. Unlike any other healing that Jesus does
this one comes in two steps, first a partial healing, and then a second touch,
and the man sees “…everything clearly...”
Immediately before this scene,
with the disciples in the boat discussing leaven and bread (and just before
that the Pharisees, questioning Jesus and despite all they had seen and heard, asking
for “a sign from heaven”) and then the climactic confession by Peter that
follows (Mark 8:29), it seems certain that Mark intends us to read this account
as a kind of “historical parable.” First of all, it is historical. There
is no question that this is a real time and space event. Like the other
miracles we have seen in Mark, this is a miracle that reveals Jesus’
identity and anticipates the coming Kingdom. The prophet Isaiah was given a
glimpse of the future when He wrote, “In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and
out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see…” (Isaiah 29:18). We’ve already looked in an earlier
study at Isaiah 35:5-6,
“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6
then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for
joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert…”
Jesus’
works revealed that the future was already breaking into the present because
He, the King and Savior, was present. I also think that this scene, sandwiched as
it is between the revelation of the spiritual blindness of the Pharisees, and
the spiritual dullness of the disciples before it, and Peter’s
confession of faith after, is a story that teaches, an illustration, something
like a parable that goes beyond the event itself, to a spiritual point behind
it. It draws attention to the fact that there is gradual development of faith
and understanding in the followers of Jesus.
The Maine* Idea: Amazingly, God works through us, but
divine intervention is necessary for a person to see the truth about Jesus.
Like the disciples, many gradually come to see and understand the Truth.
Context: This miracle comes after
Jesus exposed the spiritual blindness of the Pharisees (10-13) and the dullness
of the disciples (14-21); and before Peter’s confession of faith in
Jesus (27-30).
I. The Oikos Principle: Friends brought the blindman to
Jesus and pleaded with the Lord to help him (22).
22 And they came to Bethsaida. And some
people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him.
As we have been going through the gospel
of Mark, have you been surprised at how frequently the oikos principle has come up?
This isn’t something I and someone else simply “invented.” We have to
mention it again because it is right here in the Bible. Mark doesn’t emphasize
the details, but as we saw with the Syrophoenician woman who came to Jesus, and
who fell down before Him to pled for her daughter to be set free from a demon,
as we saw with the deaf-mute who was taken by some unnamed friends to Jesus,
and the friends begged Jesus to heal the man, these people brought the
man to Jesus, and begged Jesus to touch him. There is a pattern here
that I believe the writer wants us to see. The same verbs in the same forms
appear again, they brought the man to Him, they begged Jesus to
heal, interceding on behalf of the needy man. Once again, Mark draws as little
attention as possible to the people who brought the blind man. There isn’t even
a pronoun stated [“they” is implicit in verb] much less a
description of these people. Men or women? How many? Family or friends? We
don’t know. How do you like that? Don’t we like to get a little credit, at
least a mention, when we do something for the Lord? Maybe there is a lesson
here: It is not about us! God is the one who heals, and He is the one who
saves. These unnamed friends brought the man to Jesus, and they interceded,
begging Jesus to touch him. They cared about this guy enough to do all that
they could to bring Him to Jesus, and they interceded fervently, effectively, on
his behalf.
If you have been following this series
you know where I am going with this! Of course we care about the people that
God has sovereignly and strategically placed in our lives! We are His
ambassadors, His representatives, His spokesman among our friends, relatives,
co-workers, and neighbors. That is
our platform for being His witnesses. Most of us did not like the outcome
of the Super Bowl (we do live in New England after all!). But you had to
appreciate the head coach of the Eagles, their quarterback (their backup, and
MVP), and another player, the first three that the interviewer spoke to
after the game, express faith in the Lord, giving God the glory. They
expressed in other interviews that, before and after the game,
that they saw their success as a platform, an opportunity to lift up the name
of Jesus. Most of us are not going to get a platform where we can give
testimony to the Lord with millions of people all around the world
listening! But we too have a platform:
our oikos, our extended family and
friends, the people who know us and who we rub shoulders with on a regular
basis. We can tell them God is real, that sin is a problem, that God
addressed our problem by sending Jesus, making a way through His
substitutionary death to reconcile sinners to himself. We can say that He
defeated death itself in the resurrection and that that event leaves no doubt
that Jesus is who He claimed to be. And even before all of this, we can be
pleading with the God of the universe on behalf of our friends, relatives, and
neighbors.
You might think I am going a little too
far reading this into this story. But remember the message of Mark, and
remember the context here in the heart of the gospel. Later in v.26 Jesus tells the healed man not
to go in the village right? But where is he to go? Where was he sent? Jesus “sent him to his oikos.” After the healing, Jesus tells the man
to go to his oikos, his “home” (26a). There a few different Greek
words that can express the idea of “sending” someone. This is the verb apostello, the same root from which we
get the term “apostle.” It has the idea of sending someone on a mission, with a
task to do, often, as the representative on the one who sent them. This man
wasn’t to go to the village. Bethsaida had had ample opportunities to hear
Jesus and to see the miracles that bore witness to His messianic identity.
Don’t go to the village, Jesus said, go home, go to your own people, you have a
mission right there!
You don’t have to wait to go on a
mission trip to some far away country. You live on the mission field.
The people right around you are not there by chance. You are called to be God’s
spokesperson, His ambassador, right where you are. Amazingly, God works through
us, but divine intervention is necessary for a person to see the truth about
Jesus. Like the disciples, some will gradually come to see and understand the
Truth.
II. The Lord works according to His
will: Here, Jesus used means to partially restore sight to the blind man (23,24). Could it
be that as He takes his hand, He is also leading the man on a path toward
faith?
23 And he took the blind man by the hand
and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his
hands on him, he asked him, "Do you see anything?" 24 And he looked up and said,
"I see men, but they look like trees, walking."
As Jesus had taken the deaf man aside,
He seemingly goes further here and takes the blindman by the hand, and led him
out of the village. This healing would be a sign to just a few. The man and his friends, and also the
disciples. There is tenderness in this scene: Jesus takes the man by the hand
and leads him out of the village. He didn’t simply say “Follow me!” He didn’t
ask the friends or the disciples, “Bring him this way, over here!” He
personally took him by the hand and led him. Already He is communicating to
this needy person His care, His interest in Him, His compassion for him.
As he had in healing the deaf/mute, He
uses saliva in healing this man. Why? Was it necessary? Obviously not. On other
occasions He healed people with just a word, or with just a touch. The woman
who touched the fringe of Jesus’ garment when Jesus was on the way to the house
of Jairus was healed instantly. Jesus healed the son of an official at the end
of John 4 without even going to the house-He said, "Go; your son will
live."—the man went, and found that the child was
healed at that very hour. Jesus healed in many different ways. He is
Lord, He can do whatever He chooses! We don’t know why Jesus used saliva here. It
certainly wasn’t magical, but perhaps He was showing the man that He was doing
something for him, maybe He was giving the man an opportunity to believe, to hope, to trust that something was about
to happen. Maybe Jesus was also talking to the disciples. Here He asks the man,
“Do you see anything?” Just a few verses back in Mark 8:18 Jesus was
rebuking the unbelief of the disciples and asked, “Having eyes do you not see…?” (cf. 7:18). Coincidence? Just before
that Jesus had rebuked the Pharisees who asked to see a “sign from heaven.” They were, once again, revealing that they were
spiritually blind. In another context, after Jesus healed a man born blind and
then leads him to believe that He is the Messiah, we read,
“Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world,
that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.’ 40
Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, ‘Are we
also blind?’ 41 Jesus said to
them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We
see,' your guilt remains.” (John
9:39-41).
Here in Mark, the man was healed, but at first only
partially. He could see men, like trees
walking. Why this two-stage process?
Could it be Jesus was also asking the disciples, “Do you see anything?” Like the phone company commercial, “Do you
hear me now?” They were a work in progress! What was your experience of
coming to faith in Christ? Do you remember a clear moment when your eyes were
opened? Was it like the hymn writer, “I
once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see!”? That is the
experience of some people but not all. Some hear the truth over time, and can’t
point to the exact moment they passed from darkness to light. Even so, they
know that they clearly have their trust in Jesus! Don’t feel bad about that,
God works differently in different lives. One writer mentioned that Billy
Graham and his wife Ruth had very different experiences…
[Billy]
…was a rebellious 16-year-old in North Carolina. He accepted a friend’s
invitation to attend a tent crusade where the Baptist Evangelist Mordecai Ham
was preaching. On the second night of the crusade, Billy Graham and his friend
Grady Wilson came to the altar and gave their lives to Christ. Billy would
later say that until that night his hero had been Babe Ruth, but that night
Jesus Christ became his hero. He knew the exact place and date. And yet,
Billy’s wife, Ruth Belle Graham, didn’t know the exact point of her conversion…
Regeneration is a work of God in us, bringing life
where there was none. Some know the exact moment they first believed, for
others they know that they believe but can’t honestly say the exact moment it
happened. The main thing is that we are sure we believe… that our trust is in
Christ alone for salvation. The
disciples were in a different moment in history than we are, before the Cross,
resurrection, and Pentecost. Jesus was preparing them for what would soon
happen, and laying the foundation for the faith that would allow them to lead
His mission in the world after His departure. They were a work in progress, and
so are we. He is growing us, teaching us, conforming us to the image of His Son. For a purpose. Amazingly,
God works through us. He has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. But
we don’t save anyone. Yes, He uses us to bring the message, but divine
intervention is necessary for a person to see the truth about Jesus. Like the
disciples, many gradually come to see and understand the Truth.
III. He will bring to completion His
good work in us: With a second touch, Jesus restored
the man’s sight fully (25,26).
25 Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes
again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything
clearly. 26 And he sent him
to his home, saying, "Do not even enter the village."
Again, why did Jesus do this healing in
stages? I take comfort in the fact the R.C. Sproul, in his commentary on Mark,
says, he too couldn’t dogmatically say why Jesus healed in two steps! He does
venture a “sanctified guess” based on the context, that Jesus was drawing a
parallel between the spiritual understanding of the disciples, and the healing
of the blind man…
It
is as if, through this two-stage healing, Jesus was saying that the disciples
had begun to see dimly. They were not in total darkness as the pagans were.
Their eyes had beheld many of the marvelous things of Christ. They had some
understanding. But they had not yet seen clearly. If they had been asked to
describe Jesus, they might have said, in effect, “I see a mighty oak walking
around, but I do not really understand the full measure of who He is.”
Jesus,
apart from the crowd, outside the village, healed the man. Perhaps He did it in
exactly the best way to evoke faith in the now seeing man, he could now see
spiritually as well. He used this miracle to also to build the faith of the
disciples who still only saw in part. He would soon as them, “Who do you say that I am?” (8:27). Jesus
tells the man not to go back to the village – Bethsaida had had ample testimony
that the Messiah had come. They had already seen many miracles. After the work
of the Messiah had reached its climax in the Cross and the Resurrection, the
gospel would be preached there once again. But for now, the man was to go to
his home, to his oikos, sharing the
story of God’s grace with his own people.
What is God saying to me in
this passage? Amazingly, God works through us, but
divine intervention is necessary for a person to see the truth about Jesus.
Like the disciples, we may gradually come to see and understand the Truth.
What would God have me to do in
response to this passage? Who are the 8 to 15 people that you
rub shoulders with on a regular basis? Almost certainly some of them don’t go
to church, a few of them don’t know the Lord. You have a platform, not a
microphone after a Super Bowl game, but the hearing that you have earned by
sharing your life with them. One of the Christian players before the game said,
“We know that this is a platform. Football isn’t our purpose—Jesus is.” You
have a platform—you have a purpose. Eternity is at stake, so let’s embrace His
call to make disciples—starting right where we are!
Let’s also consider the point that this
healing was different than others we have seen in Mark. In fact, we’ll see
another blind man, Bartimaeus, healed at the end of Mark 10. In that case Jesus
doesn’t touch him at all, He just pronounced him healed! Then there is another
case in John 9 where He spits and makes mud and puts it in the man’s eyes, and
tells him to go to the pool of Siloam and wash… The man does and he is healed!
Each case was different, in each situation the Lord was revealing His
sovereignty and His power. We are a
somewhat diverse group, we come from different backgrounds, we’ve had different
experiences. Don’t judge someone who didn’t have exactly the same experience as
you. God is in control. He has a plan for each of us. Let’s commit to His Word
as our authority, and let’s seek the truth together as we carry out His mission
in the world. And let’s start with the platform He has given each of us! AMEN.
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