FBC Morning Light – February 20, 2023

Mark 8 and the Healing of the Blind Man

A good Monday morning to you. I hope you had a wonderful Lord's Day yesterday, gathered with God's people and were able to worship him and learn something from his Word, and especially grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

Today we're in Mark's Gospel, chapter 8, and there's this interesting little interchange between Jesus and a blind man near the end of the chapter. This blind man wants Jesus to heal him and begged him that the Lord would touch him, verse 22 says.

So the Lord took the blind man aside, and we read that he had spit on his hands, and he put his hands on the blind man and asked him if he saw anything. And the man replies, well, I see men like trees walking.

So here's the only instance of a miracle that Jesus performs that doesn't seem to take on the first try. Let's continue. He put his hands on his eyes again and made him look up, and he was restored, and he saw everyone clearly.

Then he sent him away and said, don't go into town or tell anybody about this. Now, what's going on here? How come Jesus couldn't heal him completely the first time? Why did it take two attempts? Well, Jesus could have healed him completely the first time, but he was doing an object lesson here for his disciples.

The Disciples’ Blurry Vision of Jesus

Let me explain. Look in the previous context of this incident. What just happened? What just happened? Jesus and the disciples were on their way crossing the sea, got in a boat, and while they're on the boat, heading across the lake there, Jesus says, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.

And then the disciples start arguing among themselves and saying, well, it's because we didn't take bread. What does he mean by this? We didn't bring any bread with us, and so shame on us for not bringing enough bread.

But then Jesus asks them, he says, having eyes, do you not see? They see Jesus, but do they see him clearly? You get the point? And Jesus goes on, he says, when I broke the five loaves for the 5 ,000, how many baskets did you take up?

He said, well, 12. Well, when I broke the bread among the 4 ,000, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up? And they said, well, seven. And he said, well, how is it you don't understand? How is it that you don't see clearly that this isn't a matter of having bread?

I can provide bread. Remember who I am. Do you see who I am? That's on one end of this incident, and then Jesus performs the miracle in these two stages. The first, the man has eyes, but he doesn't see, and then he has eyes and he sees clearly.

Peter Confesses Christ but Misses the Cross

Then following that incident, Jesus asks the disciples, who do men say that I am? And they answered, well, some say John the Baptist, and some say Elijah, and others, one of the prophets. Well, people see Jesus like trees walking.

They see some things about him, but they don't see him clearly. Jesus then says, but who do you say that I am? And Peter says, well, you are the Christ. Ah, he sees clearly, doesn't he? Or does he? He began to teach them about many things, about how the Son of Man must suffer and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and three days later rise again.

He spoke the word openly, but then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Does Peter see clearly who Jesus is? The one who does have to die to pay the penalty of our sins? Does he see clearly? Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples and he rebuked Peter and he said, get behind me, Satan, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.

You're not looking at the things of God, you're looking at the things of men. You don't see clearly. This performing of the miracle of the blind man was really an object lesson for his disciples, that it's not enough to see Jesus only partially, just to have a blurry vision of who Jesus is.

Seeing Jesus Clearly in Faith

You need to see him clearly. Jesus is communicating that to his disciples, and so we do. We need to see Jesus clearly. If we see him as a tree walking, we see him in blurred vision and think, yeah, he was a good man, he was a great leader, and he was able to get a crowd to follow him and so on, but I don't know.

One of the men in our church shared recently with me that he was talking to a co-worker, and the co-worker said, I believe in Jesus, but I just don't know about all those miracles. I don't believe he could do all those miracles.

I just don't get the miracles thing. He sees some things about Jesus, but he doesn't see clearly. The question for us today is, do we see clearly? Having eyes, do we see? Let's see if there is any lack of clarity in our vision of who you are, understanding of who you are.

Take that away, take those blurred visions away. May we see you, our Lord Jesus, for who he is, and I pray that we would see clearly. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Have a wonderful Monday. May your week get off to a great start.

Lord bless.